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Topic: Children/Youth Issues

Larry Curry

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Larry Curry, Ph.D., LCSW, CAC III is a licensed Clinical Social Worker, and a former professor in the Department of Social Work at Metropolitan State University Denver. He is a national and international speaker trainer and presenter in the areas of child welfare, family preservation service and addictive behaviors. He also specializes in domestic and internal adoptions, and cross cultural adoptions.

He is also the Founder/CEO and Clinical Director for The Curry Center, LLC located in Aurora Colorado. This agency operates as a private outpatient mental health clinic, offering in home services to some of the most troubled families and children within the Denver/ Aurora communities.

Annie Butler

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Lynann “Annie” Butler is a professor in the Human Services Department and interim chair of the Rita and Navin Dimond Department of Hotel Management at Metropolitan State University of Denver. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), a Certified Addictions Counselor Level III and received a bachelor’s degree in Psychology at Colorado State University and a master’s degree in Counseling from the University of Colorado at Denver.

She founded Professional Counseling Services, Inc. in Denver in 2002, providing a six-week intervention program for students facing suspension from high schools in five different school districts. She has worked in the field since 1991, and has shared her “wisdom, mistakes and humor with students” at MSU Denver since 2002. In 2012, she was the Human Services nominee for the US Professor of the Year Award, and has also received the Teaching Excellence Award from the Faculty Senate at MSU Denver.

On her recent sabbatical, she traveled to Laos to research Hmong refugees and the Hmong Cultural Center in St. Paul, MN, the largest comprehensive museum about the “secret war” in Southeast Asia, which began in 1963. She has recently completed and submitted Walking With Tigers, a book about a Hmong refugee whom she first met while recruiting guest speakers for her classroom.

Jennifer Bolton

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Jennifer Bolton, Ph.D., RDN, CLC, is a professor in the Department of Nutrition at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Her areas of expertise encompass school nutrition, infant and childhood feeding, prenatal nutrition, breastfeeding, initiating solids, promoting healthy foods for children, childhood obesity and trans-fat. She currently teaches Lifecycle Nutrition in the graduate program as well as Maternal and Child Nutrition, Introduction to Nutrition, and Medical Nutrition Therapy I and II in the undergraduate program. Her research is centered around infant feeding, childhood obesity, breastfeeding best practices, and medical nutrition therapy as well as the prevention of neural tube defects in developing countries.

In addition to teaching, Bolton currently works as a Clinical Dietitian at HealthONE as well as a Registered Dietitian for Project Wellness 365. She holds a Certified Lactation Counselor certification, further contributing to her multifaceted engagement in the field of nutrition and health.

Bolton earned a Doctorate in Food Science and Human Nutrition from Colorado State University, a Master’s in Nutrition from Illinois State University, and a Bachelors of Science from Arizona State University.

Jo Daugherty Bailey

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Jo Daugherty Bailey, Ph.D., is a professor and program director of Master of Social Work program in the Department of Social Work at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

She joined MSU Denver in January 2013, after teaching as a faculty member at University of Houston-Downtown for over 10 years. Bailey has social work practice experience in adoption, clinical program research and grants management.

Her current research projects include analyses of policy and services for children without parental care in Eastern Europe, models of supervision, and undocumented migrants’ experiences. She has co-written journal articles, including most recently “The Threatening Troika of Populism, Nationalism, and Neoliberalism” in 2018 and “Sobresalir: The Undocumented Experience” in 2016.

Bailey received her doctorate and Master of Social Work from University of Houston and a master’s in sociology from University of Houston-Clear Lake.

Lisa Badanes

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Lisa Badanes, Ph.D., is a professor and the chair of the Department of Psychological Sciences at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Badanes has been teaching since 2010. She previously worked as an instructor at Colorado State University and University of Denver. In addition, Badanes worked as a research associate at DU and a postdoctoral fellow at Developmental Psychobiology Research Group before joining MSU Denver. She is chair of the Institutional Review Board at MSU Denver.

Badanes has published many co-authored articles on her research including most recently for Early Childhood Research Quarterly titled “Evidence for a physiologic home-school gap in children of Latina immigrants.” Her research addresses the ways in which the experience of early life stress influences current life stress, depression/anxiety and academic success in college students. She has given many presentations on her research and areas of expertise both nationally and internationally.

Badanes received her doctorate and masters in developmental psychology from University of Denver in 2009 and 2006 respectively and a bachelor’s in psychology from University of Vermont, Burlington in 2001.

Kristen Atkinson

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Kristen Atkinson, Ph.D., is a lecturer in the Department of Social Work at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Her areas of expertise include positive youth development, community youth development, youth civic engagement, youth leadership development and participatory research. She teaches in the undergraduate and graduate programs, mostly overseeing clinical work.

Prior to teaching at MSU Denver, Atkinson taught a social research course to incoming graduate social work students at DePaul University. She was also a technical assistant in the College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago for a project called “Permanency Enhancement Project: A Community Initiative to Address Racial Disproportionality in Child Welfare.” Atkinson was also a graduate research assistant in the same department for nearly five years. She still works there as a visiting assistant professor teaching graduate courses mainly in Youth Development Theory, Participatory Action Research, and Program Development. In fall 2012, Atkinson coordinated the annual Youth Development Summit, a one-day conference for youth development professionals. She has served as a member of the Board of Directors at the Chicago Freedom School. Atkinson is currently a member of The Council on Social Work Education, The Association for Community Organization and Social Administration, and the Society for Research on Adolescence.

She has published her work titled “Trauma-Informed Care and Youth Development.” Her most recent research was a participatory research study at the Chicago Freedom School. It explores youth participation in a liberatory education program and the development of activism around social justice issues.

Atkinson received her doctorate in Social Work from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2012, a Master of Social Work from San Francisco State University in 2003 and a bachelor’s in Social Work from Eastern Michigan University in 2000.

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