Field Center Blog
Thank you for visiting the Field Center blog! Members of the Field Center network are passionate about our work and we welcome the opportunity to share more of our stories, reflections, and impacts with you. The Field Center hopes to use our blog to introduce you to members of our team, including faculty and staff, students and fellows, board members and donors, without whom our work on behalf of abused and neglected children would not be possible. Every stakeholder has a story to tell about why the Field Center’s work is a priority to them.
Each month, we will post a new blog entry, representing perspectives across multiple disciplines. Our team is excited to share our passion with you, and increase our ability to respond to pressing issues in real time. Happy reading, and please share widely with your networks!
Brackeen v. Holland Heads to the Supreme Court – Will ICWA’s Constitutionality be Upheld?
May 13, 2022
By Nimo Ali, Field Center Lerner Fellow in Child Welfare Policy All eyes will be on the Supreme Court this fall when it hears arguments on the high-profile dispute over the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act. Seven months ago, both sides submitted petitions to the Supreme Court for review, seeking greater clarity on. . .
Recovery From COVID: Perspectives From Young Adults with Foster Care Experience
April 26, 2022
By Sarah Wasch, MSW and Johanna Greeson, PhD; Field Center Program Manager and Managing Faculty Director As the COVID pandemic enters its third year of impact, donors and foundation funders may face uncertainty about how to ensure a more just recovery from COVID-19. The 2022 High Impact Giving Guide from the Center for High Impact Philanthropy (CHIP). . .
On HB 2213, A Dangerous Proposal That Further Harms Child Victims
March 30, 2022
By Nadeem Bezar, Field Center Advisory Board Member; Partner, Kline & Specter HB 2213—a proposed bill in Pennsylvania—aims to reduce the compensation that a child can receive from a jury award after being harmed, abused, or even killed while receiving care from entities that provide foster care, adoption services, residential care, or treatment. Children are. . .
“Told Me I Was Fit to Wear the Crown”: Youth Healing and Homeplace Literacies as Public Pedagogy
February 7, 2022
By Kaley L. Ciluffo, Field Center Research Assistant “We are all family. I’m here to keep you safe, and you’re here to keep me safe. Correct? We keep our love. We love each other ‘cause ain’t nobody else gonna love us but us. Right? We keep us radiant, and we keep us magical.”— Catlyn Savado. . .
Meet the Board: Reflecting on COVID, Mental Health, and Child Well-Being
January 26, 2022
By Betsy Schur Levy, Ph.D., Field Center Advisory Board Member By way of introduction, my name is Dr. Betsy Schur Levy and I am a practicing Clinical Psychologist in New York City. As a Psychology major at the University of Pennsylvania, I further developed a lifelong passion to study and devote my career to promoting. . .
Simple Stories Covering Hard Histories
November 30, 2021
By Nimo Ali, Field Center Lerner Fellow in Child Welfare Policy As I close out my first semester at the Field Center as the 2021-2022 Lerner Fellow, I am struck by the competing narratives of the Thanksgiving holiday and their echoes in the current Child Welfare System discourse. As an immigrant child, I learned the. . .
Exploring Transracial Adoption and the Invisible Protection of Privilege
October 29, 2021
By Molly McLaurin, Field Center Young Professionals Council Member As an adult who grew up Black in a White family, I speak about adoption, and more specifically, transracial adoption, because I want to add the adoptee’s perspective to the public narrative. I joined the Field Center’s Young Professional Council because I simply want kids like. . .
Missed Opportunities in Providing Pandemic Relief Funds
September 22, 2021
By Sarah Wasch, MSW, Field Center Program Manager At the end of this month, any pandemic relief funds earmarked for young adults aging out of foster care not distributed by states as part of the 2020 Supporting Foster Youth and Families through the Pandemic Act are in danger of being forfeited and returned to the. . .
Reconnection, Not Remediation, at West Philadelphia Summer Learning Program
August 25, 2021
By Julie Berger, M.Ed., Senior Research Coordinator, Office of School & Community Engagement, Penn GSE Caroline Watts, Ed.D., Director, Office of School & Community Engagement, Penn GSE; Field Center Faculty Director In the early Winter of 2020, as we began to face the likelihood of a full academic year of virtual learning for most Philadelphia. . .
Finding Meaning in Our Losses
July 12, 2021
By Johanna K.P. Greeson, PhD, MSS, MLSP Managing Faculty Director, The Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice & Research David Kessler, one of Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s proteges and grief expert, has written a new book Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief (2019). In 2016, Kessler lost his 21-year-old son David to an accidental drug overdose.. . .
Children and the Influenza Pandemics of 1918-1919 and 2020-2021
June 23, 2021
By Cynthia Connolly, PhD RN, Field Center Faculty Director Professor of Nursing Rosemarie B. Greco Endowed Term Chair in Advocacy Associate Director, Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing In early December of 1918, physician Harriet L. Hartley, Chief of the Philadelphia Health Department’s Bureau of Child Hygiene, took the stage. . .
Reflections on a Parental-Fault Paradigm in Child Welfare
May 31, 2021
By Chih McDermott, Field Center Lerner Fellow in Child Welfare Policy I applied to the Lerner fellowship because no one deserves the guarantee of their well-being more than young people, and because we need to ensure that well-being to overcome the deep inequities in our country. Similarly, I applied because I knew shockingly little about. . .
Reflections on a Year of CASA Advocacy
April 28, 2021
By Felicia Saunders, Field Center Administrative Coordinator Joining the Field Center team two years ago filled me with a sense of pride and gave me a renewed sense of purpose in my work at Penn. It was an honor to know I’d be supporting a small but mighty team in such important work on behalf. . .
My Path To Penn: A Personal and Professional Journey of Growth
March 22, 2021
By Hannah Rawdin, Director of Development at the Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice & Research I am honored to write our March blog post; not to speak about the topics my expert colleagues are so deeply committed to, but to share a bit about my journey to the Field Center and joining the ranks. . .
Addressing The High Rates of Mental Illness among Detained Youth
February 22, 2021
By Sara Jaffee, PhD., Field Center Faculty Director, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Psychology In recent years, highly publicized suicides in detention centers like Riker’s Island in New York have focused a spotlight on mental illness in adult prison populations. A meta-analysis published in the February 2021 issue of the Journal of. . .
