Keynote speakers
Dr Fred Wulczyn,
Senior Research Fellow and the Director of the Center for State Child Welfare Data
Fred Wulczyn is a Senior Research Fellow at Chapin Hall and the Director of the Center for State Child Welfare Data. Dr. Wulczyn brings a diverse range of academic and public sector experience to his research. He is a founding staff member of Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. His public sector experience includes a decade-long post with the New York State Department of Social Services. In addition to his appointment at the University of Chicago, Dr. Wulczyn was a member of Columbia University’s social work faculty. His principal areas of expertise focus on child welfare broadly defined, with an emphasis on child maltreatment and foster care. From a disciplinary perspective, Dr. Wulczyn’s work borrows heavily from epidemiology, sociology, systems science, and human development. In addition, he is one the foremost experts in the U.S. on public sector finance of child welfare programs. A graduate of the Crown School of Social Work, Social Policy, and Practice, Dr. Wulczyn is an elected member of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.
Dr Jade Purtell Philp,
University of Monash, Department of Social Work and the Education
Jade is a transdisciplinary researcher focussed on out-of-home care and transitions from care working across academia and the community sector to promote young people’s participation in research, policy development and practice. Jade is co-convener of the International Network on Participation in Alternative Care (INPAC) and co-editor of the book ‘Children’s Rights to Participate in Out-of-Home Care: International Social Work Contexts’. She has led several participatory research projects including the current, Real-time Rights-based Recordkeeping Governance project, the Peer work models for transitions from care project in the Monash Department of Social Work and her PhD project focussed on participatory theory and research with care leavers parenting through their transitions from care.
Dr Mariela Neagu,
Senior Research Fellow, Manchester Metropolitan University
Mariela is Research Fellow at Manchester Met University, Institute for Children’s Future. Her research interests encompass identity and wellbeing theories, in particular the recognition theory and the Capability Approach, children’s rights and the ethics of care. She takes a multi-disciplinary approach in research, drawing on theories in sociology, psychology, human rights and political science to explore what makes a good life for young people in care.
She holds a doctorate in Social Sciences and a Master’s in International Human Rights Law from New College, University of Oxford and conducted evaluation research in England for the Department of Education Innovation Programme at the Rees Centre, Oxford (2017-2020).
She is a former Head of the National Authority for Children’s Rights in Romania (2007-2009) and former Policy Officer for the office of the European Commission in Romania where she was responsible for the EU intervention to reform the child protection system in Romania (1999 – 2006). Mariela is founding member of the Oxford Children’s Rights Network.
She is the author of ‘Voices from the Silent Cradles’ (Policy Press, 2021), a book which sheds light on children’s homes, foster care, domestic and international adoption from the perspective of the young people who experienced these types of care.