Marilyn R. (Lynn) McDonald

Marilyn R. (Lynn) McDonald is Director and Principal Investigator of Families and Schools Together (FAST). She is also a senior scientist at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, School of Education, University of Wisconsin–Madison.

McDonald is co-principal Researcher of a $2.9 million National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) five-year grant to study the application of FAST within ethnically specific groups. McDonald was previously the principal researcher of a five-year $1.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Center for Substance Abuse Prevention. Grants from the DeWitt Wallace Reader's Digest Foundation and the Kraft Corporation have helped to disseminate FAST nationally. She was a tenure track faculty member in Social Work at University of Wisconsin–Madison from 1975 to 1987. She also holds a clinical faculty appointment in the University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Psychiatry.

Families and Schools Together (FAST)

Families and Schools Together (FAST) was set up to help to build multiple layers of protective factors around at-risk children - including intensive parental involvement - and also promotes students' resilience in adversity and reduction of long-term negative outcomes. Its research-based activities bring families into the school for weekly meetings.

FAST appears to have dramatically increased parental involvement in children's educational success in 25 states, and across diverse ethnic and socio-economic groups, although predominantly in low-income families.

External links

• FAST website

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Name	Macdonald, Marilyn R.
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