Sarah Neville, PhD
Biography
Dr. Neville’s research interests include interventions to improve health and well-being for orphans and vulnerable children in low- and middle-income countries, particularly those who have lived in residential care institutions. She is currently mentored by Dr. Galárraga. She received her PhD in Social Work from Boston College, where she was the recipient of the Carolyn Thomas Doctoral award as well as the Dorothy Book Award for the best academic manuscript. As a doctoral student, Dr. Neville and her advisor received funding from Catholic Relief Services and Maestral International to design a contextualized measure of child well-being based on the priorities of children living in residential care and measure the well-being of children in Kenya who had been reunified with families after living in residential care. Dr. Neville was recently funded by the Christian Alliance for Orphans to conduct a quantitative study on the effectiveness of a family strengthening intervention for children at risk of family separation or who have previously lived outside of family care in Sierra Leone. She has authored eleven peer-reviewed publications, including six first-author publications, including "Parental care status and sexual risk behavior in five nationally-representative surveys of sub-Saharan African nations" in BMC Public Health. She is currently pursuing an NIH K99/R00 award to adapt and evaluate a family-based mental health promotion intervention for children reunifying with family after living in residential care in Ghana.