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Dipita Das - MDHHS Maternal Infant Health Program (2024-2026)
Modernizing Maternal and Infant Health Program Interventions
With support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Michigan Health Endowment Fund and in partnership with the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services (MDHHS), this fellowship is embedded in the Maternal Infant Health Program (MIHP), focusing on modernizing MIHP program interventions and assessing variations in quality of MIHP services.
MIHP Fellow Dipita Das’s main projects at MIHP are 1) Revamping MIHP interventions and plans of care: updating evidence base for MIHP’s interventions and plans of care, and helping MIHP improve processes for initial enrollment and assessment; 2) Analyzing MIHP agency quality data: exploring data collected from MIHP’s network of service providers to inform statewide quality improvement initiatives and/or innovative outreach methods.
Megan Jagolinzer - Detroit Public Schools Community District (2023 - 2025)
Expanding School-Based Mental Health Supports in Detroit
With support from a U.S. Department of Education’s Institute for Educational Studies grant, this fellowship is embedded within the Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) to support a YPL-led evaluation of the TRAILS Tier 2 Early Intervention curriculum as it is implemented across 75+ DPSCD school buildings. The Tier 2 Early Intervention Curriculum trains school mental health professionals on principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and mindfulness, so that school staff can equip students with skills to manage common mental health concerns such as depression and anxiety.
DPSCD Fellow Megan Jagolinzer works out of DPSCD Headquarters at the Fisher Building in Detroit, where she helps coordinate research activities between DPSCD, TRAILS, and YPL. When Megan is not busy traveling to DPSCD schools to support Tier 2 implementation and data collection activities for the evaluation project, she works closely with teams at DPSCD, YPL, and TRAILS to support the rollout of a new school-based mental health curriculum across over 70 DPSCD schools.
Sophie Ordway - MDLEO Office of Prosperity (2024-2026)
Improving Employment Outcomes for Justice Involved Michigan Residents
With support from the Michigan Justice Fund and the Public Welfare Foundation and in partnership with the Michigan Department of Labor & Economic Opportunity (MDLEO), this fellowship is embedded in the Office of Prosperity, focusing on improving employment outcomes for Michigan residents who have been involved in the criminal justice system.
MDLEO Justice Fellow Sophie Ordway’s main projects are: 1) Expanding access to apprenticeship programs: analyzing administrative data and conducting qualitative data collection to document access gaps and inequities, to inform strategies to expand participation in state-run apprenticeship programs; and 2) Supporting MDLEO’s strategic priorities around justice-involved individuals through Clean Slate process improvements and expanding housing access for justice-involved individuals.
Sam Owusu - MiLEAP Office of Early Childhood (2025-2027)
Supporting the Expansion of Michigan's Early Childhood Education System
As part of a partnership with the Michigan Department of Lifelong Education and Potential (MILEAP) and with support from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, this fellowship was designed to strengthen access, affordability, and quality within Michigan’s early childhood education system. Sam Owusu has been tasked with three key projects to support the State’s efforts to expand PreK for all students in Michigan:
- Early Childhood Data Landscape: Conduct a landscape analysis of Michigan’s early childhood education data and its governance structure.
- Coordinated Enrollment System: Research the barriers that the state would need to address as well as offer evidence-based recommendations for a successful rollout of a a coordinated enrollment system for early childhood services.
- Curriculum and Professional Development Alignment: Research preschool and kindergarten curriculum and best practices to identify policy and/or administrative changes to improve the transition between Pre-K and kindergarten.
Dimitri Przeslawski - MiLEAP Sixty by 30 (2024 - 2026)
Expanding Post-Secondary Educational Opportunities
With support from the Kresge Foundation, Ralph C Wilson, Jr Foundation, and the Ballmer Group, and in partnership with Michigan Lifelong Education, Advancement, and Potential (MiLEAP), this fellowship is embedded in the Office of Higher Education. Dimitri Przeslawski has been tasked with supporting efforts to expand post-secondary educational opportunities for Michigan residents.
Through this fellowship, Dimitri has developed a legislative report, highlighting successes of the Office of Higher Education, and drafted a data dashboard to improve information access. He has also examined data regarding community college participation with the corequisite model, through which community colleges provide opportunities for students to take pre-req courses at the same time as gateway courses. In addition, Dimitri has been analyzing data around transfer students in Michigan for those moving from two- to four-year institutions.
