Lindsay joined UConn’s HDFS department in 2015 after graduating with her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Gettysburg College. For much of her graduate career, she worked with Dr. Preston Britner on the evaluation team of the Connecticut site of a federal demonstration project called Partnerships to Demonstrate the Effectiveness of Supportive Housing for Families in the Child Welfare System. There she worked with the Connecticut nonprofit service provider, The Connection Inc. (TCI), to assess whether a more intensive supportive housing program provided value-added to families involved in the child welfare system. She also wrote reports on topics such as the benefits of a scattered-site housing approach and peer mentoring for child welfare-involved families. Lindsay’s dissertation work was an extension of what she learned throughout this experience. In her dissertation, she used 20+ years of Department of Children and Families (DCF) data on families who have been involved in TCI’s supportive housing program to assess long-term child welfare outcomes for these families. Lindsay successfully defended her dissertation on July 28^th, 2023 and will officially graduate this month.

Lindsay’s involvement with evaluation research and exposure to the nonprofit sector sparked an interest that she wanted to explore further. As a result, she pursued two graduate certificates at UConn – one in Program Evaluation and one in Nonprofit Management. Lindsay enjoyed both of these experiences which, in turn, solidified her interest in pursuing a career in which she could combine her background in HDFS with program evaluation and the nonprofit sector.

In October of 2021, Lindsay found a position that would allow her to do just that. She is now the Evaluation Manager at The Home for Little Wanderers in Massachusetts. The Home is the oldest child welfare agency in the U.S. and provides services to children and young adults including foster care and adoption services, behavioral health services, group homes, special education schools, and residential programs for transition age youth. In her new position, Lindsay has learned a great deal about The Home’s approach to practice including trauma-informed care, restorative practices, and achieving permanency for youth. Some of Lindsay’s responsibilities include managing a follow-up project where families are interviewed about youths’ well-being after discharge from The Home’s services, quarterly data reporting, helping programs remain compliant with funders’ reporting requirements, and developing new evaluation strategies to assess how effectively The Home carries out best-practices in their work.

Sarah McKee graduated from the HDFS doctoral program in May 2023. She joined the graduate program in 2017, earning her master’s degree in 2019. During her training, Sarah worked with Dr. Marlene Schwartz on several research projects studying child nutrition, school wellness, and food insecurity. Specifically, she worked on research examining nutrition and physical activity policy implementation in childcare centers, a program to promote nutritious food choices at food pantries, and Connecticut schools’ distribution of meals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sarah and Dr. Schwartz also worked with state departments of education, examining efforts to improve local school wellness policies in Kansas and providing technical assistance for wellness policy assessment to Connecticut school districts. Additionally, they collaborate with Dr. Sandra Chafouleas in the Neag School of Education to promote the Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) model of school health.

Sarah successfully defended her dissertation in April on implementing local school wellness policies. She applied qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods to examine various factors influencing schools’ successful implementation of policies that support students’ well-being. In her research, she identified barriers to wellness policy implementation and highlighted strategies that school staff have used to overcome these obstacles.

In addition to conducting research, Sarah taught undergraduate students in Comparative Family Policy for three semesters, was a teaching assistant for Individual and Family Development, and was a graduate assistant for the HDFS College Career Pathways Program and the Honors Program.

Sarah is now a postdoctoral research associate at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health, where she continues to work with Dr. Schwartz. Her current focus is studying and supporting schools in improving their wellness policies and practices and serving summer meals to students. Outside work, Sarah enjoys creating nail art, listening to her vinyl record collection, attending concerts, hiking, and exploring New England with her friends and family.

Congratulations to HDFS graduate student Nate Stekler, newly elected Communications Specialist for the National Council on Family Relations Research (NCFR) and Theory Section.