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October 7, 2021 - 3:00pm to 5:00pm

The Fedele F. and Iris M. Fauri Memorial Lecture on child welfare is presented annually in recognition of the former University of Michigan Dean and Vice President Fedele F. Fauri and his wife, Iris. Dean Fauri's leadership and accomplishments in the field of child welfare spanned nearly 50 years.

This year the Fauri Lecture will focus on the feedback loop from research, policy, practice, and vice-versa. Through conducting community-based applied research, the presenters will talk about their work with communities to make the most of existing social welfare policies and advocate for more family-friendly policies. The current policy moment is a critical turning point that must be harnessed for improvements to the child welfare system. The Families First Prevention Services Act has drawn significant attention to reforming the "front end" of the child welfare system, with a much larger emphasis on prevention. At the same time, the Biden administration has released the American Rescue Plan Act, which includes significant progressive economic policy changes. As scholars in the field of child welfare, the three presenters will focus on working with families and communities to create positive change for children and families during this critical moment.

Todd Herrenkohl, PhD, is Marion Elizabeth Blue Professor of Children and Families. Dr. Herrenkohl's primary research interests focus on the areas of child and family well-being, child maltreatment and the psychosocial and developmental underpinnings of health-risk behaviors in youth and adults; substance use, mental and physical health outcomes of adversity; and resilience. He has also worked to raise awareness of the causes and consequences of violence in children and families and to promote the use of public health models of primary prevention.

Whitney Rostad, PhD, is a Director of Research Services at Casey Family Programs in Seattle, Washington with subject matter expertise in the prevention of child abuse and neglect. In her role, Whitney manages and oversees a variety of research projects and dissemination activities, and collaborates with others in the field to advance a broad research agenda to identify effective policy, practice, and systems change in child welfare. Prior to Casey, Dr. Rostad was a behavioral scientist in the Division of Violence Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention where she conducted research identifying risk and protective factors for different forms of violence and evaluating the impact of policies and programs on health and well-being.

Katie Maguire-Jack, PhD, is an Associate Professor at University of Michigan School of Social Work. She studies the impact of social welfare policies and neighborhoods on child maltreatment. She has an MSW, MPA, and PhD in Social Welfare from the University of Wisconsin. Her research is funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health, Centers for Disease Control, Ohio Department of Job and Family Services, and Ohio Children's Trust Fund. She is passionate about child maltreatment prevention and teaches courses in social welfare policy.

Megan Feely, PhD, is an assistant professor at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work. Her work focuses on the primary and secondary prevention of reported child maltreatment, particularly focusing on economic factors, and working with public agencies to disseminate and apply research findings.  Currently, she works with the Connecticut Office of Early Childhood and the Connecticut Department of Children and Families.  She is a part of a CDC-funded multi-agency grant to increase the state’s capacity to monitor and prevent adverse childhood experiences.  She is originally from St. Louis, Missouri where she began her work with child welfare systems. She now lives in West Hartford, Connecticut as a half-time-single-mother of two school-aged children.

Michelle Riordan-Nold was named Executive Director of the Connecticut Data Collaborative (CTData) in February 2014, she is responsible for executing the vision and strategy of CTData which is a user-driven, public-private partnership that educates, liberates, curates, and democratizes data for public consumption to help drive planning, policy, budgeting and decision making in Connecticut. In her tenure at CTData, she has grown the organization from 1 full time staff to 7 staff. In addition, she has created and developed new data service offerings including but not limited to, launching the CTData Academy and building an integrated data system called the Hartford Data Collaborative. Michelle holds a bachelor's degree in Mathematics from Boston College and a master's degree in public policy from the University of Chicago. In her career, she has had the opportunity to work in all sectors of the economy – private, nonprofit, and government. After receiving her Master’s, she worked in a research capacity examining a wide range of policy areas and programs including: healthcare, economic development, state tax credits, and energy efficiency programs. Her policy interests are broad but her passion is in using data to help drive policy decision-making.

Rana Smith is the Children’s Services Supervisor at SOS Community Services. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from Siena Heights University and is certified in Early Childhood Administration. She began working at SOS in 2017.Since her start, she has increased enrollment in SOS Parents as Teachers Home Visiting Program and engaged new partners. Rana has always had a passion for establishing and expanding programs to better serve at-risk families and children. Leveraging community partnerships to improve their well-being is a specialty of hers. With over twenty-five years of considerable management experience in the areas of human services, early childhood, and family and youth services, Rana continues her passion of uplifting and supporting children and their families in our communities. In previous roles, she has had successful parenting programs. Rana has run afterschool programs, developed a fatherhood program, developed child abuse prevention trainings, and still finds times to tutor, mentor, and engage in home-school visits during her every-day activities. In her many capacities, she has also served as executive director of a residential facility for at-risk youth outside of Michigan. However, now her talents reside at SOS Community Services where she has the successful Parents as Teachers Home Visiting program spanning from Wayne to Washtenaw County and serves on the Board of Directors at Packard Health and St. Joseph Hospital. She is also the Co-Chair of the Home Visiting Advisory Council Rana Smith has a passion for families and communities and a long history of being a strong social justice advocate for underserved populations.

Brenda Jones Harden is the Alison Richman Professor for Children and Families, at the University of Maryland School of Social Work. She directs the Prevention and Early Adversity Research Laboratory, where she and her research team examine the developmental and mental health needs of young children who have experienced early adversity and toxic stress, particularly those who have been maltreated, are in foster care, or have experienced other forms of trauma. A particular focus is preventing maladaptive outcomes in these populations through early childhood programs. She has conducted numerous evaluations of such programs, including early care and education, home visiting services, parenting interventions, and infant mental health programs. Dr. Jones Harden is a scientist-practitioner who uses research to improve the quality and effectiveness of child and family services and to inform child and family policy, especially in the area of child welfare. She is currently the Vice President of the Board at Zero to Three, and serves on various federal, state, and local advisory boards. She received a PhD in developmental and clinical psychology from Yale University and a Master’s in Social Work from New York University.

Suzanne Greenberg currently serves as the Executive Director for the MI Children’s Trust Fund in Lansing which is the state agency responsible for the prevention of child abuse and neglect through 100+ prevention programs serving the 83 counties across Michigan!  As a tireless advocate for the best interests of children and a survivor of childhood physical and sexual abuse, her experience includes leading the CAN Council Great Lakes Bay Region in strategic growth from serving one to three counties as well as expanding prevention, intervention and advocacy programming across the region.  This award-winning agency grew from just 2 part time staff to over 25 staff plus a team of active volunteers and interns!  Her legacy is the move from the basement of the Westlund Guidance Clinic to the beautiful CAN Council building expanded in 2015.  Ms. Greenberg has been honored as the CAN Council’s Child Advocate of the Year 2020, Saginaw Chamber’s Community Impact Award (2018), YWCA’s Woman of Distinction (2014) among many others.  Suzanne’s greatest joy is her husband of 36 years, Alan and their children Samantha and Ben.