The ECP column will continue to spotlight early career psychologists within the field of child maltreatment. Successful ECPs from a variety of career paths are chosen to help graduate students, interns and early ECPs in making wise training and career choices. Our current spotlighted ECP is a great role model for members interested in conducting practice-relevant research in academia.
Samantha Brown, PhD, is an assistant professor in both the School of Social Work and the Department of Community and Behavioral Health at Colorado State University (CSU). Her primary role is in research, followed by teaching and service. Broadly, Brown’s research focuses on the pathways through which child maltreatment shapes the health and development of children and families. She also works to translate this knowledge into family-oriented interventions. Currently, Brown is examining stress system functioning and sleep processes in parents and infants in relation to parent-infant interactions and child development. She is also testing a program that she developed called “Mindful Parenting and Problem Solving” as a trauma-informed approach to child welfare practice.
Brown’s career trajectory was heavily influenced by her direct-care experiences working with children and families involved in child welfare and substance abuse treatment. After completing her master’s degree in forensic psychology in 2010, Brown worked, first, as a substance abuse counselor and, later, as a child welfare caseworker. In her child welfare role, she provided services to families with complex needs. Many families were mandated to treatment, yet her agency was often confronted with challenges to find (or refer families to) programs that addressed co-occurring risk factors. There were also many barriers in meeting the multifaceted needs of this vulnerable population, such as finding transportation, childcare, and evidence-based programming. Because each family presented with unique risk and protective factors, she began to question how to better understand individual differences in the factors associated with child maltreatment in order to enhance intervention for these children and families. This ultimately led her to pursue her doctoral degree in social work and focus her research agenda on child maltreatment.
Following her counseling experiences, Brown began her doctoral training in the Graduate School of Social Work at the University of Denver working with Kimberly Bender. In collaboration with Bender, she conducted research examining the associations among coping styles, victimization and mental health in homeless youth. For her dissertation, Brown investigated a mindfulness-based intervention aimed at improving family functioning among child welfare-involved families with substance use histories. After completing her PhD in 2016, Brown began a National Institute of Mental Health-funded T32 postdoctoral fellowship with the Developmental Psychobiology Research Group in the School of Medicine – Department of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado.
Brown is incredibly committed to improving the lives of vulnerable families. Currently, she is engaged in several interdisciplinary partnerships that explore the etiology and effects of child maltreatment. One project, funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration, Maternal and Child Health Bureau, examines developmental differences in the physical and behavioral health outcomes of children exposed to maltreatment. Specifically, Brown and her colleagues are investigating the extent to which caregiver risk factors, including substance use, physical health and mental health, impact children’s development as well as the protective factors that might mitigate risk for adverse outcomes. She is also conducting work exploring the child, family and case characteristics associated with reentry into out-of-home placement among children involved with child welfare in Colorado.
When asked about advice she would give to ECPs conducting research on child maltreatment, Brown highlighted that families impacted by child maltreatment are a difficult-to-reach population. Specifically, she said, “It is important to be persistent! Be persistent in building relationships with child welfare agencies and community partners serving at-risk families. Be persistent when working with families as they are experiencing multiple competing demands. By taking the time to build connections with agencies and families and thoughtfully explain why your work is important, it will likely lead to greater success with research as well as have a greater impact on the lives of children and families.”
There are clearly many challenges associated with conducting research on child maltreatment. Brown feels that most difficult is building and sustaining researcher-child welfare partnerships. As Brown points out, due to the nature of child welfare work, agencies may be in “crisis-prone” situations and have minimal resources to support research collaborations. She also notes that there seem to be fewer sources of funding (and no federal funding institutes) specifically designated to support child maltreatment research. These obstacles can be daunting, hence Brown’s advice on being persistent! Ultimately, it is the families themselves that motivate Brown and are the most rewarding part of her work. She comments that families are key change agents to support the health and well-being of children. If we can better understand the antecedents to and consequences of child maltreatment and invest in programming that targets key factors for change, then we can better support families to reach their full potential and help children thrive.
In addition to conducting quality research, Brown is also heavily involved in teaching and service. Currently, she teaches the “Advanced Research and Social Work Capstone” course for the social work master’s program. Although the students initially find the course challenging, it is an exciting opportunity for Brown to integrate her research and clinical practice in child welfare into the classroom. She also teaches a psychopathology and community health course, which motivates her to stay up to date on treatments for children and families exposed to psychosocial risk. Current service activities include serving as ad-hoc reviewer for numerous journals, as well as, serving on a research curriculum task group and the student admission and academic affairs committee at CSU. Brown notes that these are great opportunities for her to connect with the students at CSU and be a part of a platform that encourages student voice as it pertains to their academic experiences. It is also relevant that Brown is a longstanding member of the Section of Maltreatment and was awarded the section’s Dissertation Award in 2016. Brown’s passion and commitment to all aspects of her work have earned her several recognitions, including the Victoria S. Levin Grant for Early Career Success in 2019, the Society for Social Work and Research’s Dissertation Award in 2017 and the University of Denver School of Social Work’s Dissertation Award in 2016.
Brown has already made remarkable contributions to the field of child maltreatment via research, teaching and service. She remains passionate about her practice-relevant research agenda and improving the lives of vulnerable children and their families. We wish her the best of luck in her future endeavors and thank her for her insights to our students and ECPs!