The effects of a universal short-term home visiting program: Two-year impact on parenting behavior and parent mental health.

Joint-Degree Ph.D. Candidate at the Sanford School of Public Policy and Psychology & Neuroscience

Gayane is a Joint-Degree Ph.D. Candidate of Public Policy and Psychology & Neuroscience. Her research focuses on identifying evidence-based policies and practices for supporting child development and family well-being. Gayane utilizes diverse research methods, such as randomized control trials, quasi-experimental methods, and implementation science to inform research on supporting families. Her research projects evaluate longitudinal impacts of a universal home visiting program and investigate effects of an unconditional cash transfer on rates of child maltreatment. Gayane is also conducting an implementation evaluation of a developmental monitoring tool across diverse sites that serve children and families. 

Gayane received her Bachelor’s Degree in Education and International Studies from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill in 2017. Before matriculating at Duke, she worked as a Research Analyst at Child Trends. In this role, she conducted national, state, and community level research analyzing the impact of various early childhood policies and programs. 

Ben Goodman is a research scientist at the Center for Child and Family Policy. His research interests focus broadly on the implementation and evaluation of population-based interventions to reduce child maltreatment and improve parent and child health and well-being, including the evidence-based Family Connects postpartum nurse home visiting program. His research also examines how sources of stress and support shape the quality of parent-child relationships, parents’ own well- being, and child development.

• Home Visiting
• Child Maltreatment
• Parenting
• Program Evaluation

• Ph.D. The Pennsylvania State University - 2009

Dr. Murphy is a licensed clinical psychologist focused on child traumatic stress, including its treatment and prevention and development and dissemination of evidence-based interventions. He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Murphy serves as Executive Director for the Center for Child & Family Health (CCFH), a community and three university partnership (Duke University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and North Carolina Central University) dedicated to research, training, and intervention related to child trauma and maltreatment. Interests include treatment and prevention of child maltreatment and traumatic stress, dissemination of evidence based interventions, and improving mental health care for military families. In partnership with the Duke Sanford School of Public Policy Center for Child and Family Policy, he has been active in the development and evaluation, via two randomized controlled trials, of a brief, postnatal, universal nurse home visiting program (Family Connects) that has demonstrated improved parenting and parental distress, as well as reduced emergency medical care costs and lower rates of reported child maltreatment. Since 2003, CCFH has been a community treatment and services center within the National Child Traumatic Stress Network focused on improving access to evidence based mental health care for foster care youth and developing trauma informed child welfare systems.