New social research center forged from campus-Extension partnership

Two tiers of the UC Davis mission came together last year with a marriage of the best of academic research and the practical savvy of a public outreach program.

The new Center for Public Policy Research (CPPR) operates as a partnership between the UC Davis Department of Psychology and The Center for Human Services at UC Davis Extension. Its mission aims to serve state, county and local government agencies as well as academic institutions by providing research services to support social policy and practice development in such areas as poverty, child abuse, welfare, mental health, child development, public health and substance abuse in California.

What began more than 10 years ago as a mutual respect between two colleagues whose work shares a common thread, has recently become a fully-operational center — staffed with research analysts, research writers and a secure-server facility capable of housing highly-confidential data on a private computer network. Gail Goodman, UC Davis professor of psychology and internationally-renowned scientist in the field of child welfare and child psychology serves as the principal investigator and director of CPPR.

"We have always wanted to find a way to link Gail's academic credentials and outstanding research expertise with our public service and outreach capacity," explains Michael Lawler, CPPR co-principal investigator and director of UC Davis Extension's The Center for Human Services.

The main thrust of CPPR's work will support government policy decisions in the welfare arena by providing consultation, research reports, empirical study and database analyses relevant to welfare and child protection issues. According to Goodman, a major component of the work at CPPR is to analyze administrative databases relevant to families served by both the CalWORKs and child welfare systems in California. Through such research projects, CPPR hopes to identify risk factors for child abuse and neglect among CalWORKs families, and to identify risk factors for future welfare dependency in children who have come to the attention of the child welfare system.

In addition to its own staff, the Center for Public Policy Research draws on the research expertise of many other UC faculty and departments. To date, faculty from the Departments of Economics, Pediatrics, Psychology and Human and Community Development have provided research contributions to the center.

"With these strengths, we can extend the resources of the University of California to public agencies that do not typically benefit directly from UCs research expertise," Lawler says.

"We are always looking for opportunities to expand the scope of our research and services," Goodman adds. "For example, we recently held a conference on data security that was very well received and attended by State and UC officials."

Through CPPR, UC Davis is able to bring its resources to bear in an effort to address meaningful public policy and practice issues which impact millions of California families.

For more information about the Center for Public Policy Research, call (530) 757-8616 or visit the Web site at www.cppr.ucdavis.edu. To learn more about The Center for Human Services at UC Davis Extension, call (530) 757-8643 or go to www.humanservices.ucdavis.edu.