Dani Adams is a social work researcher, advocate, and educator committed to improving the availability, accessibility, and quality of mental health services delivered in under resourced communities. 

She is currently an NIMH T32 Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Mental Health Services Research at the Brown School of Social Work and Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis.

She received her PhD and MSW at the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice at The University of Chicago. Using mixed methods, her dissertation assessed the real-world accessibility of outpatient mental health services for youth in community-based outpatient health agencies (e.g., community mental health centers and federally qualified health centers). Her dissertation found that only 17% of pseudo mothers could schedule an appointment, with the primary reasons for denials being administrative burdens and lack of capacity. Further, results indicate that discrimination may be occurring at the point of scheduling, as the Black and Latina caller were 20% more likely to be denied an appointment than the White caller and that evidence-based trauma-informed treatment was rarely available. Her dissertation was selected for the Kenneth Lutterman Award for Best Student Paper from the Mental Health Section of the American Public Health Association.

Dani’s research is motivated by her previous clinical experiences as a social worker in a Chicago Public High School and as a community mental health therapist. Her approach to research and practice is also informed by her experience as a low-income, first-generation college and graduate student from rural South Dakota. As a social work scholar with a balanced clinical and policy background, she examines the multilevel relationships involved in improving access to effective mental health services. She is committed to taking a community-partnered, participatory approach that includes relevant stakeholders in every step of the process, from the design of the study to the dissemination of findings.

She was previously a predoctoral T32 Fellow through The University of Chicago and Northwestern University (UCANU) Predoctoral Health Services Research (HSR) Program, funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. She has received funding for her research and community partnership from the Society for Social Work Research, the Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy, the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics, and Active Minds.