Claudia Kearney is a trainer with North Carolina State University’s Center for Family and Community Engagement. She has worked as a trainer for CFACE since 2009. Before joining the Center, she worked as a trainer and consultant with the Department of Health and Human Services (DSS Division) and the North Carolina Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Her work experience includes domestic violence advocacy and counseling, family group decision making and child and family team facilitation, family court mediation, family leadership program coordination, and curriculum development and delivery. As a family voice involved in family group decision making practices for the past 15 years, she brings a unique appreciation for how these practices engage families in determining culturally appropriate plans.
Ms. Kearney has been involved in developing and implementing curricula, providing technical assistance, and presenting to local and national audiences on family group decision making, cultural safety, domestic violence, military culture, and engaging fathers. Ms. Kearney developed a cultural safety training curriculum that highlights family group decision making processes as a mechanism for respectfully engaging families in the development of culturally relevant safety plans. A key part of this work has been to engage cultural guides to inform what respect would look like in their families and communities. She has presented the family’s perspective at both the state and national level on domestic violence, military culture, and how to work with families to restore safety within the context of their family cultures. She has been a key partner in both online webinars and in-person presentations discussing the topic of fathering after violence. She has partnered with the North Carolina Division of Social Services to develop training materials on domestic violence and how to engage non-residential fathers, with a focus on how to include fathers in a family’s meeting.
In 2014, Ms. Kearney was one of only five employees to receive the University Award for Excellence in recognition for the many contributions she has made to advancing the work of the center and demonstrating NCSU’s commitment to service.