Two UConn School of Social Work faculty, Meg Feely, Ph.D., and Ann Marie Garran, Ph.D., MSW, LCSW, have joined a national mission to investigate whether increasing economic support to low-income families can improve child maltreatment outcomes.

The project, Empower Parenting with Resources (EmPwR), received $350,000 in funding from the William T. Grant Foundation, and is the first large scale study in the U.S. to evaluate how families identified by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services as at risk of child maltreatment respond to strengthened financial security. Researchers hope to ultimately determine if monthly cash gifts over the course of a year prevent future involvement with the Illinois child welfare system by randomly assigning 800 families who are receiving services through the Intact Family Services program to receive a monthly stipend. This is one of the first studies to test this type of intervention across varying geographies (urban to rural), tailor it for child welfare involved families, and explicitly address the role of systemic racism.

Feely and Garran, associate professors at the UConn School of Social Work, began working with EmPwR’s co-principal investigator, Will Schneider, MSW, Ph.D., several years ago.

“We’re looking to understand if and how families’ ability to provide safe and consistent care for their children changes when they have more resources. Additionally, we want to explore the mechanisms, or what types of changes influence improved care when families have more money,” Feely noted.

Child maltreatment, defined as abuse or neglect of a child under the age of 18, remains a substantial problem in the U.S. particularly among families who struggle with meeting their basic economic needs.  Feely also says that this program may have important implications for racial and ethnic equity. Compared to their respective presence in the general population, nationally and in Illinois there are a disproportionate number of BIPOC children and families relative to white children and families in the child welfare system.

“Part of our contention is that while individual biases, implicit and explicit, are relevant factors in disproportionality, economic oppression and in particular the impact of structural and systemic racism are the strongest drivers of the racial and ethnic disproportionality in child welfare. For case workers, really understanding the powerful role of systems and structures in shaping and constraining the choices of individuals is an important perspective in comprehending families’ behaviors and choices,” she said, explaining this is why she is thrilled with the anti-racist and anti-oppressive process lens Garran brings to this project.

“Ann Marie is someone I not only enjoy working with, but one of the best people in the country to do this work,” Feely noted.

Garran, who has been at UConn for 15 years, has lectured nationally and internationally on anti-racism, anti-oppression, and inequality. She is a published author on those topics and regularly leads trainings across the U.S. including one with this project, which will help case workers understand their socialization, how that creates implicit biases, and the ways that structural inequality and economic oppression unknowingly influence those biases, assumptions, and stereotypes.

“I was brought in on this project because of my expertise in anti-racism, but also to help understand the case worker’s mindset in terms of their work with the families,” she said.

Garran will work with both the families and case workers to understand their own values, belief systems, and biases that come into play, such as, “What will it mean to them to be a part of this study in terms of cash transfers for families? Are these families deserving of this money, why or why not?” She will also encourage them to move away from a stance of blaming individuals for their circumstances, instead considering the ways that structural oppression influences the options available to families and their decision-making processes.

Feely, Garran, and their research team will compare the outcomes of families who receive the subsidies with the families in a control group who do not. The goal: gain a better understanding of whether financial subsidies work for some families more than others in reducing neglect, particularly when it is led by a lack of resources; understand the amount of cash needed and timeframe and determine if the outcomes vary by race or ethnicity, family structure, or type of community (e.g. rural vs suburban). The researchers will also interview families to track if cash transfers improved risk factors for maltreatment such as parents’ mental health, child health, and parental cognitive load.

Read more about the EmPwR program.

During the Biden administration, the U.S. Departments of State and Health and Human Services launched a new initiative for community and private sponsorship of refugees. UConn School of Social Work faculty and doctoral students are among the first in the U.S. to conduct qualitative research on this new model.

Under this model, community members take the lead responsibility for resettling refugees in their local community. This support includes locating housing, assisting refugees in finding jobs, and facilitating access to schooling, healthcare, and social services.

