How one new Auburn graduate plans to revolutionize child mental health system

After decades of building a career, raising a family and running a nonprofit, Sheila Sjolseth found herself at a crossroads.

Five years ago, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Texas native packed up her husband and two young boys and moved to Alabama to pursue a doctorate at Auburn University’s Graduate School.

It was a bold step that paid off this past weekend when Sjolseth earned her degree in Human Development and Family Science (HDFS) from the College of Human Sciences.

Family will always be her driving force, because without the unwavering support of her own, Sjolseth said, returning to school at age 45 would have been impossible. However, her decision was more than personal growth.

“In short, I went back to school to revolutionize the child mental health system,” she said.

That ambitious goal was born from what Sjolseth witnessed while working in special education and her nonprofit. She loved helping families, but even her guidance wasn’t enough to help them overcome the steep challenge of accessing mental health services.

Sjolseth reviewed information over a three-year period in Dallas and found that the number of students receiving services for anxiety and depression had increased by 315 percent.

“It was more than just families not understanding the system,” she said. “There was a deeper, systemic issue.”

The questions multiplied for Sjolseth, and only one answer emerged.

“I had a strong base for a lot of things, but I didn’t have a theoretical piece,” she said. “I needed stronger prowess to understand families, how to consume the research and how to produce it. If I’m going to figure out the system, I had to go back to school.”

It had been nearly 20 years since Sjolseth was a student, having earned a master’s in teaching and learning from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. At Auburn, she embraced the chance to learn again. In addition to her required classes in HDFS, she took classes in education, Liberal Arts and business.

“I don’t like sitting in a silo, and I’m a big nerd,” she said. “I want to bring all the knowledge together.”

Sjolseth’s dissertation focused on the caregiver experience of bringing a teenager home from acute psychiatric hospitalization, mapping the fragile transitions between hospital, outpatient care and school. She discovered that parents often felt isolated, unsure how to talk about their struggles or access help.

This led to a parallel study on disclosure: how families decide what to share and with whom. Sjolseth called these “hinge points,” critical moments where systems either support or fail families, shaping outcomes for vulnerable children.

Auburn provided Sjolseth with the theoretical grounding she sought and enhanced her ability, and her husband Erik’s, to understand and support their teenagers. Their youngest son, Merritt, attends Auburn High School, while their oldest, Everett, is studying emergency management at Jacksonville State University.

Sjolseth said she found Human Sciences Professor Stephen Erath’s class on adolescent development to be particularly helpful.

“I was like a case study,” she said. “We had one week on lying, and I was like ‘teenagers lie?’ I was struggling at the same time with my boys. It helped normalize their behavior and gave me perspective and theoretical understanding.”

Sjolseth also credits her advisor, Professor Mallory Lucier-Greer, for her unwavering guidance and “for not being afraid to dream big.”

Lucier-Greer returned the admiration.

“It’s a big deal to pause a career and start over as a student, but Sheila realized she could only change the world if she also had this understanding of family systems,” Lucier-Greer said.

A crucial part of Sjolseth’s education involved assisting Lucier-Greer’s Military REACH program, which translates research and policy to help those who serve military families.

“Her time with us helped her think about the intersections of policy, research and practice,” Lucier-Greer said. “Often these groups operate in silos, but Sheila is going to bridge those gaps. We need leaders like her who aren’t afraid to think big and tackle big problems.”

Though her initial inspiration came from issues in Texas, Sjolseth has no plans to return just yet. Alabama needs her expertise. She found that 66 out of the 67 counties in Alabama are designated as mental health provider shortage areas.

Now, with a doctorate in hand, Sjolseth is ready to turn research into action.

“I didn’t return to school just for a degree,” she said. “I came back because I couldn’t stand watching families struggle alone. If I can be the bridge between research and real-world solutions, then this journey was worth it.”