Austin Griffiths is an Associate Professor at Western Kentucky University, having previously worked in child and adult protective services for Kentucky’s Cabinet for Health and Family Services. Dr. Griffiths received his Bachelor of Arts in Sociology and his Master of Social Work at Western Kentucky University. He earned his Ph.D. in Social Work from the University of Kentucky, where his dissertation focused on the health consequences associated with working in child welfare. Dr. Griffiths is the Director of WKU’s LifeSkills Center for Child Welfare Education and Research, and involved in a number of child welfare projects focused on practice, training, workforce development, and advocacy. He is the co-author of Child Welfare and Child Protection: An Introduction and the Principal Investigator of the Child Welfare Analytics Collaborative, a partnership between Western Kentucky University and Kentucky's Cabinet for Health and Family Services.