David and Mary Winton Green Professor, Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice
The University of Chicago
Curtis McMillen focuses on improving mental health services for children and youth in foster care. These efforts include, developing and testing interventions for youth in the foster care system; helping youth develop emotion regulation capacities; developing and testing ways to de-escalate upset people in the midst of an emotion episode; and helping social service agencies develop their capacities to better use data. He also teaches core courses in the master's curriculum including Social Intervention-Direct Practice I and II, Human Behavior in the Social Environment, and Research Methods. He teaches an advanced practice course, Behavioral and Cognitive Interventions for Children and Families, and an advanced research course, Performance Management.
McMillen has piloted and implemented a blended intervention for foster youth and their caregivers called Handling Intense Emotions. He has worked in residential, in-patient psychiatric care, foster care and treatment foster care programs. In 2014 he was elected to the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.
He received his BA in Psychology from Trinity University, his MSW from the University of Oklahoma, and a PhD in Social Work from the University of Maryland Baltimore. He joined the Crown Family School faculty in January 2011 and formerly served as the Deputy Dean for Curriculum.