Jackie Counts, MSW, Ph.D

Director

Jackie Counts, MSW, Ph.D

Director

Jackie is our activator, sparking ideas and inspiring us toward action and solutions. She keeps our work focused and on track, but isn’t confined by linear thinking. Some of her most outside-of-the box ideas come to her while hiking or doing CrossFit. Before returning to the University of Kansas to lead CPPR, Jackie was the Region VII Project Officer for the Early Childhood Health and Development Branch of the Maternal Child Health Bureau of Health Resources and Services Administration. Jackie has been the principal investigator on numerous early childhood, systems-building, accountability and evaluation projects, including the Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems evaluation, Project LAUNCH, Community-based Child Abuse and Neglect, Links to Quality (Quality Recognition System) several National Governors Association early childhood grants, and others. She was a co-founder of Lemonade for Life, a program designed to support professionals in using ACEs research to build hope and resilience with families. She is drawn to complexity theory and applying it to understand and address complex social problems such as child maltreatment, poverty, and trauma. Currently, she is learning and using complexity tools to work with communities and lift up their voices and perspectives. When not at work, Jackie likes to live in flannel and read or plan adventures with her husband and two sons. Her mantra of “leave it better than you found it” applies to her work at CPPR and in her community. She serves as the president of the board of the local community shelter. Jackie takes inspiration from the book The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible (Eisenstein, 2013). She is comfortable living in the space of uncertainty and taking risks that sometimes lead to failure. She likes to be surrounded by others who want to leave the world a better place and strives to help others find their purpose on this planet.

Our Team