Expert

Lily Alpert

Senior Researcher

Impact Areas
Contact Information

Dr. Lily Alpert is a Senior Researcher at Chapin Hall. Her work focuses on research evidence use by child welfare agency administrators and the development of interventions that promote the adoption and diffusion of longitudinal methods in child welfare performance measurement. In addition to her research activities, Alpert is an instructor for Chapin Hall’s Advanced Analytics for Child Welfare Administration seminar. She is also a founding developer of and instructor for EDGE: Evidence Driven Growth and Excellence, Chapin Hall’s cohort-based, long-term research evidence use training program for child welfare managers. Additionally, Alpert is responsible for outreach and engagement efforts for Chapin Hall’s Center for State Child Welfare Data. In her technical assistance capacity, she works with public child welfare agencies to generate evidence about system performance, interpret that evidence, and apply it to continuous quality improvement efforts.

Alpert began her work at Chapin Hall in 2011 as a Harold A. Richman Postdoctoral Fellow. Prior to joining Chapin Hall, she worked as a senior policy analyst for the child welfare advocacy organization, Children’s Rights. Before that, she was a SRCD/AAAS Congressional Fellow in the office of then-Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, where she was responsible for the senator’s child welfare legislative portfolio.

Alpert earned her PhD in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Connecticut.

PhD in Human Development and Family Studies, University of Connecticut

Award for Outstanding Service (with Jennifer Miller Haight and Daniel Webster), University of California at Davis, Cooperative Extension, June 2016. In recognition of service to the Northern California Training Academy by way of child welfare training and education.

Lery, B., Haight, J. M., & Alpert, L. (2016). Four principles of big data practice for effective child welfare decision making. Journal of Public Child Welfare, 10(4), 466-474.

Wulczyn, F., Alpert, L., Monahan-Price, K., Huhr, S., Palinkas, L., & Pinsoneault, L. (2015). Research evidence use in the child welfare system. Child Welfare, 94(2), 141-165.

Wulczyn, F., Alpert, L., Orlebeke, B., & Haight, J. (2014). Principles, language, and shared meaning: Toward a common understanding of CQI in child welfare . Chicago, IL: The Center for State Child Welfare Data, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. Retrieved from: https://fcda.chapinhall.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2014-07-Principles-Language-and-Shared-Meaning_Toward-a-Common-Understanding-of-CQI-in-Child-Welfare.pdf

Alpert, L. (2013). Foster care utilization among school-age children. Chicago, IL: The Center for State Child Welfare Data, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. Retrieved from: https://fcda.chapinhall.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/multistate-school-year-summary_FINAL_FORMATTED.pdf

Key Work

Key Work

Project
Building Evidence on New York City’s Efforts to Provide Comprehensive Supports for Youth in Foster Care
This project examines whether New York City's Fair Futures Program is meeting its goals.
August 2, 2023
Report
Use of Research Evidence Leads to Faster Permanency for Youth in Foster Care
Research evidence is information that has been generated according to scientific principles and practices. The term research evidence use – or REU – refers to...
2015
Report
Toward a Common Understanding of CQI in Child Welfare
Today, child welfare agencies are taking stock of their capacity for Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) and thinking about how to build their capacity. These...
2014
Project
Building the Evidence that Evidence Use Matters
New study underway explores impact of a professional development intervention on use of evidence, placement permanency.
November 27, 2018
Project
The Center for State Child Welfare Data
The Center for State Child Welfare Data–or the Data Center–supports child welfare systems in more than 30 states to make evidence-based decisions designed to...
January 1, 2018