Caroline Mavridis

Assistant Research Professor of HDFS, Associate Director of the CHHD

HDFS

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Professional Interests

• The role of cultural context in parenting and children’s development
• Mothers’ beliefs and experiences related to motherhood, self-care and well-being
• Evaluation of training programs for frontline family service workers and leaders, and effects on self-care, well-being, and job satisfaction, as well as organizational culture and climate

I am trained in cultural anthropology and human development. My research focuses on mixed methods approaches to the study of:  1) parenting and parent experiences across cultures; and 2) self-care, support, and well-being among people in caregiving and supportive roles, particularly new mothers and family service providers. As part of the CHHD team, and in my own research, I collaborate with community organizations like the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood. The article “Family workers, stress, and the limits of self-care” (Mavridis, Harkness, Super, & Liu, 2019) illustrates the impact of having multiple work and personal stresses on engagement in self-care practices. I have continued exploring experiences of family service providers through a study of clinical supervisors’ experiences of, and adaptations to, remote program operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.

I am part of the National Family Development Credential ® Program (“FDC”) team, a nationwide staff training program headquartered at the CHHD. I am a certified instructor of both the 90-hour “Empowerment Skills for Frontline Workers” course as well as the 30-hour “Empowerment Skills for Leaders” series, and I co-facilitate training to certify new FDC instructors from across the US. Since 2008, I have also served as program manager and co-instructor of the CT Family Development Credential Program, in collaboration with the Office of Early Childhood. 

New manuscript!

Supervising Home Visitors at a Distance: Challenges and Adaptations during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This manuscript is currently submitted for review. This work was funded by the CHHD Faculty Seed Grant Program (2020, award: $5000.00). We give heartfelt thanks to our collaborators at the Office of Early Childhood, particularly personnel in the Family Support Division (Ashley McAuliffe, Family Support Division Director, and Haley Scott-DeClerck, Primary Prevention Services Coordinator) for their assistance in connecting with supervisors, constructing measures, and providing critical feedback for this manuscript. Our gratitude goes most of all to the clinical supervisors themselves, including both those who could, and those who could not, take part in our study, for their unwavering dedication to families and home visitors.   

Recent CHHD-based publications

Carvalheiro, D., Harkness, S., Super, C. M., & Mavridis, C. (2023). Cultural Models of Parent-School Involvement: A Study of African American, Caribbean, and Hispanic Parents and Teachers in an Urban U.S. School District. The School Community Journal, 33(2), 175–203. 

van Schaik, S. D. M., Mavridis, C., Harkness, S., De Looze, M., Blom, M. J. M., & Super, C. M.(2020). Getting the baby on a schedule: Dutch and American mothers’ ethnotheories and the establishment of diurnal rhythms in early infancy. In S. Harkness & C. M. Super (Eds.), Cross-Cultural Research on Parents: Applications to the Care and Education of Children. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development,2020: 170, 13–41. 

Harkness, S., Super, C.M., Bonichini, S., Bermudez, M.R., Mavridis, C., van Schaik, S.D.M., Tomkunas, A., & Palacios, J. (2020). Parents, preschools, and the developmental niches of young children: A study in four Western cultures. In S. Harkness & C. M. Super (Eds.), Cross-Cultural Research on Parents: Applications to the Care and Education of Children. New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development, 2020: 170, 113-141. 

Mavridis, C., Harkness, S., Super, C.M., & Liu, J.L. (2019).  Family workers, stress, and the limits of self-care.  Children and Youth Services Review, 103, 236-246. 

Mavridis, C., & Lorenzo, P. (2018). Time management: Managing case notes and paperwork. Training materials developed for the Maternal and Infant Early Childhood Home Visiting Program Innovation Award Video Modules (Sponsor: The CT Office of Early Childhood).