Team Members
- Jamie-Lee Morris, BA
- Farrah Jacquez, PhD
- Michael Topmiller, PhD
Research Project Description
IRL Team Cincinnati used a place-based approach to organize residents in two Cincinnati neighborhoods, Carthage and Roselawn, to identify community priorities, highlight community assets, and develop interventions at multiple levels to promote a culture of wellness for young children in the area. The IRL Team Cincinnati created a community-academic partnership known as Communities Acting for Kids Empowerment (CAKE), which is made up of local advocates for child health and education including early childhood providers, parents of young children, and local social service providers. Using a community-based participatory research approach, the CAKE team conducted multiple research activities at the community, early childhood education provider, and family levels and developed contextually specific interventions that included youth summer and after-school music and arts programs at area churches and professional development workshops and trainings for early childhood education providers. The IRL Team Cincinnati also worked with the rest of the CAKE team to create a series of videos highlighting assets for young children in the two neighborhoods.
Watch the Team Video
Team Members
Jamie-Lee Morris, BA
Jamie-Lee Morris is the Poetry and Creative Futures Lead at Elementz Hip Hop Youth Center. She has significant experience organizing members of two church congregations in the Cincinnati neighborhoods of Carthage and Roselawn around early childhood issues and expanding early childhood education.
Farrah Jacquez, PhD
Farrah Jacquez is a licensed clinical psychologist and Associate Professor of Psychology. Her research focuses on working with communities to promote health equity. She partners with Latino immigrants in Cincinnati to develop health interventions. She also currently investigates the role of maternal lifetime stress in infant birth outcomes.
Michael Topmiller, PhD
Michael Topmiller is a geographer with the American Academy of Family Physicians. He has expertise in Geographic Information Systems (GIS), community based participatory research (CBPR) and working with diverse communities.
Issue Brief: Ohio
Improving Access to High-Quality Preschool in Cincinnati
