Dana K. Smith, Ph.D.

Research Scientist
Oregon Social Learning Center

Primary research and clinical interests

Dana K. Smith, Ph.D., is a research scientist on the Trauma and Delinquency (OSLC Community Programs), Preventing Drug Abuse & HIV/AIDS in Delinquent Youths, Pathways to Adjustment and System Use in Young Adulthood, and The Middle School Success Project. She began her employment at the Oregon Social Learning Center in 1993 as a research assistant on the LIFT project. She began work on the Girls and Girls II grants in 1996, where her work focused on prevention and intervention with adolescent female delinquent populations. She also works as a research scientist and clinician through the OSLC Community Programs on the Young Women in Transition (WIT) project, which is aimed at developing and implementing an intervention to assist adolescent female youths who are referred from the juvenile justice system in managing the transition from out-of-home care back to the community. She is also involved in work through TFCC, where her work has focused on the dissemination and replication of the Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care model.

Selected publications

Kim, H. K., Pears, K. C., Leve, L. D., Chamberlain, P. C., & Smith, D. K. (in press).Intervention effects on health-risking sexual behavior among foster care girls: The role of placement disruption and substance use. Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse.

Saldana, L., Smith, D. K., & Weber, E. (in press). Adolescent onset of maternal substance abuse: Descriptive findings from a feasibility trial. Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse.

Smith, D. K., Chamberlain, P., & Deblinger, E. (in press). Adapting Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care for the treatment of co-occurring trauma and delinquency in adolescent girls. Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma.

Smith, D. K., & Saldana, L. (in press). Trauma, delinquency, and substance use: Co-occurring problems for adolescent girls in the juvenile justice system. Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse.

Leve, L. D., Kim, H., Smith, D. K., Chamberlain, P. C. (2012). Chapter 35: Female juvenile offenders. In E. L. Grigorienko (Ed.), Handbook of Forensic Psychology and Psychiatry (pp. 555–568). New York: Springer

Leve, L. D., Chamberlain, P., Smith, D. K., & Harold, G. T. (2011). Chapter 9: Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care as an intervention for juvenile justice girls in out-of-home care.In S. Miller, L. Leve, & P. Kerig (Eds.), Delinquent girls: Contexts, relationships, and adaptation (pp. 147–160). New York: Springer Press.

Smith, D. K., Leve, L. D., & Chamberlain, P. C. (2011). Preventing internalizing and externalizing problems in girls in foster care as they enter middle school: Immediate impact of an intervention. Prevention Science, 12, 269–277. PMC3137664

Smith, D. K., & Chamberlain, P. (2010). Multidimensional treatment foster care for adolescents: Processes and outcomes. In J. R. Weisz & A. E. Kazdin (Eds.), Evidence-based psychotherapies for children and adolescents (2nd ed., 243-258). New York: Guilford Press.

Smith, D. K., Chamberlain, P., & Eddy, J. M. (2010). Preliminary Support for Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care in Reducing Substance Use in Delinquent Boys. Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse, 19, 343–358.  PMC: 2953863

Smith, D. K., & Fisher, P. A. (2008). The impact of trauma on family systems. In G. Reyes, J. D. Elhai, & J. D & Ford (Eds.). Encyclopedia of psychological trauma (277-278). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.

Smith, D. K., Johnson, A. B., Pears, K. C., Fisher, P. A., & DeGarmo, D. S. (2007). Child maltreatment and foster care: Unpacking the effects of prenatal and postnatal parental substance use, Child Maltreatment, 12, 150–160.

Chamberlain, P., Leve, L. D., & Smith, D. K. (2006). Preventing behavior problems and health-risking behaviors in girls in foster care. International Journal of Behavioral and Consultation Therapy, 4, 518–530.

Smith, D. K., Leve, L. D., & Chamberlain, P. (2006). Adolescent girls' offending and health-risking sexual behavior: The predictive role of trauma. Child Maltreatment, 11, 346–353.

Chamberlain, P., & Smith, D. K. (2005). Multidimensional treatment foster care: A community solution for boys and girls referred from juvenile justice. In E. D. Hibbs & P. S. Jensen (Eds.), Psychological treatment for child and adolescent disorders: Empirically based strategies for clinical practice (Vol. 2nd edition, pp. 557–573). Washington, DC: APA.

Smith, D. K. (2004). Risk, reinforcement, retention in treatment and reoffending for boys and girls in Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 12(1), 38–48.

Smith, D. K., Sprengelmeyer, P., & Moore, K. J. (2004). Parenting and antisocial behaviour. In M. Hoghughi & N. Long (Eds.), SAGE handbook of parenting: Theory, research, and practice (pp. 237–255). London: SAGE.

Chamberlain, P., & Smith, D. K. (2003). Antisocial behavior in children and adolescents: The Oregon multidimensional treatment foster care model. In A. E. Kazdin & J. R. Weisz (Eds.), Evidence-based psychotherapies for children and adolescents (pp. 282–300). New York: Guilford Press.

Smith, D. K. (2002). Gender differences in behavior change during treatment with chronically delinquent youth (Doctoral dissertation, University of Oregon, 2002). Ann Arbor, MI: ProQuest Information and Learning Company. (UMI No. 3045095).

Smith, D. K., Stormshak, E., Chamberlain, P., & Bridges Whaley, R. (2001). Placement disruptions in treatment foster care. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 9, 200–205.