Colleen Smith
Senior Research Associate Georgia Health Policy Center- Education
M.S.W., Washington University in St. Louis
B.A., University of Dayton, Ohio
- Biography
Colleen Smith joined the Georgia Health Policy Center in 2015 and is a senior research associate. Smith leads the team supporting the state’s Recovery Support Clubhouses conducting practice-informed research, program monitoring and evaluation, providing technical assistance, and facilitating peer learning and strategic planning. She also leads mixed-methods program evaluation with the state’s Intensive Residential Treatment centers and co-leads efforts to enhance behavioral health equity which recently included a theater-based training for adolescent substance use providers, Advancing LGBTQ+ Behavioral Health Equity. Smith also serves as an advisor to state and territorial teams through the National Maternal and Child Health Workforce Development Center where she sits on the Evidence Based Decision Making core.
Smith has supported the Center to identify opportunities and engage in work globally. She worked with Groundswell International’s partner, Partenariat pour le Développement Local in Haiti to provide recommendations for ways to utilize the organization’s existing participatory planning tools for monitoring and evaluation purposes. Smith also supported the center’s rapid realist review with Ireland’s Health Research Board and the evaluation design and implementation efforts of the Carter Center’s Public Health Training Initiative.
Smith draws on more than 15 years of professional experience globally applying methods and approaches rooted in participatory action research and community development to inform the design and implementation of practice-informed research, program monitoring and evaluation, and innovative approaches to improving health and quality of life outcomes. Her current portfolio focusses on maternal and child health, substance use, mental health, and co-occurring disorders. She has presented work at local, national, and international conferences including those hosted by the American Evaluation Association, Annual Research and Policy Conference for Behavioral Health, and the National Network of Public Health Institutes.
- Publications