Carla Smith Stover, Ph.D.

Dr. Carla Smith Stover is an Assistant Professor and clinical psychologist in the department of Mental Health Law and Policy.  She is also the Principal Investigator for the USF Child Welfare Training Consortium.  Prior to joining the faculty at MHLP she was an Assistant Professor at the Yale University Child Study Center where she still holds an adjunct faculty appointment. She has extensive clinical experience with families impacted by trauma and domestic violence including police-mental health collaboration with the Child Development-Community Policing Program, early intervention, and longer term evidence based treatments including Trauma Focused-CBT and Child Parent Psychotherapy.  She has provided trainings in best practices and intervention for children exposed to trauma nationally.  She wass a faculty member for the Connecticut statewide Trauma Focused-CBT Learning Collaborative training clinicians and child protective services across the state in implementation of screening and assessment of trauma in children and TF-CBT.  She is also a master trainer in for the Child and Family Traumatic Stress Intervention (CFTSI) and has provided training and consultation across the country in this peritraumatic intervention model.  Dr. Stover has been the principal investigator on multiple studies examining the efficacy of outreach and intervention efforts for families impacted by domestic violence and other traumas. Dr. Stover was awarded a K23 grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse to develop and evaluate an intervention for fathers with co-occurring substance abuse and intimate partner violence histories that specifically targets their roles as fathers.  She has developed the program Fathers for Change and is currently conducting evaluation studies on both an outpatient and residential substance abuse implementation of the intervention. 

Dr. Stover is on the editorial board of the international journal Advances in Dual Diagnosis.  She also serves as the Co-Chair of the Family Systems Working Group of the National Child Traumatic Stress Network.