Lynn McDonald, MSW, PhD
FAST Program Founder, Senior Scientist
The FAST Project:  Building Relationships
University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Center for Education Research
1025 West Johnson Street, Suite 753
Madison, WI  53706
PH: (608) 263-9476
FAX: (608) 263-6448

Email:  mrmcdona@facstaff.wisc.edu
Website:  www.wcer.wisc.edu/FAST

Lynn McDonald has formal education and family education which has helped to shape her professional work.  She says she learned to think about things as a philosophy major at Oberlin College in the 1960’s; she got a Master’s Degree in Social Work from University of Maryland-Baltimore where she learned traditional casework, family systems work, group work, and community organizing skills; each of these is a distinct approach to social change; and finally, she was awarded a PhD in Psychology from the School of Social Sciences, a unique cross-disciplinary approach to research, in 1976 from University of California-Irvine. 

Lynn was raised in Europe, the Middle East, and Washington DC as the daughter of a US Diplomat; she attended 12 schools in five countries before going to college, thus speaking several languages, and knowing the stress of high mobility, and the need for continuous family and social networks.  She says she learned first hand that ALL parents across all cultures, religions and social class, want the best for their children.  Finally, she raised two wonderful children, (now ages 20 and 24), including 5 years as a single parent, and 10 years working half-time in order to be the primary parent for her children.  Despite these challenges, she made sure that the children were raised their whole lives in one school district and one house. She learned personally how important informal and formal social supports are to the important role of mothering; with support, nurturing and being consistent are enormously easier to achieve.  She applauds the work of parenting in our society, and sees our nation offering meager structural supports for our often stressed and isolated parents.

She has been a family therapist, a child therapist and a community worker.  She has been a social work faculty member (University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1975-87), a family therapy professor (Edgewood College, 1996-ongoing), and a Senior Scientist at University of Wisconsin-Madison in the School of Education (1996-ongoing).  In a local community mental health agency for 10 years (1986-96), Dr. McDonald developed, piloted, evaluated, researched and disseminated several non-traditional, community-based, family systems based, approaches to mental health service delivery for young children (ages 3-14).  One of these was a prevention-early intervention program she developed in 1988, at Family Service, Madison, WI, and it has since become internationally recognized. This is what she will present today:  an early intervention, multi-family group approach, called Families and Schools Together: FAST. See Mpeg-1 video or Real Media video for introduction of FAST.