Melissa Lippold, PhD, a faculty fellow at the UNC Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute (FPG), is an associate professor at the UNC School of Social Work. Her research focuses on parent-child relationships during adolescence and falls into three broad domains: 

• the role of parenting in preventing youth risky behavior and mental health challenges; 
• family stress and coping and parent and youth health; and 
• influences on parenting.

Her work informs the development of family-based interventions to strengthen family relationships and promote adolescent and parent well-being. She has contributed to several large-scale intervention studies including the PROSPER project, the Work, Family, Health project, and the Strengthening Families program.

Lippold leads national efforts to promote prevention science in social work. She co-leads the Social Work Grand Challenge, “Ensure Healthy Development for Youth” and serves on the steering committee of the Coalition for the Promotion of Behavioral Health. Her interests in prevention originate from direct practice experience working with children and families. Additionally, she has partnered with state policymakers and administrators to assess policies and programs related to children and families.

As part of our FPG Faculty Fellow profile series, we recently spoke with Lippold to learn about her professional journey, what keeps her motivated, and what being a faculty fellow at FPG means to her. Here’s what she had to say.

Tell us about your professional journey—what led you to the work you do? 

I began my career as a social worker in a mental health treatment program with children involved with the child welfare system. Many of the children and their families that I worked with wanted and likely could have benefitted from earlier support and resources—before they ever became involved with social service systems. And, not only that, earlier support may have prevented the family’s system involvement in the first place—and prevented some of the mental and behavioral health challenges in children and families that I was observing.  

As a result of this work, I became very interested in prevention—and how we can better support children and families to prevent mental and behavioral health challenges. I also became interested in how we can use science and data to inform and develop programs that can help reduce risk for mental and behavioral health challenges for adolescents and their parents. Over time, I also became interested in physiological stress processes and physical health outcomes as well.  

We heard that you have a new project funded by the National Institutes of Health—could you tell us about that new project?

Project Nest (New Experiences during School Transitions) just launched this fall, and my team and I are very excited about this project.  We are examining how child stress during school transitions affects parents’ cardiovascular health. We’re also studying how child stress has these impacts—for example how sleep, parent-child conflict, and parents’ thoughts and emotions impact whether parents are affected by child stress. 

There has been a substantial amount of research about how children are affected by parents’ behavior. Yet, we know much less about how children’s experiences affect their parents’ health and well-being. Parents need support, too. We hope this study can inform the development of programs to improve parent’s cardiovascular health. 

This work is in collaboration with other scientists at the University of Georgia (Katherine Ehrlich, PhD, and Tianyi Yu, PhD) and Penn State University (David Almeida, PhD, and Soomi Lee, PhD).

What else are you working on right now? 

I also have several studies in process on parenting LGBTQ+ youth—with UNC colleagues Will Hall, PhD and Roger Mills-Koonce, PhD, who is also a faculty fellow at FPG, and Jessica Fish, PhD, at University of Illinois). LGBTQ+ youth are at high risk for mental health struggles. Parents are one of the strongest influences on LGBTQ youth mental health and can really help their children. Yet there has been limited research on the specific ways parents can affirm and support their children. We’re trying to fill that gap.  

What keeps you motivated in your work?

I’m motivated by improving the health of adolescents and their parents. Being a teenager and raising a teenager can be wonderful—and it can also be stressful. In the era of social media, we often only see images of people thriving. Yet, many parents (and teens) are struggling and want support. I hope our work can inform the development of future programs to provide support to parents. 

What do you find most challenging about your work?

The current funding environment is challenging. We are very grateful to the NIH for supporting our work during this time. 

What does being an FPG faculty fellow mean to you? 

It’s wonderful to learn from other colleagues who share a desire to improve child and parent health. Community is so important in research. I learn more and do better work because I am surrounded by people with a shared passion for improving the lives of children and families. 

Is there anything else you'd like our readers to know about your work?

More information is available on our work at our team’s website.