Nia West-Bey

Nia West-Bey is a senior policy analyst with CLASP’s Youth Policy team. Her work is focused on youth and young adult mental health, strategies to support young, low-income parents of color as well as girls and young women of color. She is a community psychologist with expertise in youth development, qualitative and quantitative data interpretation and analysis, and the intersection of psychology, social policy, and program evaluation. Prior to joining CLASP, Dr. West-Bey co-founded and spent 10 years as executive director of a community-based nonprofit organization offering youth development programming to young people in foster care in Washington, D.C. Through this work, she had the opportunity to learn and experience how national and local policy impacts disconnected youth. Dr. West-Bey earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. in community psychology from New York University and completed her undergraduate degree at Swarthmore College.