About

Kim Williams is a Senior Research Analyst with the Maryland Child Welfare Accountability Act (CWAA) project which seeks to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the child welfare system in Maryland. She is also a PhD candidate with the University of Maryland, School of Social Work completing her dissertation on the experiences of therapeutic foster parents, including their satisfaction, role perception, and use of supportive services offered by their licensing agency. Prior to joining the PhD program and the Institute, Kim worked as a Clinical Social Worker with a therapeutic foster care agency in Maryland. In this position, she enjoyed working with and learning from all of the foster parents and became very interested in what agencies can do to set their foster parents up for success. Kim received her MSW from the University of Maryland School of Social Work in 2016.

Centers, Organizations, & Programs

Recent Publications

Ahn, H., Xu, Y., Williams, K. A., Bourn, K. P., Williams, S., Conway, D. (2022). Family team decision meetings and child welfare service disparities: The influence of race and income. Children and Youth Services Review, 143, 106705, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2022.106705 

Leffler, K. A.* & Ahn, H. (2020). Foster parent perspectives and experiences with public child welfare. Journal of Public Child Welfare, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/15548732.2021.1874592 

 Lewis, E. M., Murugan, V., Feely, M., Williams, K. A., Sermon, M. C., & Farooq, S. (2022). Quality Parenting Initiative: Engaging Diverse Stakeholders as Champions for Child Welfare Systems Reform. Journal of the Society for Social Work & Research, https://doi.org/10.1086/722445 

Lewis, E., Murugan, V., Williams, K. A., Barth, R. P., & Lee, B. (2022). Relationships Matter: Exploring the Implementation of the Quality Parenting Initiative and the Foster Parent Experience. Child and Family Social Work, 27(4), 593-603, https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12908 

Williams, K. A., Lewis, E. M., & Feely, M. (2023). Stay just a little bit longer: A scoping review of foster parent engagement in the US. Children and Youth Services Review, 106814. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2023.106814