Dr. Shantel Crosby
Associate Professor
Adverse childhood experiences negatively influence youth functioning and warrant system-wide, trauma-sensitive approaches in order to improve the wellbeing of high risk youth populations.
Dr. Shantel Crosby’s research focuses on wellbeing and adverse childhood experiences among youth who are court-involved or at risk of court-involvement, with emphasis on youth of color. She examines trauma and behavioral/socioemotional health among this population and explores trauma-informed responses to maladaptive youth behaviors. She is also interested in examining innovative practices and interventions across childserving systems that address negative youth behavior and trauma symptomatology.
Dr. Crosby is currently an evaluator for the Louisville Trauma Resilient Community (TRC) project, a 5-year grant funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The Louisville TRC is focused on providing culturally-appropriate, trauma-focused, clinical and system-level interventions in West and South Louisville to address community violence and race- based trauma. Dr. Crosby was previously the principal investigator for a project, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, exploring the school experiences of trauma-exposed students. This study examined focus group data from trauma- exposed high school to both understand their lived experiences to improve student well-being. Dr. Crosby has also partnered, as co-principal investigator, with faculty from the College of Education at the University of Louisville to pilot a trauma- informed curriculum for undergraduate teacher candidates to address the paucity of pre-service teacher training on childhood trauma.