Research and Training Centers

The Mandel School is home to nine research and training centers, including three Centers of Excellence, as well as First Year Cleveland, a community movement dedicated to reversing infant death rates and helping all babies celebrate their first birthdays. We facilitate authentic research and training collaborations between faculty and community partners, including human service agencies, service delivery systems and policy makers.

Many of our research and training initiatives are multidisciplinary involving multi-institutional partnerships that address broad social problems, social-work practice and policy. We emphasize dissemination—using innovative research to enhance practice and service delivery in the community. Our reach is local, national and international. Our centers also provide several opportunities for students to participate in all aspects of the research process.


Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education

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The Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education is home to a distinguished group of more than 50 applied community-based research, evaluation, training and technical assistance specialists in operation for more than 20 years. With grants and contracts totaling more than $7 million annually, the center serves as a research partner to various local, state and national nonprofit, foundation and government organizations to learn innovative ways to address some of society's most pressing problems.

Learn more about the Begun Center for Violence Prevention Research and Education


Center for Evidence-Based Practices

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The Center for Evidence-Based Practices (CEBP), based within the Begun Center, is a recognized Center of Excellence that offers technical assistance in the form of skills training, clinical and administrative consultation, and program evaluation for service innovations that improve quality of life and other outcomes for people with mental illness or co-occurring mental illness and substance use disorders. CEBP helps behavioral healthcare organizations implement and sustain evidence-based practices across the U.S.—across 36 states and five countries throughout their 21 years of operation.

Learn more about the Center for Evidence-Based Practices


Center for Innovative Practices

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The Center for Innovative Practices (CIP) is a training and technical assistance center housed within the Begun Center. A recognized Center of Excellence, it has provided support to community-based agencies that seek to implement interventions that improve outcomes for youth and families for over 20 years. These interventions are evidence-based and specific to the needs of the organization and community. CIP provides initial training of the particular intervention(s) to the organization, then continues to support the work through technical assistance and consultation.

Learn more about the Center for Innovative Practices


Center on Trauma and Adversity

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Established in April 2018, the Center on Trauma and Adversity aims to reduce the impact of trauma and adversity through advanced training and integrated research to develop a skilled trauma-informed workforce. Led by founding director Megan R. Holmes, PhD, the Trauma Center was created with a group of Mandel School faculty to respond to the need for trauma-focused research and the development of trained social workers who can effectively assess, intervene and treat people and communities affected by trauma—to help them experience healing, overcome adversity, reduce suffering and achieve recovery and resilience. 

Learn more about the Center on Trauma and Adversity


Center on Poverty and Community Development

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The mission of the Center on Poverty and Community Development is to create, communicate and apply valuable knowledge to a broad range of audiences and constituents concerned with the ultimate goal of reducing urban poverty and its consequences. The center embraces humanistic values and a participatory approach to research—all of which places primary value on being responsive to the research questions and issues that emerge from residents and the community. Additionally, the Poverty Center also conducts research studies and produces both academic, peer-reviewed research papers and numerous summaries and data briefs aimed at the broader audience of policy-makers, activists and the general public.

Learn more about the Center on Poverty and Community Development


Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health Center

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The Center for Innovative Practices (CIP) coordinates the Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health Center, a statewide partnership aimed at transforming the state’s approach to serving children, youth and families who require support from multiple state systems. This recognized Center of Excellence provides support for Ohio's transformative children's initiatives through standardizing assessment, expanding service and care coordination capacity, and working with partner agencies to support the expansion, implementation, sustainability and/or evaluation of services and processes. 

Learn more about the Child and Adolescent Behavioral Health Center of Excellence


Community Innovation Network

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The Community Innovation Network (CIN), based within the Poverty Center, is cultivating a new culture of deeply collaborative community change. The center's dream is for all people to live in communities of inclusion, healing and equity. Its mission is to build bridges—bridges in the form of relationships between residents and institutions, bridges of trust between communities and organizations, and bridges of dialogue between community-building research and practice. CIN's core areas of work are programs in the community, research, training, and its consulting network's direct work with neighborhoods, community-based organizations and other anchor institutions.

Learn more about the Community Innovation Network


National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities

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The National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities (NIMC) helps reduce urban poverty and promote successful mixed-income communities by conducting high-quality research and making information and evidence easily available to policymakers and practitioners. NIMC conducts research and evaluation, maintains informational resources, brokers learning exchanges, and provides technical assistance and consulting. The center has worked in several neighborhoods across Cleveland and in more than 10 U.S. cities, helping refine city and organizational mixed-income development strategies, shape government and organizational policy, increase organizational and individual capacity, and promote more effective practice and better outcomes for residents of revitalizing neighborhoods.

Learn more about the National Initiative on Mixed-Income Communities


Partnership for Evaluation, Research and Implementation 

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First introduced to the Northeast Ohio community in 2015, the Partnership for Evaluation, Research and Implementation (PERI), based within the Begun Center, is a high-quality, low-cost program evaluation resource center for local nonprofit and governmental organizations in the health and human services sector. By providing information and expertise on program outcomes and quality improvement, PERI assists nonprofits with measuring success, demonstrating the effectiveness of programs and services, and ultimately increasing the likelihood of future program funding.

Learn more about the Partnership for Evaluation, Research and Implementation