Heather N. Taussig

Professor

Faculty
Graduate School of Social Work

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pxtPnpcAAAAJ&hl=en

Craig Hall, 2148 South High St. Denver, CO 80208

What I do

Our field needs more innovative and contextually sensitive prevention programming for youth. My work focuses on developing and rigorously testing programs that promote positive youth development in multiple realms to foster healthy futures by nurturing youth's strengths.

Specialization(s)

addictions and substance use, child welfare, children and youth, criminal justice, evidence-based practice/implementation science, intervention research, mental and behavioral health, research methods, trauma, violence

Professional Biography

Heather Taussig, PhD, is a professor at the Graduate School of Social Work. She is also an adjunct professor at the Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect at the University of Colorado.

Taussig's research focuses on developing and testing prevention programming for maltreated children with child welfare involvement. She is the Director of Fostering Healthy Futures (FHF), an evidence-based mentoring and skill-building program for youth with child welfare involvement that was developed and tested with research funding from the National Institute of Mental Health. FHF is currently being disseminated through numerous community-based organizations.

Taussig also led a 10-year longitudinal study of youth in foster care, funded by the National Institute of Justice and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Taussig's work includes research on youth mentoring, positive youth development, reducing adolescent risk behaviors, and harnessing youth voice to better understand the child welfare system and its impacts.

Taussig serves on several review panels and community collaboratives as well as on the research board of the National Mentoring Resource Center. She served on Colorado Governor Ritter's Task Force on Foster Care and is an awardee for her work on child abuse and neglect from the International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. In 2021 Taussig was awarded the inaugural Jeffrey Jenson Endowed Research Award and a Fulbright Scholar Award in Cardiff, Wales. She is the recipient of the 2024 Kempe Foundation Professional Award and was Inducted as a Fellow to the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare in 2025.

Degree(s)

Ph.D., Clinical Psychology, San Diego State Univ/Univ of California San Diego Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology, 1998
BA, Psychology, Harvard University, 1992

Licensure / Accreditations

Licensed Clinical Psychologist

Key Projects

Featured Publications

Taussig, H. N., Culhane, S. E., & Hettleman, D. I. (2007). Fostering healthy futures: an innovative preventive intervention for preadolescent youth in out-of-home care. Child welfare, 86(5), 113-31.

Taussig, H. N., Culhane, S. E., Garrido, E., & Knudtson, M. D. (2012). RCT of a mentoring and skills group program: placement and permanency outcomes for foster youth. Pediatrics, 130(1), e33-9.

Taussig, H. N., Harpin, S. B., & Maguire, S. A. (2014). Suicidality among preadolescent maltreated children in foster care. Child maltreatment, 19(1), 17-26.

Taussig, H. N., Weiler, L., Rhodes, T., Hambrick, E., Wertheimer, R., Fireman, O., & Combs, M. (2015). Fostering Healthy Futures for Teens: Adaptation of an evidence-based program. Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, 6, 617-642.

Taussig, H. N. (2022). A positive youth development approach to improving mental health outcomes for maltreated children in foster care: Replication and extension of an RCT of the Fostering Healthy Futures Program (vol 64, pg 405, 2021). AMERICAN JOURNAL OF COMMUNITY PSYCHOLOGY, 69(3-4), 503--503.

Taussig, H. N., Bender, K., Bennett, R., Combs, K. M., Fireman, O. J., & Wertheimer Hodas, R. (2020). Mentoring for teens with child welfare involvement: Permanency outcomes from a randomized controlled trial of the Fostering Healthy Futures for Teens Program. Child Welfare, 97(5), 1-24.

Taussig, H. N., Dmitrieva, J. O., Garrido, E., Cooley, J. L., & Crites, E. (2021). Fostering Healthy Futures preventive intervention for children in foster care: Long-term delinquency outcomes from a randomized controlled trial. Prevention Science, 22, 1120-1133. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-021-01235-6

Taussig, H. N., & Munson, M. R. (2024). It's complicated: A longitudinal exploration of young people's perceptions of out-of-home care and their reflections on how to change the child welfare system. International Journal of Child Maltreatment: Research, Policy, and Practice, 7, 85-104. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/s42448-022-00137-6

Taussig, H. N., Roberts, L., Scourfield, J., & Franz, C. (2022). "I'm glad that I was given a second chance to live": The buffering impact of turning points in the lives of young people with foster care experience. International Journal on Child Maltreatment, 6, 233-254. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/s42448-022-00129-6

Taussig, H. N., Evans, R., & Cary Katz, C. (2024). Long-term impact of the Fostering Healthy Futures for Preteens program on suicide-related thoughts and behaviors for youth in out-of-home care: A randomized controlled trial. American Journal of Community Psychology, 74(1-2), 74-85. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12745

Awards

Outstanding Young Professional in the Field of Child Abuse and Neglect, International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect
Fulbright Scholar Award, The J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board
Jeffrey Jenson Endowed Research Award, Graduate School of Social Work
Professional Honoree at the Annual Gala, Kempe Foundation for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect
Inducted as Fellow, American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare