Background
Lisa Sanetti is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology within the Neag School of Education. Her primary area of research relates to implementation science, specifically how interventions are implemented in schools. Prior to working in school psychology, Sanetti had worked in a clinical setting for kids with very significant mental health issues. “It was really evident that very few youth were able to access that specialty care for reasons related to insurance, transportation, and knowledge of healthcare systems. I was really inspired to work in schools where all students are” says Sanetti. She then made the switch to work in a school setting as a consultant to address social, emotional, and behavioral challenges before joining UConn as a faculty member and researcher in the school psychology program.
Sanetti’s work on assessing implementation and how to support educators in implementing interventions led to her current research on teacher stress and wellbeing. “One of the things I recognized was how influential teachers’ wellbeing was in influencing their ability to implement high quality instruction or behavioral intervention for students in the classroom,” says Sanetti. “Initial data show that teacher stress levels are the number one predictor of whether teachers will stay in the field. We know that we lose most of our teachers within their first five years of teaching. So it’s a pretty high turnover, and if we can help to prevent that, I think we would be in a much better place in education.”
Involvement with CSCH
Sanetti has been part of CSCH since its inception, serving to help develop the initial proposal and continuing today as a steering committee member. She was drawn to CSCH because of the idea of “serving kids as whole beings.” Joining the steering committee was an “exciting opportunity to work with people from other disciplines, and be able to get at the root cause of why I got into the field in the first place,” she says.
Fun Fact
Sanetti likes to hike with her kids in the mountains of New England.