Stacy Dunkerley
- Ph.D.
- Doctoral Graduate
Contact Info
Biography —
Stacy's research interests include the intersection of parent engagement strategies, social work practice skills, and family outcomes in the child welfare setting; the use of evidence-based practices in child welfare; and the impact of poverty on parent engagement in social welfare services. Stacy has extensive experience in child welfare services as a practitioner and supervisor and is focused on the translation of research to social work practice.
Education —
Research —
Dissertation proposal: Engaging Parents in Foster Care Services: A Longitudinal Examination of the Relationship between Parent Engagement, Children’s Placement Stability, and Family Reunification.
Committee: Becci Akin (chair), Briana McGeough (methodologist), Alice Lieberman (member), Margaret Severson (member), and Christopher Cushing (Clinical Child Psychology and Graduate Studies representative)
Stacy’s dissertation, which she successfully defended with an honors designation, investigated parental engagement among birth parents of children in foster care and its association with placement stability and reunification outcomes. She used a validated scale of parent engagement and administrative child welfare data to test a theory of integrated parent engagement. While many scholars have pointed to the importance of engagement and the working relationship, Stacy’s study is one of the first to examine this construct among families with children in foster care and include analyses of child and family outcomes. The study represents an important step in Stacy’s larger research agenda that aims to build knowledge of practices and policies for supporting parents involved in child welfare systems to stay or reunify with their children.