Allison Meisch

Allison Meisch is a developmental psychologist with 20 years of experience in quantitative and qualitative methods, program evaluation, applied research, and technical assistance. She designs and conducts rigorous evaluations and applied research in home visiting programs, two-generation programs, child welfare systems, and early care and education settings. She also has expertise providing technical assistance and disseminating evaluation processes and findings.

As project director of the National Home Visiting Resource Center, Meisch leads a team to collect national home visiting data and disseminate comprehensive information about home visiting to varied audiences. She directs the Formative Evaluation of the FOCUS+ for Fathers Program, a project that examines the effectiveness of a fatherhood curriculum and mentoring program for fathers involved with the child welfare system. Meisch is designing a rigorous evaluation for the Evaluability Assessment and Technical Assistance to Expand Generation Hope project and provides technical assistance and evaluation capacity building support to the Expanding the Evidence: Building Evaluation Capacity project.

Meisch has experience contributing to the growing knowledge of trauma-informed approaches. For the Chosen Care 501 project, she directs a cost and outcomes study of a program offering trauma-informed services to families of children who have experienced abuse or neglect. As a senior researcher on the Trauma-Informed Approaches: Connecting Research, Policy, and Practice to Build Resilience in Children and Families project, Meisch coordinated and led an expert convening of national experts on trauma-informed approaches. Other past work includes technical assistance provision for home visiting awardees, a rigorous outcome evaluation of an intervention designed to reduce length of stay in foster care, a pilot study of a toolkit that helps two-generation programs develop data governance plans, an evaluation of a facilities improvement program for early care and education and afterschool programs, and technical assistance provision to the U.S. Virgin Islands for a childcare quality improvement rating system.

Meisch received a Ph.D. in human development from the University of Maryland.