Educational/Professional Background

Dr. Tamara Fuller received her bachelor's degree in Psychology from the University of Iowa in 1989. She then came to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and earned both an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Clinical/Community Psychology. After a clinical internship at the Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development in Washington, DC, she returned to Champaign-Urbana and worked at Carle Hospital in the neuropsychology department. Dr. Fuller joined the staff at the Children and Family Research Center at the School of Social Work in 1997 as a research specialist. She became Associate Director of the Children and Family Research Center in 2003, and was promoted to Director in 2010.

Research/Practice Interests

Dr. Fuller's research focuses on children and families involved in the public child welfare system and the effectiveness of the services and interventions that are provided to families once they become involved in a maltreatment investigation. Over the past decade, she has evaluated the effectiveness of numerous child welfare programs, including the Family-Centered Services, the Child Endangerment Risk Assessment Protocol, the Illinois Child Death Review Teams, post-adoption services, and most recently, Differential Response in child protective services. Within this program of research, there has been emphasis on examining predictors of maltreatment and maltreatment recurrence.

Dr. Fuller was the Principal Investigator of a four-year evaluation, funded by the National Quality Improvement Center on Differential Response in Child Protective Services, which evaluated the implementation and effectiveness of Differential Response in Illinois.

Current Projects

Dr. Fuller is the Principal Investigator of the research and evaluation programs of the Children and Family Research Center. Each year, the Center, in consultation with the Department of Children and Family Services and the plaintiff's attorneys for the B.H. Consent Decree, is responsible for monitoring the outcomes for children in or at risk in foster care in Illinois. Other research projects within the Center's research agenda include annual evaluation of the impact of safety assessment on children investigated for child abuse and neglect, an examination of the impact of foster parent licensing on child safety, and family engagement in child protective services.

Along with the team of researchers and analysts at CFRC, Dr. Fuller is currently involved in evaluating children’s healthcare services in Illinois and the creation of a predictive risk model for child welfare services.