Keynote Speakers

National Research Conference on
Child and Family Programs and Policy

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Keynote Speakers

RICHARD J. GELLES, PH.D.

Dr. Richard J. Gelles will give a talk entitled,
Safety, Permanence, Preservation: The Impact of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997.

Richard J. Gelles serves as the Dean of the School of Social Policy & Practice and holds The Joanne and Raymond Welsh Chair of Child Welfare and Family Violence in the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the Co-Faculty Director of the Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice, and Research.

His book, The Violent Home was the first systematic empirical investigation of family violence and continues to be highly influential. He is the author or coauthor of 24 books and more than 100 articles and chapters on family violence. His latest books are, The Book of David: How Preserving Families Can Cost Children's Lives (Basic Books, 1996) and Intimate Violence in Families, Third Edition (Sage Publications, 1997), and Current Controversies on Family Violence, 2^nd Edition (with Donilene Loseke and Mary Cavanaugh—Sage Publications, 2005).

In 1998 Secretary of Health & Human Services, Donna Shalala appointed Gelles to the Kinship Care Advisory Panel of the Administration for Children Youth and Families. Gelles was a member of the National Academy of Science's panel on "Assessing Family Violence Interventions." He was also the Vice President for Publications for the National Council on Family Relations.

Gelles received his A.B. degree from Bates College (1968), an M.A. in Sociology from the University of Rochester (1971), and a Ph.D. in Sociology at the University of New Hampshire (1973). He edited the journal, Teaching Sociology, from 1973 to 1981 and received the American Sociological Association, Section on Undergraduate Education, and “Outstanding Contributions to Teaching Award" in 1979. In 1999 Gelles received the “Award for Career Achievement in Research” from the American Professional Science on the Abuse of Children. Gelles has presented innumerable lectures to policy-making groups and media groups, including THE TODAY SHOW, CBS MORNING NEWS, GOOD MORNING AMERICA, THE OPRAH WINFREY SHOW, DATELINE, and ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. In 1984 ESQUIRE named him to one of the men and women who are "changing America."

Presently, Gelles lives in Philadelphia with his wife Judy, a photographer. His son Jason graduated Harvard University in 1996 and is a comedy writer for Ellen Degeneres. His son David graduated Tufts University in 1999 and is a Producer of the Today Show at NBC.

MARSHA KLEIN PRUETT, PH.D.

Dr. Marsha Klein Pruett will speak about the Supporting Father Involvement Project in California. Until recently, fathers were rarely recognized by program developers or policymakers as positive resources for reducing risks and strengthening protective factors for children at risk of abuse and neglect. Supporting father Involvement is the first family-focused father involvement program designed specifically for low-income families and evaluated with a randomized clinical trial design. The design tests a) couples and b) fathers group interventions against c) a control group. To date, over 500 families have been evaluated at four points in time, including follow-up 18 months - 3 years after the intervention. SFI was originally implemented in five Family Resource Centers in California, with replication and dissemination occurring across California and in other countries. This presentation will describe the theoretical and intervention model underpinning SFI, how the multi-cultural teams function, and highlight exciting outcome results that demonstrate the program’s effectiveness with low income, Spanish- and English-speaking co-parents and children.

In 2006 Dr. Kline Pruett accepted an endowed Chair at Smith College. Her research continues as the Maconda Brown O'Connor Professor at Smith's School for Social Work. Previously, Dr. Kline Pruett was Associate Professor in the Law and Psychiatry Division at the Yale University School of Medicine and the Yale Child Study Center. She is best known for the development, implementation, and evaluation of preventive interventions in schools and courts. Her writings include numerous scholarly articles, chapters, and a co-authored book, Your Divorce Advisor: An Attorney and Psychologist Lead You Through the Legal and Emotional Landscape of Divorce (2001 by Simon and Schuster). Dr. Kline Pruett’s research interests revolve around family issues specific to family and juvenile law. The unifying theme across the research is the promotion of healthy family development during life transitions, particularly those transitions related to adverse events or circumstances.

Among other topics, she has created and evaluated a model continuum of effective and cost-efficient co-parenting services in the Connecticut courts to assist in the preservation of each family’s long-term well-being through the development of developmentally appropriate parenting plans. More specifically, the program aimed to reduce the economic and psychological costs of divorce and child custody decisions for parents involved in the legal process, and improve child adjustment and social emotional functioning, parent relationships, and paternal involvement during and after separation/ divorce. Findings from the study point to new information about father involvement and parenting plans for very young children. The project produced some of the only data in the country about young children (infants through six years) and overnights after divorce. While policy makers have always focused on the age at which infants and toddlers handle overnights, Dr. Kline Pruett’s data indicate the importance of child gender and schedule consistency, more than age. These findings are providing new connections of great interest to psychologists, lawyers, and policy makers at the edge of the psychology-law interface. As a result of this project, Dr. Kline Pruett was awarded the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts Stanley Cohen Award for Distinguished Research. These results have been used to inform judges and attorneys throughout North America.

Currently, Dr. Kline Pruett is part of an intervention and evaluation team for the California Supporting Fatherhood Involvement (SFI) Initiative, a pilot program aimed at promoting father involvement in Family Resource Centers to reduce incidence of child abuse and neglect. The project is producing timely new data about how to involve men, including Hispanic and Spanish-speaking men, early in their children’s lives, and how to best work with couples to maintain the fathers’ involvement and promote the children’s development. The SFI curricula are providing a comparison between father only and couples’ interventions, and results are pointing to new ways of enhancing father friendliness of social service organizations more broadly. A New York Times article about this study can be found here.

In addition, Dr. Kline Pruett is evaluating a new Intake Screen instrument that is being implemented by Family Services of the Connecticut Support Services Division, Judicial Branch. Dr. Kline Pruett disseminates her scholarly work through clinical consultations, media consultations, and speaking engagements across North America and abroad.