Connecting Research to Practice: Meet Jennifer Weber, Research Coordinator
Jennifer Weber, PhD joined the Colorado Implementation Science Unit (CISU) at the Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS) as their Research Coordinator at the end of October 2024. As Research Coordinator, Jennifer is using her research skills to help families in Colorado receive the best services possible, and is helping CDHS learn from the valuable research happening in Colorado related to children, youth, and families.
“CISU aims to act as a bridge between research and practice. CISU hosts Research Partner Convenings to bring together researchers from different universities and agencies around the state to discuss different topics related to OCYF’s services and priorities. This helps us better understand issues and potential solutions to those issues,” said Jennifer.
On January 14th, 2025 CISU hosted a Research Partner Convening on the topic of behavioral health. During the meeting, CISU heard about multiple projects impacting families in Colorado, including:
- The Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect’s efforts to implement a teleheath enhanced version of multisystemic therapy for youth at high risk of out-of-home placement. Their team shared how blending the traditional in-person program with telehealth – or delivering the program remotely through virtual means, such as video – helps the intervention reach rural families while still maintaining positive outcomes and family unification. A 5-minute presentation on the pilot can be found here.
- The Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab’s commitment to study family mental health and substance use. Specifically, their team is piloting a new community-based infrastructure to support caregivers facing substance use in pregnancy as part of CDHS’ Plans of Safe Care program. (See this summary of the project by the Colorado Evaluation and Action Lab for more information.) The team is also helping to support the evaluation of innovative behavioral health programs for families through their work as Colorado’s Family First Evidence-Building Hub.
- The University of Colorado School of Medicine’s research related to foster care experiences. In partnership with CDHS and the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, their team is linking multiple datasets together to explore the physical and behavioral health profiles and use of health care services for youth entering foster care for the first time, as well as young adults exiting the foster care system. In particular, they find that upon entry into the system there is a substantial increase in the number of psychotropic medication prescriptions for youth, but for those aging out of the system they see a considerable reduction in prescriptions. For more information, please see a recently published policy brief on psychotropic medication prescriptions for those aging out of the system.
These convenings help CDHS gather insights directly from Colorado’s researcher community and provide a platform for researchers to learn from each other, opening up new avenues for collaboration.
To learn more about CDHS’ Research Partner Convenings, please reach out to jennifer.weber@state.co.us.
