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 social worker whose practice spans over 20 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 Children’s Bureau in the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in Washington D.C. where she provides leadership and oversight of a diverse portfolio including state and tribal Title IVE Prevention Program implementation, the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), and the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect.