Fellowship Research Activities

The fellow is expected to complete a scholarly research project and Program Improvement project by the end of the fellowship. Each fellow will be expected to identify a research question for further study, and then utilize skills developed from their research training to design, conduct, and subsequently disseminate a research project prior to the completion of fellowship. Dissemination activities might include presentation at a national meeting and peer-reviewed publication. The expectation by the end of the fellowship is that fellows will complete at least two scholarly projects:

  1. Quality improvement initiative. During clinical training, fellows are expected to identify an area for quality improvement in medical care or the system of care for child protection. Supervised by clinical faculty, the fellow will identify the quality issue by the end of the first year, and subsequently design a quality-improvement initiative to address this barrier in years 2 and 3. The fellow will implement the quality-improvement initiative, but will also be responsible for its early evaluation. The evaluation will be designed in consultation with the fellow’s research mentor.

  2. Scholarly research project. The fellow will be expected to identify a research question for further study, and then utilize skills developed in a research training program to design, conduct, and subsequently disseminate a research project prior to the completion of fellowship. Dissemination activities might include presentation at a national meeting and peer-reviewed publication.

The fellow will also be encouraged to identify a child welfare policy issue of interest and a policy mentor. The fellows will work with the mentor to develop and complete a policy project which may include, but is not limited to, drafting a policy brief, writing an opinion piece, or preparing testimony to be provided to legislators regarding a relevant policy issue.

All fellows will participate in research training, but the particular research training program will be dependent on the individual fellow’s research interests and career goals. At a minimum, all fellows will learn about the following topics: ethics of biomedical research, basic research design, data collection methods (qualitative and quantitative), and data analysis.