Faculty leaders

Kevin Allison, Ph.D., is an associate professor of child clinical and developmental psychology at VCU and fellow of the Grace E. Harris Leadership Institute. Dr. Allison’s research, teaching and service interests focus on understanding and supporting interventions that promote adaptive developmental outcomes for African-American children, adolescents and their families living in urban contexts. Dr. Allison is co-chair of the DataShare Richmond steering committee, a collaborative partnership working to develop resources that support the strategic use of data for community change. He is the interim facilitator and evaluation director for the East End Partnership with Families (EEPF), coordinated by the Grace E. Harris Leadership Institute and funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

In addition to his work with the Institute, Dr. Allison is the principal investigator of the recently awarded grant to develop a measure of Community Social Capital funded by the Aspen Roundtable. He is a member of the Carver-VCU Steering Committee and has served as the evaluator of the Carver-VCU Partnership funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He is currently co-investigator and evaluator on two drug prevention projects funded by the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention and serves as consultant on cultural and contextual factors for the Centers for Disease Control multi-site project on youth violence prevention. He serves as a member of Youth Matters’ Information and Evaluation Committee and also directs the Ujima Collaborative, the research arm of the Institute for African-American Research and Training.

In VCU’s Department of Psychology, Dr. Allison teaches courses in adolescent development, community psychology and cultural competence in clinical services. His research has focused in three areas: the psychosocial development of African-American adolescents living in urban contexts, facilitative college experiences for under-represented student groups, and examining training programs which prepare clinicians for work with diverse populations.

Dr. Allison received his doctorate in clinical community psychology from DePaul University in Chicago and completed his clinical internship at Children’s Hospital in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the faculty at VCU, Dr. Allison was the clinical director of City Lights, a day treatment program for adolescents begun by the Children’s Defense Fund and served as a faculty member in the child clinical doctoral training program at Penn State.