Dolores Acevedo-Garcia Named Director of
Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy
Dolores Acevedo-García has joined the faculty at the Heller School as the Samuel F. and Rose B. Gingold Professor of Human Development and Social Policy and director of the Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy. Dolores is a distinguished scholar whose current work focuses on racial and ethnic disparities in the health of children and is being funded by the Kellogg Foundation.
POLICIES AND PROGRAMS FOR CHILDREN, YOUTH AND FAMILIES are of critical importance to the United States at the present time. Social and economic conditions have changed markedly in the post-World War II era and many of these changes have placed stresses on families and their children. 
More women work, even those with preschool children; over a third of infants are born to single mothers; an increasingly large percentage of children live in families in which one or both parents were not born in the United States and for whom English is not their primary language; and poverty among children is on the increase. Clearly policies and programs must be developed that will assist children who experience one - or often more than one - of these problems to overcome them and to reach their maximum capability.
The need to mobilize resources for children, particularly disadvantaged children, is made more urgent because this country will rely on today's children to support the growing number of elderly. Maintaining the Social Security and Medicare programs depends on a generation of adults who are employed in positions from which payments to these funds can be obtained. If today's children are not physically and emotionally healthy and educated to the extent of their capacities, they will not be able to provide the financial underpinning that an aging population will require.
The Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy (ICYFP) focuses on population groups that may need effective social programs in order to reach their maximum productivity. This includes children and adolescents in the child welfare system, children with physical and intellectual disabilities, immigrant children, teenage parents, and similar vulnerable groups. The Institute brings together faculty, research staff, and students in activities that foster the well-being of children, adolescents, and their families. The Institute is interdisciplinary in its focus with representation from psychology, public health, social policy, and social work.
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In Memoriam
Lorraine Vogel Klerman, Dr.P.H., Professor and Director of the Institute for Child, Youth and Family Policy at the Heller School for Social and Policy Management, Brandeis University, passed away on August 26, 2010 at the age of 81. Dr. Klerman was a pioneering health services researcher with a particular interest in health delivery systems for economically deprived women and children.
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