The internationally recognized USF Family Study Center (FSC) is celebrating 20 years of ground-breaking research and novel community partnerships by scheduling a broad array of events for students, families and professionals throughout the year.
These events will recap some of the most important discoveries in the field of infant-family mental health over the past 20 years, bringing scholars from around the world to USF St. Petersburg, where the FSC is based, and celebrating many of the FSC’s major contributors and contributions.
The FSC introduced the concept of infant-family mental health to Pinellas County in 2004. Since then, it has been an epicenter for innovative programs supporting coparenting in a broad range of families and enabling the healthful development of infants and young children from the newborn period to age 3.
The anniversary celebration will launch Oct. 6 with a presentation by Carla Stover from the Yale University School of Medicine Child Study Center. The free public talk will be from 1 to 2:30 p.m. in the University Student Center Ballroom at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.
The event will be particularly special because it will pay tribute to Katherine McKay, one of the major contributors to the FSC’s mission over the past 20 years. McKay passed away in November of 2022 at age 53.
According to James McHale, the director of the FSC, McKay was the heartbeat of "Figuring It Out for the Child" (FIOC), a decade-long initiative that served scores of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County families. She was the lead clinical supervisor for more than 100 successfully delivered interventions with families in a Juvenile Welfare Board-sponsored pilot program and a Brady Education Foundation-funded field trial. Later, she assisted FSC in a comprehensive National Institutes of Health (NIH)-sponsored Randomized Controlled Trial that generated extraordinary coparenting, relationship, and infant mental health outcomes.
Each week, McKay consulted with a team of St. Petersburg-based paraprofessional mentors who brought the six-session FIOC intervention to area families. The team met every week throughout each year, including during the holiday season. According to McKay’s husband Byron, the couple’s now 20-year-old daughter Kaitlin, who is now a USF student, cannot recall a time when her mother was not supporting FIOC. Kaitlin fondly named the FIOC team “the Rashid people,” in honor of Rashid Mizell, long-time FSC staff member and mentor who joined FIOC at its inception and worked with McKay for more than a decade.
“Katherine was a remarkable leader who made an impression on everyone,” Mizell said. “Her guidance and encouragement were invaluable, and I am grateful for everything she taught me.”
Stover, who worked together with McKay for eight years providing safety screenings and assessments for FIOC families, described her as “a thoughtful and compassionate colleague who always made herself available to support staff, mentors, and families”.
McKay also collaborated on many published papers about FSC’s work over the years. In 2021, she served as lead spokesperson for a qualitative analysis of co-constructed coparenting narratives by expectant parents that appeared in the Journal of Black Psychology. The interview with McKay about the work is still accessible in a featured podcast.
Besides her supervisory role, McKay also served as the NIH study’s safety officer, partnering with Stover on safety planning. Subsequently, she accepted a similar role for the FSC's newest study, a five-year, $3.7 million grant awarded funded by the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) in 2020. McKay was the lead contributor and final signatory for the ACF project’s safety manual, ensuring that every element was finalized just weeks before her passing in November 2022.
“She worked deep into fall 2022 to assure all ‘i’s were dotted and ‘t’s crossed in the safety plan - quintessential Katherine,” McHale said. “She was an exceptional, extraordinary, irreplaceable colleague and human being. I am so happy we have occasion to thank her as we launch the FSC's 20th anniversary.”
The lecture on Oct. 6 by Stover is free and open to the public.
Virtual options are also available. Complimentary parking is available in the USF St. Petersburg parking facility. Pre-registration is requested.
Registration information can be found on the FSC website for the 20th anniversary event series. For more information, email FamilyStudyCenter20@usf.edu or call 727-873-4848.