July 2020 Newsletter

Doris Duke Fellowships Research to Action Grants Final Briefs

We launched a pilot round of the Research to Action (R2A) Grants in 2019 as an opportunity for interdisciplinary teams of fellows to conduct applied research. Fellows worked closely with practitioners or policymakers to design and implement research projects to address challenges affecting children, families, communities, and systems. The three grantee teams are wrapping up their work and each produced a brief highlighting their findings.

Supporting Chinese Immigrant Families with Children in the Greater Boston Area. Dr. Judith Scott, Principle Investigator; Project Team included Dr. Julia Fleckman and Dr. Bridget Cho and staff from the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center.
Translating Research to Policy and Practice to Support Youth Impacted by Commercial Sexual Exploitation (CSE). Dr. Carly Dierkhising, Principal Investigator; Project Team included Dr. Andi Eastman and Natalia Orendain and staff from the National Center for Youth Law.
Strategies to Reframe Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice for Public Defender Service. Dr. Scott Delaney, Natalia Orendain, and Dr. Daniel Busso, Principal Investigators; the Project Team also collaborated with staff from the Public Defender Service.

Stay tuned for announcements regarding future rounds of funding for Research to Action (R2A) Grants!

Spotlight: April Allen, Cohort Three fellow

Interview By Reginea Jackson, Amplify Research Intern, Spark Learning for Organizations LLC

April Allen, Cohort Three Fellow, is the Founder and Principal Consultant of Spark Learning for Organizations LLC, an independent consulting firm that works to transform human services systems by enhancing data skills and empowering “experts by experience” to conduct rigorous research. She has developed curricula and led trainings related to continuous quality improvement and data skills for some of the largest child welfare jurisdictions in the United States, and supports the development of emerging child welfare leaders in her role as a faculty member for Foster America. Her work also involves a great deal of community engagement, from collaborating with government and community stakeholders to develop performance measurement systems to helping organizations connect virtually post-COVID in a way that is engaging and focused on outcomes (as a founding partner of Breakthrough Convenings).

In addition to her policy-focused work, April maintains an active research agenda focused on prevention, interagency collaboration, and translating research into policy and practice settings in her role as a Visiting Research Scholar at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University. Her recent and forthcoming projects include assessing whether support services offered to survivors of interpersonal violence are linked to longer-term safety and examining how child welfare intake hotlines practices have changed since COVID-19. April focuses dissemination efforts on practical reports and briefs for practitioners and presenting her work at conferences at the local and national level, but also has a forthcoming article in Child Welfare that assesses the evidence for skill-based coaching in child welfare.

April has a passion for empowering individuals that have lived experiences in service systems, based on her own experiences in the child welfare system as a child. She recently launched Amplify. This model draws on principles of emancipatory action research to train, support, and empower “experts by experience” to conduct rigorous research about the child welfare system. In the coming months, she will be launching a nationwide learning community that will provide research training, supportive services, and networking to youth with experience in the foster care system.

Being a Doris Duke Fellow was an invaluable for April as she prepared for and launched a career that is dedicated to translational research and community engagement. The Fellowships was a rare opportunity that explicitly focused on the integration of research and policy, and the equal importance of both. The Fellowships also gave April a chance to think about how to support emerging leaders, lessons which she has applied to her current work with Amplify. April hopes to make a lasting impact on the child well-being field by elevating the voices and insights of people who have lived experiences in this system, and welcomes opportunities to collaborate with other Fellows to pay forward the training, mentoring, and networking made possible by the Doris Duke Fellowships for the Promotion of Child Well-Being.

New Prevention Measurement Guide by Sarah Prendergast, Cohort Seven fellow

Sarah Prendergast, Cohort Seven fellow, developed a prevention measurement guide during her role as a Society for Research in Child Development Post-Doctoral Fellow placed in the Colorado Department of Human Services, Office of Early Childhood (CDHS, OEC). This tool can be used to assist communities in identifying ways to measure the impact of primary prevention strategies and strategies that are aimed at the community- and society- levels of the social ecology using population-level data sources. It aligns with the Colorado Child Maltreatment Prevention Framework for Action, developed by the OEC in collaboration with many partners including Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago and the Children’s Trust of South Carolina.

The development of this tool was in response to findings from a process evaluation Sarah conducted during her Doris Duke Fellowship. Findings revealed that community planners struggled with locating and synthesizing data to make data-driven decisions that are relevant to primary prevention efforts.

Essay on a New Plan for Black Father Empowerment

by Clinton Boyd Jr., Cohort Six Fellow

Covid-19, the economic downturn, and state violence have brought social upheaval to America’s doorsteps. The national uptick in gun violence has only made matters worse. In all cases, young Black fathers find themselves caught in the crossfire.

For some, they’ve lost jobs. For others, they’ve lost quality time with their children. For some, they’ve lost loved ones. For others, they've literally lost their lives.

With few services available to support them in times of need, programs such as the one I'm developing are needed more now than ever. The world is changing before our very eyes, and I intend to do my part to prepare my young brothers for what’s to come.

Young Black fathers often lead complicated lives, have multiple unmet needs, and interact with institutions and systems that disregard their humanity. Therefore, my program plans to reach for my young brothers from a place of compassion and empathy. I pray that the young men who join my program become better fathers, lead healthier lives, accumulate wealth, and join the fight for racial and social justice.

This work is both personal and professional for me. Not only am I a budding fatherhood scholar, but I was a young father myself. As a native of inner-city Chicago, I had my first child at the tender age of 16. So, to an extent, I know full well what these guys are going through. That's why I’m so adamant about doing this work.

However, to do the work, I need money and committed partners. To that end, identifying strategic allies and securing funding for my work are immediate next steps.