Institute Affiliates
Affiliates of the Institute comprise faculty, researchers, and practitioners with expert acumen relating to child maltreatment and family well-being. Through a multidisciplinary cadre of experts, the Affiliate Network aims to establish or strengthen collegial relationships and provide an opportunity to advance research capabilities through joint projects and publications as well as through exchanging data derived from Institute-funded research. Affiliates serve as extensions of the Institute and are formal partners and collaborators in fulfilling our mission. We welcome affiliate applications from all Florida-based experts who have direct or tangential interest in the child welfare field. This can include individuals with expertise in topics that are not exclusively connected to child welfare, but that intersect with the child welfare system and the people it serves. We review applications semi-annually or as specific Institute needs arise.
Complete the Affiliate Application
You will be asked to share:
- Contact information
- Areas of expertise
- Current research and collaborations
- A short bio (500 words or less)
- Your CV/resume
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Results
Displaying 1 - 5 of 38 affiliates.
Heather Agazzi
University of South Florida
Areas of Interest
Child Abuse / Maltreatment
Children & Youth
Disparities & Intersectionality
Families & Services
Health
Mental Health
Prevention & Intervention
RECENT CHILD WELFARE PROJECTS
Developing our Children's Skills (DOCS) Parenting projects: HOT DOCS, DOCS K-5, PCIT, and CPP intervention with children in child welfare; Smart Start.
COLLABORATIONS WITH OTHER UNIVERSITY FACULTY OR RESEARCH ENTITIES
Sarah Dickinson, USF
SHORT BIO
Dr. Agazzi is a Professor in Pediatrics and Psychiatry, and a licensed psychologist at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine. Dr. Agazzi is the Section Chief of Child Development and the USF Health Psychology Internship Director. Dr. Agazzi's research and clinical work focuses on behavioral parent training programs for children with developmental disabilities, disruptive behavior disorders and social-emotional problems associated with childhood adverse experiences. Dr. Agazzi is a within-agency Parent-Child Interaction Therapy trainer and a Child-Parent Psychotherapy rostered therapist.
WHAT SONG OR ALBUM COULD YOU LISTEN TO ON REPEAT?
Kenny Chesney's Here and Now album.
WHAT'S THE BEST PIECE OF ADVICE YOU'VE EVER BEEN GIVEN?
Go to work every day with a positive attitude; even when work seems difficult, hang in there and keep plugging along. You will slowly move in the direction of your professional dream.
WHAT OR WHO INSPIRES YOU MOST IN YOUR WORK?
I'm inspired by the amazing clinical work of Sheila Eyberg.
IF YOU WEREN'T IN YOUR CURRENT CAREER, WHAT CAREER WOULD YOU MOST WANT?
I'd like to be able to sing for people, I could never have that career since I cannot sing well.
Shamra Boel-Studt
Florida State University
Areas of Interest
Foster Care / Youth
Prevention & Intervention
Research Methods
RECENT CHILD WELFARE PROJECTS
Group Care Quality Standards Assessment.
COLLABORATIONS WITH OTHER UNIVERSITY FACULTY OR RESEARCH ENTITIES
Hui Huang, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Florida International University; Neil Abell, Ph.D., Professor, Florida State University College of Social Work; Heather Flynn, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Vice Chair for Research, Florida State University College of Medicine; Jon Huefner, Ph.D., Research Scientist, Boys Town National Research Institute; Michael Killian, Ph.D., MSW, Florida State University College of Social Work.
SHORT BIO
Shamra Boel-Studt, Ph.D., MSW is an Associate Professor at the Florida State University College of Social Work and a faculty affiliate of the Florida Institute for Child Welfare. Dr. Boel-Studt received her MSW and Ph.D. from the University of Iowa. She has over a decade of experience in child welfare practice, training/technical assistance, research, and program evaluation. Her research in the area of child welfare practice focuses on examining the effectiveness/efficacy of child welfare interventions, especially those that seek to enhance engagement, family-centered practice, and trauma-informed approaches and expanding the evidence-base and quality of research and practice in residential group care. Dr. Boel-Studt, as Principal Investigator, is currently collaborating with the Florida Department of Children and Families and a team of child welfare stakeholders to validate the Quality Standards Assessment which measures a set of research-informed quality performance standards. The QSA will serve as the core measure for Florida's legislatively mandated Statewide Accountability System for Residential Group Care. In addition, she served as the Co-Investigator on a project with the Florida State University College of Medicine aimed at developing a training and policy recommendations to support the integration of behavioral health services for parents involved in the child welfare system.
WHAT IS MOST INSPIRING ABOUT YOUR JOB?
