Our Research

Our goals are three-fold.

(1) Identify the number of caregiving youth in elementary, middle, and high schools.

(2) Examine longitudinal disparities in mental health (e.g., anxiety and depression) and education (e.g., grades and graduation rates), while also exploring positive impacts (e.g., gained sense of purpose, close reciprocal relationships).

(3) Collect information about caregiving youths’ specific experiences and needs to inform the design of interventions that we then evaluate at scale via implementation science.

I now partner with departments of education and school districts across the country to identify and evaluate supports for caregiving children. Most schools do not yet collect information about children’s caregiving responsibilities or have programs to support them. I build collaborative research-practice-partnerships with the departments of education, districts, and schools to collect data about caregiving students (ages 5–18) wherever we can for the first time.