Dana M. Prince, PhD, MPH (she/her) applies her expertise in social welfare, public health, and community-based system dynamics to address the mental health and service needs of multiply minoritized youth involved in public systems, including child welfare, juvenile court, and homelessness services. These include young adults ‘aging out’ of foster care, pregnant and parenting youth, and LGBTQ+ youth.
Dr. Prince uses an affirming and strengths-based approach to LGBTQ+ youth development, which validates a wide range of identities as normal and healthy and addresses the impact of society-driven bias and discrimination on queer and trans youth health and wellbeing. Dr. Prince’s recent and most current federally funded program of research aims to develop, implement, and evaluate multi-level interventions designed to target empirically based mechanisms (e.g. stigma, rejection and abuse) that drive mental health disparities for LGBTQ+ youth in public systems, and build factors (e.g. peer support, community belonging, chosen family/kin networks, and self-affirming beliefs) to promote wellness and empowerment.
Dr. Prince is a queer femme who has advocated on behalf of the LGBTQ+ community for over twenty-five years. Her work is informed by critical theories including intersectional feminism, queer theory, disability theory, and critical race theory. As a teenager, Dr. Prince engaged in queer activism and advocacy which informed her deep-seated value of youth-centered participatory research methods and practice approaches. Her work prioritizes lived experiences in all facets of intervention development and implementation. For example, harnessing the power of peer support specialists to reduce self-injurious thoughts and behaviors among LGBTQ+ youth involved in public systems. Or, investigating the impact of states' anti-transgender policy on the adolescent behavioral workforce and trans youth mental healthcare delivery. Dr. Prince is an advocate for increased workforce training on best practices for working with queer and transgender youth and their families.
Dr. Prince is an Associate Professor at the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University. Prior to joining the faculty, Dr. Prince completed her NIDA-funded T32 postdoctoral fellowship at the Yale School of Medicine.
Biosketch
Curriculum Vitae
Google Scholar
Why I Teach
I approach teaching from the perspective that we are all learners, and we are all teachers. I have taught in K-12 public schools, community spaces, and higher education. In social work education, I endeavor to co-create vulnerable and authentic learning spaces with my students. Central questions that drive my teaching include those related to power, knowledge (What ‘counts’), and belief systems. I love teaching theory because it is more than just “ideas.” Theory shapes our perspectives, beliefs, and actions. Theory shapes the material (“real”) world. It is that possibility for personal and collective transformation that motivates me to teach.
Why I Chose this Profession
I am inspired by the radical tradition of community social workers who fought and advocated for basic human rights and improvements to the lives of the most marginalized. At its best, social work challenges the status quo and advances equity and justice.
Teaching Information
Courses Taught
Research Information
Research Interests
I have developed a robust program of health disparities research that focuses on the transition to adulthood for vulnerable and marginalized youth. My research agenda is motivated by over six years of direct practice experience in West Philadelphia public schools where I developed, implemented, and evaluated initiatives to address the physical and mental health needs of low-income racial and ethnic minority youth. While working in the public education sector, I saw how multiple systems (education, child welfare, and juvenile justice) collectively impacted the day-to-day lives of my students, and the vital need for cross-sector collaboration to improve health. These experiences propelled me to pursue training in public health (MPH, University of Pennsylvania), social welfare (PhD, University of Washington), and Prevention and Community Research (NIH/NIDA-funded postdoctoral fellow, Yale School of Medicine).
Across my work, I use a cumulative disadvantage framework to understand the multiple factors that inform youth risk behavior in the context of adversity, and to identify protective factors germane to vulnerable youth. My goal is to identify and implement primary and secondary prevention efforts aimed at reducing the impact of social and structural inequalities on youth wellbeing.
Research Projects
Current projects include:
- NIH-National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities LRP supported “Pathways to Wellbeing for Youth Aging Out of Foster Care”, which examines the role of individual- and state-level risk and protective factors on homelessness, substance abuse, criminal justice involvement and pregnancy for a national cohort of youth exiting foster care
- I am partnered with Cuyahoga County Division of Children and Family Services, the LGBT Community Center of Greater Cleveland, YWCA A Place for Me, and Kinnect on a four-year site implementation grant funded through the Administration of Children and Families to improve services and outcomes for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, two-spirit, and questioning youth in foster care.
Education
Residencies, Internships and Fellowships
Additional Information
Concentration
- Children, Youth and Families
- Mental Health