Other notable affiliations include: Founding Board Chair of Dominus Charter School for Entrepreneurship in Pittsburgh; Jim Casey Youth Opportunity Initiative; Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth; Quality Improvement Center on Post Permanency Services through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Spaulding for Children; Federal Quality Child and Family Services Review; HHS National Advisory Kinship Panel; National Center on Grandfamilies Council for Generations United; Casey National Center for Resource Family Support Advisory Board; Children’s Defense Fund; Pennsylvania Quality Assurance Committee for Child and Family Service Review; and Allegheny County Children’s Cabinet.

Civically, she is the immediate past president of Black Administrators in Child Welfare and the founder and immediate past president of the African American Strategic Partnership. In 2023, Dr. McDaniel was appointed to serve a three-year term on the Family Caregiver Advisory Council with the Administration of Community Living with the United States Government. She is a recent trustee of the Eden Hall Foundation.

Dr. McDaniel notably served as a co-investigator and author of “Subsidized Legal Guardianship: A Permanency Planning Option Study for Children Placed in Kinship Care” and “Subsidized Legal Guardianship Update.” Her research supported the development of a subsidized legal guardianship proposal for Pennsylvania, which, at that time, had no such legal status in its legislation.

In 2014, she published “On My Way Home: A Memoir of Kinship, Grace, and Hope” to underscore the purpose of kinship care, empowering families to save the lives of their children. This intimate account of her life begins when she was only 6 years old and removed from the care of her young, widowed father, separated from her brother and sister and forced into the child welfare system in Pittsburgh. Before emancipating at age 17, her journey was one of finding home — a quest that would become her life’s calling.

For more than 40 years, Dr. McDaniel has authored several articles and papers on child welfare and has received numerous local and national honors and awards. She has also been devoted to higher education, earning her master’s degree followed by her doctorate in education, as well as attending Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government for Executive Education in Nonprofit Governance and the University of Chicago’s Executive Education in Investment Management. In 2021, Dr. McDaniel completed her Ph.D. in Human Service, focusing on nonprofit management and leadership. Her research focused on the intersection of race and gender of African American women at the apex of nonprofit philanthropic institutions, related to their leadership ascension, vulnerability and self-efficacy experiences.

Additionally, as a sought-after lecturer, she has presented at the University of Barcelona, Oxford University, Howard University and others.