Kauai A. Taylor is a Master’s candidate at the Columbia School of Social Work, pursuing an Advanced Clinical Practice track. She has dedicated the last 8 years to engaging with youth in Los Angeles through several art-based interventions, including as a teaching artist with Agency Arts, a performing arts program for formerly incarcerated & system impacted youth. Currently, she is involved with an early diversion program in Harlem that offers restorative justice for low-level offenses as an alternative to criminal punishment. Her passion for exploring non-traditional intervention practices has led to her interest in understanding the ways in which social workers can provide interventions through social media.
She graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2017, earning her degree in Psychology. Her research interest focuses on exploring complex traumas experienced by youth of color in low-income communities, and its impacts on their mental health. She is dedicated to increasing intersectional perspective in mental health care to produce more effective intervention approaches within low SES communities.