Donna Van Alst is a doctoral student in social administration and social policy at the Columbia University School of Social Work. Her research interests focus primarily on understanding consumer experiences of social work services. One line of inquiry focuses on understanding how social work consumers experience participating in decisions about their care and the implication of such participation on consumer outcomes. Donna is also interested in consumer movements within social work (particularly peer-delivered services) and identifying characteristics of effective helping relationships as defined by social work consumers.

She has been involved with program evaluation and applied research for the past 10 years. Her work has focused on child welfare, early intervention for children with developmental disabilities, maternal and child health, substance abuse prevention, child abuse prevention, HIV/AIDS, community planning, social work training and family literacy.

Last updated July 01, 2009.