USM Muskie School Associate Awarded Fellowship to Study Children's Service Systems
November, 2008
Portland, ME—Susan Maciolek, an associate at the USM Muskie School, has been awarded a two-year fellowship from the William T. Grant Foundation to look at strategies for implementing effective systems that serve children. She is one of five recipients of this prestigious national award in 2008.
Ms. Maciolek will work closely with Dr. John Weisz, director of the MacArthur Foundation's Research Network on Youth Mental Health and CEO of the Judge Baker Children's Center at Harvard University. She will participate in the Research Network's implementation and evaluation of their evidence-based Child STEPs model in three outpatient clinics, located in Maine, with a special focus on the child welfare population.
"We are very proud to have USM's first W.T. Grant fellow associated with the Muskie School," said Bill Foster, dean. "Ms. Maciolek's work will greatly enhance the School's ability to help state agencies and community service organizations that are dedicated to improving the services and outcomes for children and their families."
Maciolek is a co-principal investigator of the Muskie School's Child Welfare Implementation Center, funded by the Children's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Prior to this role, she was a senior manager in the child welfare agency of Massachusetts for 12 years, most recently responsible for managing the reform of the agency's service delivery system.
The Foundation created the fellowship program to increase high-quality research in the service of improved youth outcomes and to help bridge the gap between research, policy, and practice. The program gives researchers the opportunity to immerse themselves in practice or policy settings, and, alternatively, practitioners or policymakers the chance to work in research settings.
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