Ph.D. Candidate
Virginia Commonwealth University
Katie N. Kim is a doctoral candidate at Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of Social Work. Her research focuses on parental substance use disorder (SUD) and its impact on family stability, treatment engagement, and child welfare involvement. Specifically, she examines how cognitive-perceptual factors shape treatment motivation in CPS-involved mothers with mandated SUD interventions and how system-level factors—including workforce training and service delivery—affect engagement and outcomes for these families. She has clinical and research experience in SUDs, trauma, and mental health, providing evidence-based interventions for individuals with co-occurring conditions. Her research has examined the impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and intergenerational substance use, contributing to studies on behavioral health interventions and treatment engagement. Ms. Kim’s research examines how parental SUD impacts child and family stability, with a focus on improving mandated treatment engagement for CPS-involved parents. Her work intersects with the Child Welfare Addiction Fellowship (CWAF), where she explores how child welfare workers' SUD knowledge and training influence their ability to support parents in treatment. By studying workforce interventions that enhance caseworkers' engagement strategies, her research bridges parental SUD, child welfare, and workforce development to improve service delivery and family outcomes. As a current CSWE MFP doctoral fellow, Ms. Kim is committed to advancing social work’s role in developing integrated interventions that strengthen treatment engagement, reduce family separation, and improve recovery outcomes for parents with SUDs.
Disclosure information not submitted.