The common goal of my work is to try to help vulnerable children and families live better lives. That is what inspires me.
Michael Campbell
Saint Leo University
Areas of Interest
Mental Health
RECENT CHILD WELFARE PROJECTS
Peer support for family impacts from substance use disorders.
SHORT BIO
Michael attained his Ph.D. from the Public Affairs program at the University of Central Florida and his Bachelor and Master's degrees from Florida State University with an emphasis on children and family issues. Dr. Campbell currently serves as a professor in the Master of Social Work program at Saint Leo University. He has more than two decades of clinical and administrative experience in social work practice in specialty areas ranging from child welfare and child adolescent mental health to pediatric wellness and pediatric healthcare. His research interests focus on issues of family engagement, substance use disorders, child and adolescent mental health, pediatric wellness, and child welfare/public policy.
Marianna Colvin
Florida Atlantic University
Degree
Ph.D.
Phone
2056168940
Title
Associate Professor & Associate Dean of Research
Website
Click HereAreas of Interest
Policy
Research Methods
Workforce Issues
RECENT CHILD WELFARE PROJECTS
Mapping the interorganizational landscape of county-based child maltreatment prevention and service delivery; Building a needs-based-curriculum for child welfare therapists; Coalition development among statewide child welfare affiliates.
SHORT BIO
Marianna Colvin received her Ph.D. in Social Work at the University of Georgia and MSW from the University of Alabama. As a mixed-methods researcher, Marianna combines network analysis and qualitative methods to examine interorganizational human service delivery systems related to vulnerable children and families. She approaches child welfare from a community-wide orientation, inclusive of multiple disciplines, and concentrates on interactions across organizations, theories of systems and complexity, and implications for policy and network development. Her academic pursuits are guided by experiences as a social work practitioner in international, national, and local child welfare roles, including community development for street children and impoverished populations in India and U.S. based capacities in child protective services, family preservation, resource development, and supervision. She is passionate about social work education and through both teaching and research aims to enhance the ways communities and organizations are knitted together in support of vulnerable children and families.
WHAT IS MOST INSPIRING ABOUT YOUR JOB?
The vision that we are collectively greater than the sum of our parts.
WHAT SURPRISES PEOPLE THE MOST WHEN THEY LEARN _____ ABOUT YOU?
I rode mules to school growing up.
WHERE IN THE WORLD WOULD YOU MOST LIKE TO VISIT?
I'm stuck in a revisiting kick...New Zealand and Brazil are at the top of my list. If new, I'd go to the south of France.
Morgan Cooley
Florida Atlantic University
Areas of Interest
Child Abuse / Maltreatment
Children & Youth
Families & Services
Foster Care / Youth
Mental Health
Policy
Workforce Issues
RECENT CHILD WELFARE PROJECTS
Editor for Special issue on Foster Caregiving and Child Outcomes in Relative and Non-relative Foster Families in the Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal (August 2022). A Mixed Methods Evaluation of the Authentic Family Engagement and Strengthening Approach. Florida Institute for Child Welfare, Invited proposal, Contract#2021-002RE. Amount received: $33,400. A Mixed Methods Examination of Comfort Call Implementation in South Florida. Florida Institute for Child Welfare, Translational Research Award 2021-2022. Amount received: $9,999. A Platform for Social Action: Engaging and Supporting the Voice of Youth in Foster Care Receiving Independent Living Services. Florida Institute for Child Welfare, Priority Research Award 2021-2022. Amount received: $49,999.
COLLABORATIONS WITH OTHER UNIVERSITY FACULTY OR RESEARCH ENTITIES
FAU: Marianna Colvin, Heather Thompson, Heather Howard. UF: Martie Gillen.
SHORT BIO
Morgan Cooley earned her Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy in 2014 and MSW in Social Work in 2009 from Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. She taught as an Assistant Professor between 2014-2018 at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Currently, Dr. Cooley is a social work faculty member at Florida Atlantic University. She is a licensed clinical social worker with practice experience in couple and family therapy, working with families impacted by the child welfare system, mental health and trauma, and also those who identify as LGBTQ+. Dr. Cooley's research is greatly influenced by a background in both social work and family science and focuses on examining the relationships between child mental health, family systems, and the child welfare system. Specifically, she is interested in the relationship quality between children and foster caregivers, foster family well-being, foster parent preservice training, supporting relationships between birth and foster families for the benefit of youth in care, factors associated with improved mental health of youth in care, child welfare policy, and training for foster caregivers and child welfare professionals.
WHAT SONG OR ALBUM COULD YOU LISTEN TO ON REPEAT?
Anything by Regina Spektor