Cara Kelly

Dr. Cara Kelly has her master's and doctoral degrees in social work.  Her primary area of work has included child maltreatment prevention and intervention, child welfare risk and safety assessments, child well-being, and outcome measurements for child and family services.  Dr. Kelly currently studies risk assessment across child welfare domains, with a specific focus on the application of epidemiological methods to improve the surveillance of child abuse and neglect.

Dr. Kelly is a Licensed Master Social Worker (LMSW) and a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional (CCTP), whose social work practice includes over 15 years as a practitioner in child welfare services including foster parent licensing and training, family preservation, child abuse and neglect investigations, and hospital pediatric social work.  Currently, Dr. Kelly works for the Office on Child Abuse and Neglect at the Children's Bureau in Washington, DC.

Dr. Kelly maintains her Arizona roots through community child welfare efforts including child maltreatment research at Phoenix Children's Hospital, the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Consortium, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), Prevent Child Abuse Arizona, the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, and the Infant and Toddler Mental Health Coalition of Arizona (ITMHCA).