Cassandra Simmel
Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley
Bio
Cassandra Simmel is an Associate Professor and Director of the PhD Program at the School of Social Work at Rutgers University. She served as the Founding Director of the MSW Certificate on Promoting Child and Adolescent Well-being (ChAP) and as Interim Co-Director of the Center on Violence Against Women and Children in 2014.
Dr. Simmel’s scholarship focuses on adolescents involved with child-serving systems, in particular the child welfare and behavioral health systems. In her research, she seeks to understand adolescents’ complex behavioral health challenges and how such challenges intersect with involvement in child welfare systems. She is further interested in how adolescents navigate involvement with child welfare systems, including during the vulnerable period of departing child welfare oversight and transitioning to adulthood. Her research has been funded by Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), the New Jersey Department of Children and Families, Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) of New Jersey, Prevent Child Abuse of New Jersey, Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Silberman Foundation. Her published work has appeared in journals such as Child Maltreatment, Child Abuse and Neglect, Children and Youth Services Review, Child Development, Journal of Public Child Welfare, and Journal of Policy Practice.
In addition, Dr. Simmel currently serves as a Senior Research Advisor on the State and National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being (NSSCAW) with the Research Triangle Institute (RTI). Prior to this, she was Co-Investigator on the Leadership Team at RTI for the grant award: Preliminary Activities to Support Future Data Collection for NSCAW (National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-being), from 2021-2024. Both of these projects are funded by the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She is a member of the Social Policy Committee for the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR) and is a former member of the Violence Prevention Alliance (VPA) at the World Health Organization.
Dr. Simmel’s teaching focuses on child and youth policy, adolescent development, and adolescent mental health. She has earned two awards for her teaching (2010 & 2021). Dr. Simmel earned her MSW and PhD in social welfare and her BA in psychology from the University of California, Berkeley.
Courses Taught
- Advanced Contemporary Policy: Children and Youth
- Adolescents: Risk & Resilience
- Conceptual Foundations of Social Work and Social Welfare (Ph.D. seminar)
- Growing Up on The Wire: Exploring Adolescents’ Lives in Urban Settings (Byrne First Year Seminar)
Selected Recent Publications
Simmel, C., Bowden, C., Neese Todd, S., Thorp, K., Hyde, J., & Crystal, S. (2025) Youth in foster care: Highlighting the importance of youth engagement in mental health treatment decisions. Children and Youth Services Review. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2024.108094
Golden, K., Zhang, L, & Simmel, C. (2024). Examining the roles of rurality and Latine ethnic density on child maltreatment report and substantiation rates among Latine families: A county-level analysis. Journal of Public Child Welfare, 18(2), 309-337.
- Awarded the 2024 Winner of the Best Article of the Year Award by the JPCW Editorial Board
Getz, Z., Simmel, C., Greenfield, B., Zhang, L. (2022). "Short-stayers” in child welfare: Characteristics and system experiences. Children and Youth Services Review, 138, 106531.
Shpiegel, S., Simmel, C., Sapiro, B., & Ramirez Quiroz, S. (2022). Resilience among youth leaving foster care: Findings from the National Youth in Transition Database. Journal of Public Child Welfare 16(4), 427-450.
- Awarded Honorable Mention for Article of the Year, by the JPCW Editorial Board.
Zhang, L., Simmel, C., Nepomnyaschy, L. (2022). Income inequality and child maltreatment rates in US counties, 2009-2018. Child Abuse and Neglect, 130(4), 105238. Part 4 of Special Issue: The Rise of Economic Inequality and its Consequences for Child Protection.
Simmel, C., Bowden, C., Neese Todd, S., Hyde, J., & Crystal, S. (2021). Antipsychotic treatment for youth in foster care: Perspectives on improving youths’ experiences in providing informed consent. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 91(2), 258-270.
Simmel, C. & Kelly, V. (2020). Twenty years after the Foster Care Independence Act of 1999 (“Chafee”): What we know now about meeting the needs of teens and young adults. Child Welfare Special Issue, 97(6), vii-xvi.