Kaj Althaus - State Court Administrative Office (2023- 2024)
In partnership with the Michigan Justice Fund and the Public Welfare Foundation, this fellowship was embedded within the State Court Administrative Office (SCAO), focusing on improving statewide data collection and risk/needs assessment practices for Michigan’s juvenile justice system. Michigan has a decentralized juvenile court system where individual counties have significant flexibility and control over how data is collected and used within their systems–meaning that there are many, often conflicting, data systems and definitions being used across counties. The goal of this fellowship was to help SCAO and local jurisdictions transition to a more communicative and robust statewide management system for juvenile justice data.
Kaj worked primarily with the Statistical Research team at SCAO, where he focused on improving data performance measures and recommending risk/needs assessment tools to be used in juvenile courts statewide. Kaj provided SCAO with analyses of juvenile financial assessment data (i.e., costs, fines, or refunds assessed to juveniles and their families throughout the court process), to provide a greater understanding of whether the use of these assessments are equitable and practical. He also conducted a landscape analysis of juvenile justice data in Michigan to inform recommendations for improvements in data collection practices and data definitions, and explored the various juvenile risk and needs assessments used in counties across the state to make recommendations on a single tool to be used statewide.
Ava Attari - MDLEO, Sixty by 30 (2019-2021)
Ava supported the state’s efforts to improve workforce development policies and programs, with a specific focus on navigating work requirements and reducing barriers to work for individuals accessing Medicaid, SNAP, and TANF benefits. In her first year, Ava was instrumental in the development of Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s Futures for Frontliners program, which launched September 2020. Futures for Frontliners is a first-of-its-kind scholarship program for Michigan residents who were frontline workers in essential industries during the COVID-19 pandemic. The program covers community college tuition costs for frontline workers to earn an associate degree or an industry-recognized certificate, as well as tuition-free high school completion courses and skills training for frontline workers. In its first week alone, Futures for Frontliners received over 40,000 applications from frontline workers seeking to advance their educational attainment. In her second year, Ava managed implementation of the Futures for Frontliners and Michigan Reconnect programs and advised the state on program evaluation strategies to measure the impact of Futures for Frontliners on educational attainment and community college retention.
Sara Elhasan - MDHHS, Home Visiting Unit (2022-2024)
With generous support from the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation, the Youth Policy Lab partnered with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) to host a fellow embedded in the Home Visiting Unit. The focus of this fellowship was to improve systems integration across Michigan’s evidence-based home visiting models for parents, infants, and young children. The fellow conducted research and data analysis to support state-led programs, gaining experience and exposure in the field as they assisted our state partners in strengthening their programs, policies, and processes.
Sara collaborated with the Home Visiting Unit to implement research and data-informed policies and program improvements, including evaluating Home Visiting programs to analyze gaps in service, and ongoing systems integration projects for MiBridges, 211, and Program Finder. Sara also led epidemiological and systems-based projects on the social determinants of health across Michigan, as well as needs assessments to inform expansions in home visiting among at-risk communities. This work was synthesized to develop reports, presentations, and policy briefs for the Youth Policy Lab, Home Visiting Unit, and external partners.
Adrianna High - MDHHS, Maternal and Infant Health Program (2022)
Adrianna was embedded in the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, where she worked with the Maternal Infant Health Program (MIHP) on strategic projects to improve the quality of and expand access to maternal-infant home visiting services in Michigan.
Sarah Ostyn - MDHHS, Maternal and Infant Health Program (2019 - 2021)
Sarah supported MDHHS’ efforts to improve maternal and infant health in Michigan. Within the Maternal Infant Health Unit at MDHHS, she focused on developing and implementing quality measurement strategies for the Maternal-Infant Health Program, Michigan’s largest evidence-based home visiting program for Medicaid-eligible pregnant individuals and their infants. In her first year, Sarah worked collaboratively with the department staff to streamline program documents and create a more equitable process for reviewing provider compliance with requirements of the home visiting model and Medicaid policies. In her second year, Sarah developed, piloted, and analyzed a quality measurement strategy for MIHP that is aligned with national best practices and quality strategies in use by other home visiting programs in the state of Michigan.
Aaron Sepulveda - MDLEO, Office of Prosperity (2021-2023)
With support from the Michigan Justice Fund and the Public Welfare Foundation, YPL established a fellowship to support the Office of Prosperity’s efforts to improve educational and economic outcomes for Michiganders transitioning out of the justice system. During Aaron Sepulveda's tenure in the role, he increased the state’s understanding of who was involved in the justice system in Michigan by creating a data profile of justice-involved Michiganders. He also developed an inventory of programs administered by various state agencies that directly or indirectly serve justice-involved Michiganders and offered recommendations for priorities for the state to pursue in support of the justice-involved community. His research of relevant legislation and benchmark programs across the country was valuable to the state to advance improved social policies and state programs.