Children, Youth and Family Well-being

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For nearly 40 years, researchers at UNC School of Social Work have advanced the knowledge and resources that ensure children, youth and families are safe, stable, healthy and thriving. Grounded in the study of both risk and protective factors, our scholarship examines the internal and external influences — such as family relationships, financial burden and school access — that impact an individual’s trajectory in life. By better understanding the effect of these forces, our faculty aim to develop solutions that support and promote the resiliency of children, youth and families.

Our social work research program did not develop until the mid- to late-1980s. However, decades earlier pioneering social work scholar Alan Keith-Lucas established our reputation as a catalyst for strengthening services and the livelihood of children, youth and families around the state of North Carolina. Years later, social work research faculty introduced the production of and use of empirical evidence in practice settings.

In time, our scholars expanded their ground-breaking work on child welfare into more targeted areas of research, such as studies on domestic and intimate partner violence and services to military families, including how to help active-duty soldiers address depression, loneliness and burnout.

As projects flourished and our School’s faculty expertise deepened, so, too, did attention from the state of North Carolina, which needed researchers to evaluate public assistance reform programs. Such rigorous studies have expanded over the years, helping to ensure that practices and policies are evidence-informed so that state programs aimed at assisting the most vulnerable are effective.

Today, our School’s impact on children, youth and families extends across North Carolina and beyond thanks to thriving partnerships with national and state agencies, nonprofits and community programs. Our social work scholars are currently focusing on numerous areas of study within this framework, including families’ key roles in promoting positive adjustment in children and their parents, parent-child interactions, stress and coping, processes to better promote physical and psychological well-being, health care finances, workforce research, child welfare and big data, and preventing substance use, depression and maltreatment.

These researchers are also designing, implementing and evaluating family-based initiatives to improve family relationships and promote family well-being, including families surviving poverty, discrimination and trauma.

Increasingly, our School’s researchers are also using a social justice lens to help identify and harness the strengths of culturally, racially and economically diverse families; families with varying structures and compositions; and families raising children with disabilities and children who are neurodiverse.

The highlighted research projects in this report include using big data sets to learn more about domestic violence and the child welfare system and examining parental strategies that can assist emerging adults in managing stress and improving their mental health. Although these projects tackle different child, youth and family well-being challenges, their aim is the same — improving family relationships.

by Susan White and Matthew Smith