Speaking At:

Child Sexual Abuse Prevention: Building Community Capacity and Shifting Responsibility from Families

Bio:

Kaela Byers, PhD, MSW is an Associate Director at the University of Kansas Center for Public Partnerships and Research. Dr. Byers’ scholarship focuses on cross-systems approaches to promoting child, family, and community well-being. She applies a community-engaged approach to research and evaluation using advanced mixed methods, implementation science, and a translational, prevention framework. Her scholarship targets organizational, structural, and systems-level issues that impact children, families, and their communities. Dr. Byers’ research to date addresses social determinants of health, child welfare systems change, and universal access to resources, services, and well-being. She currently serves as Principal or Co-Principal Investigator of multiple state and federal initiatives including a demonstration of a community-designed and community-based system of well-being and evaluation of multilevel approaches to child sexual abuse prevention. Dr. Byers holds a PhD in social work from the University of Kansas and a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, with a focus on community, system, and organizational management and development.