Dr. Betz has been a UCEDD faculty member for 24 years (UCLA: 1983-1998; USC: 1998-present). She has extensive grantsmanship experience as project director and principal investigator. She was the Principal Investigator of a number of extramurally funded projects including California Girl Power, ADD Project of National Significance (1998-2001) a pregnancy prevention program for adolescent girls with developmental disabilities, and the South Los Angeles Youth and Young Adult Self Determination Center, an information, training and resource center in South Los Angeles (formerly known as South Central Los Angeles) for and with youth and emerging leaders with developmental disabilities and CA Healthy and Ready to Work, a systems change transition grant funded by the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, Department of Health and Human Services. Other funded projects include several from the California State Council on Development Disabilities: 1) conducted a statewide needs assessment on status of employment for individuals with developmental disabilities; 2) developed and implemented a health aide training program; and, 3) developed a health care self care video. She served as the PI of an NIH funded research project entitled, Testing of the Transition Preparation Training Program. The purpose of this randomized control trial tested the effectiveness of the TPT intervention with youth with spina bifida ages 14 to 18 years on selected psychosocial outcomes. She has over 170 publications in the field of pediatric nursing and care of children and youth with special health care needs and disabilities. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Pediatric Nursing: Nursing Care of Children and Families (JPN). Recently, JPN was selected to be the official journal of the Society of Pediatric Nurses and the Pediatric Endocrinology Nursing Society. She is the editor of ten pediatric nursing textbooks that have used extensively in pediatric nursing undergraduate and graduate programs, including Pediatric Nursing Reference, 6th Ed. These texts have been translated into 3 foreign languages. Dr. Betz and Dr. Wendy Nehring co edited the first text on health care transition planning entitled Promoting Health Care Transition Planning for Adolescents with Special Health Care Needs and Disabilities published by Brookes Publishing. . Dr. Betz and Dr. Wendy Nehring recently co-edited the specialty nursing text entitled Nursing Care for Individuals with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: An Integrated Approach published by Brookes Publishing. Dr. Betz serves on numerous professional advisory boards at the state and national levels. She is a member of the Expert Panel on Children and Families, American Academy of Nursing of the American Nursing Association. Under her leadership as the Co-Chair of the Expert Panel, the development of the Health Care Quality and Outcome Guidelines for Nursing of Children and Families was completed. Under the leadership of the Expert Panel, this monumental work represented the collective effort of 12 pediatric and child and family nursing professional associations representing over 50,000 pediatric nurses. The Guidelines have been disseminated in a number of publications authored by Dr. Betz and the other members of the panel. Currently, Dr. Betz is a member of the Expert Panel Research Task Force that has begun the work of validating the Guidelines. She served as one of the organizers and founding members of the Society of Pediatric Nursing, a national pediatric nursing association begun 15 years ago. Dr. Betz is a member of the Youth Council of the Los Angeles County Workforce Investment Board and was a member of the Statewide Partnership Committee of the California Department of Education, Special Education Division. Previously, she served on the California State Council on Developmental Disabilities.
Current Roles
• Director, Nursing Training, LEND Interdisciplinary Program, USC UCEDD at CHLA
• Director of Research, USC UCEDD at CHLA
• Clinical Associate Professor, Clinical Pediatrics, USC Keck School of Medicine
Education
• PhD, Higher and Post-Secondary Education, Education Psychology, University of Southern California
• MSN, Nursing, California State University Los Angeles
• BSN, Nursing California State University Los Angeles
Areas of Interest
• Children and youth with special health care needs
• Children and youth with developmental disabilities
• Systems of care
• Pediatric and child health nursing practice
• Health literacy
• Youth with spina bifida
• Nursing policy
• Health care transition planning
