Callie Silver awarded a Head Start Graduate Student Research Grant!
Callie Silver, a 4th year student in the Community and Prevention Research program, was recently awarded a Head Start Graduate Student Research Grant. These funds from the U.S. Administration of Children and Families and the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation will support Callie's dissertation research.
Her project, entitled, "Illinois Head Start/Early Head Start Program Responses to COVID-19" is a fabulous example of research-practice-policy collaboration. After seeing her original dissertation plans evaporate with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Callie worked with her community partners at the Illinois Head Start Association to quickly identify critical knowledge gaps and conceptualize a research project to address their needs. Through a longitudinal qualitative inquiry with administrators and parents, Callie will identify whether and how this federally-funded early childhood program for low-income children engaged families and supported children's social and emotional development before, during, and after the COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders. Congrats Callie!!