Anita Barbee-Cunningham

Biography

Dr. Anita P. Barbee received her Bachelor of Arts in English and Psychology in 1982 from Agnes Scott College, her Doctor of Philosophy in Social Psychology with a specialization in Child and Family Studies (e.g., Family Science) in 1988 from the University of Georgia and her Master of Science in Social Work from the University of Louisville (UofL) in 2001.

Dr. Barbee is Professor, Distinguished University Scholar, and Director of the Ph.D. Program at UofL’s Kent School of Social Work and Family Science. She began her career at UofL in 1986 as an Adjunct Professor and Director of the Social Psychology Lab in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. In 1993, Dr. Barbee joined the Kent School as an Assistant Research Professor. She became a tenured Professor and Distinguished University Scholar at the Kent School in 2005.

With her colleagues at Kent School, she has helped to generate over $50 million in extramural funding to UofL as part of $97 million overall. She has also been a named consultant on $55 million worth of other grants and contracts to partner organizations. She has been funded by the federal agencies of the Department for Health and Human Services (DHHS), Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Children's Bureau (directly and via pass through funds through the Kentucky Department for Community Based Services in the Cabinet for Health and Family Services), Child Care Bureau, and Family and Youth Services Bureaus, the DHHS Office of Community Services, Office of Adolescent Health, the Office of Population Affairs, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Maternal and Child Health Section, Office of Family Assistance, and Substance Abuse and Mental Health Systems Administration (SAMHSA) as well as Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) funds. She has also received funds directly or indirectly through partners from Prevent Child Abuse America, Annie E. Casey Foundation, Children's Alliance Trust Fund, Harvard University Kennedy School, Ash Institute for Governmental Innovation, Healthy Kentucky Foundation among other entities.                  

Her community engaged research has focused on 1) delivering and evaluating the impact of healthy relationship interventions, such as Love Notes, on positive youth development among urban youth, youth involved in the foster care and juvenile justice systems as well as immigrant and refugee youth, and 2) implementing and evaluating numerous organizational, workforce and practice interventions to improve outcomes, particularly reducing disproportionality and disparities in child welfare agencies across the nation. Her basic research focuses on romantic relationship initiation and the social support process in close relationships. She extended the social support research to the study of how people with HIV/AIDs sought and received support from professionals, friends and family and how social support is given by child welfare supervisors to their employees in the context of a stressful environment with exposure of all parties to traumatic events occurring in families. 

In 2003 Dr. Barbee received the UofL Outstanding Scholarship, Research and Creative Activity Award in the Social Sciences, in 2019 the UofL Distinguished Career of Service Award and in 2024 the UofL Wilson Wyatt Alumni Fellow Award as a graduate of the Kent School. She serves on the Editorial Boards of seven academic journals and is Fellow of four professional organizations including the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.  She was President-Elect (2016-2018), President (2018-2020) and Past President (2020-2022) of the International Association of Relationship Research (IARR). She is currently on the Board of Directors and Treasurer of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare. 

Dr. Barbee is Past President of the Junior League of Louisville and served on the Cabbage Patch Settlement House, Leadership Louisville, and Louisville Collegiate School boards. Anita and her husband and collaborator, Dr. Michael Cunningham,  a Professor at UofL’s Department of Communication, have  two sons, Robert (Harvard '12) and Benjamin Cunningham (UVa '16; HBS '23) and a daughter-in-law, Stephanie Coffua (UVa '16; Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism '22).

Research Interests

Healthy relationships are central to successful communities, organizations, groups, families and individual lives.

In order to ensure that the child welfare workforce serving vulnerable children and families across the nation does so in partnership, using a respectful, solution focused and TIC lens, Dr. Barbee and her collaborators engage systems in developing, adapting, implementing and evaluating child welfare casework practice models. In addition, they recently completed research on the efficacy of 10 workforce interventions including job redesign, Title IV-E education, selection testing, the selection process, onboarding, changing organizational culture and climate, enhancing supportive supervision, utilizing Resilience Alliance, examining telework, and use of technology to determine which ones reduce staff turnover and improve child outcomes.

In order to install interventions the team assesses the capacity of organizations to engage in major change efforts and works to ensure that the leadership is on board, the organization is healthy, and infrastructure and resources are in place to support implementation. This work is beginning to be applied to related workforces through the Center for Family and Community Well-Being directed by Dr. Barbee's collaborator, Dr. Becky Antle.

Finally, Dr. Barbee is currently working to prevent child maltreatment directly through the delivery and evaluation of Love Notes aimed at enhancing positive relationship and social support skills, reducing intimate partner violence, high risk sexual behavior, sexual coercion, the spread of disease, and pregnancy in youth who are disconnected from their homeland, society, family and peers.  She and her collaborators are also testting the efficacy of Mind Matters to address trauma in young people.  

Degrees and Certifications

Publications

All Scholarly and Creative Works