Kathryn Libal, Ph.D., director of UConn’s Gladstein Family Human Rights Institute and social work and human rights professor, is the principal investigator of a qualitative study, “Refugees and Asylum Seekers’ Perspectives on Community Sponsorship Initiatives in the United States,” that received a 2024 UConn Internal Funding Award REP (Research Excellence Program) grant of approximately $25,000.

Libal leads a team of co-PIs including: associate professor and associate dean for academic affairs, Scott Harding, Ph.D., and social work professor S. Megan Berthold, Ph.D., LCSW, along with recent UConn SSW alumna, Madri Hall-Faul, Ph.D., assistant professor of social work at the University of Kentucky, and social work doctoral students Craig Mortley, Elnara Klicheva, and Yvonne Mbewe.

Libal’s interest in working with refugees began in 2007 when she and Harding initiated research to understand social work’s role in advocacy for Iraqi refugees who had been displaced after the U.S.-led war in Iraq. They partnered with Berthold to form a team with expertise in clinical and policy related issues on forced migration.  Berthold brings 40 years of experience in understanding and supporting the experiences of refugees adapting to life in a new world. She serves as the newly appointed Fulbright Canada Distinguished Research Chair in Public Affairs in North America: Society, Policy, Media, at Carleton University, a prestigious award that will allow her to expand the collaborative refugee research with Libal and Harding to Canada.

Throughout the course of their current project, the team has interviewed community sponsorship volunteers and medical, mental health, and immigration attorneys throughout the U.S. to learn about how they operate, where they excel, what challenges they face, and how community sponsorships could be strengthened. The next project phase entails interviewing refugees who have experienced the community sponsorship program in the U.S. and Canada where Berthold will conduct research with refugees, service providers, and community members.

Harding, whose research interests include forced migration and refugee resettlement, served for eight years on the Board of Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS). The nonprofit organization was an early innovator of community sponsorship and has helped thousands of refugees and displaced people start new lives in Connecticut as well as across the U.S.

“This project can ideally help us contribute to better preparation of social work students and allied practitioners to understand the challenges refugees themselves are experiencing and repoint them in terms of their transition to life in a new country,” Harding said. “We intend to use this information to better meet their needs, whether that’s their health needs, service needs, educational needs, whatever it might be. In that sense, the research will allow us to provide support in different ways to community sponsorship groups, and better promote their health and well-being.”

In the first phase of the project, the team focused on interviewing people in the U.S. who supported refugee resettlement, including community sponsorship group members. In the second phase, they will seek insights from refugees who experienced community sponsorship and gather their feedback on the program firsthand. The team has expanded the research to Canada due to Canada’s leadership in community and private sponsorship programs. They hope to apply insights from Canada’s model to inform research and advocacy on similar approaches that could be implemented in the U.S.

Berthold believes more trauma-informed care is needed that is accessible to refugees, which is another focus for the project.

“Refugees by definition have been persecuted. They have experienced one or more traumas on top of fleeing their homeland and often have been separated from family members. We are asking refugees for their insights regarding how appropriate the services they have received are given their culture and experiences of trauma,” Berthold said. “We are also exploring their experiences in trying to access health, mental healthcare, and social services.”

Libal, Berthold, and Harding are particularly interested in hearing refugees’ feedback about working with community service organizations.

“We seek to better understand how newcomers feel about teams of people working with them in their first year in the U.S. and Canada,” Libal said. “Imagine arriving in a new country and then having a large team of individuals volunteer their time to support your family. We want to know what is that like? How do refugees build and sustain relationships with volunteers? What are their perceptions of being welcomed into new communities by community sponsor volunteers? How do they grapple with the challenges of securing work, getting children into schools, learning a new language, and making connections with others in the community, while being supported by volunteers?”

As importantly, Libal added, interviewing refugees can lead to a better understanding of how community sponsorship may be strengthened in the future and how social work can play a more robust role in supporting this approach.

Innovations Institute has partnered with the Mental Health and Recovery Board of Union County, Ohio (MHRBUC) in a new U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration grant of just over $1 million to expand needed infrastructure, processes, and services to build strong early childhood mental health services.

The funds will help address an observed increase in mental health needs for children from birth to eight years old—consistent with nation-wide findings—and gaps in the continuum of care for the youngest residents of Union County. As the fastest growing county in Ohio, the needs of Union County families are rapidly changing. This underscores the need to be data driven in the approach to this work and to focus on continuous quality improvement (CQI) that ensures all families have access to services.

Margo Candelaria, Ph.D., research associate professor at UConn’s School of Social Work and co-director of the Parent, Infant, Early Childhood (PIEC) team at Innovations Institute will serve as the evaluation principal investigator for the project.  Accordingly, Innovations Institute will develop an evaluation plan with annual goals and specific measures, relying on established evaluation practices.  Evaluation approaches will include the use of survey tools to collect required client outcome data, progress measures and training impact; qualitative interviews to assess family and provider experiences; and network analyses to track partner growth.

Innovations Institute will also engage in collaborative data interpretation to inform progress using continuous quality improvement cycles, data dashboards and visualizations, and implementation science principles to ensure that the project decisions, changes, and adjustments are data driven. Researchers will examine who is served (e.g. race, ethnicity, geography), how and where families are served, and identify access and implementation barriers.  Kate Sweeney, assistant extension professor at UConn School of Social Work and co-director of the PIEC team at Innovations Institute will offer technical assistance and serve as a content expert. She will assist with implementation of infant and early childhood mental health evidence-based programs including the Pyramid Model, Circle of Security Parenting, and the Chicago Parenting Program.

Collectively, the Innovations PIEC team will work with MHRBUC to expand the array of infant and early childhood mental services, build the workforce capacity to work with Union County’s youngest children, and use evaluation practices to demonstrate positive outcomes and inform needed programmatic changes.

This Building Strong Foundations project builds on the work of MHRBUC and its partners to link child serving systems, behavioral health providers, and payers in support of expanded mental health services to Union County youth.

Samantha E. Lawrence, Ph.D., recently joined the UConn School of Social Work as an assistant research professor and research and evaluation lead. She also serves as co-principal investigator for the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood – UConn School of Social Work Partnership.

Lawrence earned her doctorate, M.A., and B.A. degrees from UConn. She brings extensive expertise related to mental and behavioral health disparities. She is passionate about promoting equitable access to high-quality, culturally, and developmentally responsive care and education.

Lawrence’s research examines social influences on children’s health, behavior, and well-being, particularly in school, childcare, and family contexts. She emphasizes the importance of understanding the environments that shape children's health.

“I believe that children's health and thriving are rooted in their environments, including those created by their families, schools, and communities,” she said.

Her current work includes evaluations of federal and state-funded early childhood initiatives, child services policies, and the early education system to ensure equitable access to high-quality resources for families. She also uses mixed methods research on experiences and health outcomes among LGBTQ+ youth.

Lawrence’s recently published study in LGBT Health received a Third Annual 2023 Rosalind Franklin Society (RFS) Award in Science recognizing outstanding peer-reviewed research by women and underrepresented minorities in STEM.

Reflecting on her work, Lawrence noted, “It's a privilege to be a part of the OEC-UConn Partnership where I can engage in research and evaluation activities related to vital contexts for healthy child development. Our work has direct implications for Connecticut's early childhood programs, policies, and practices, and it is so rewarding to work in partnership with an agency – the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood – that can actualize these evidence-based findings.”

Prior to joining the UConn School of Social Work, Lawrence was a research fellow at the University of Minnesota Medical School in the Department of Pediatrics, where she led quantitative and qualitative research efforts to identify disparities among youth. She focused on the intersections of sexual orientation, gender identity, and race/ethnicity in emotional distress, disordered eating, sexual and HIV-prevention behaviors, experiences of bias-based bullying, interpersonal protective factors.