The William T. Grant Foundation awarded honors to Maria Cancian and Barbara (Bobbi) Wolfe—two Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) faculty affiliates, former IRP directors, and current La Follette School of Public Affairs faculty members—to advance the well-being of children and families.
Cancian has been named a distinguished fellow—one of three in 2009—and will receive a $190,966 award to fund collaboration with the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families (DCF) to examine how the child welfare, child support, and welfare systems interact.
Cancian will use her award to spend the summer and fall of 2010 working with policymakers at DCF on a range of activities, including quality service reviews and child death reviews within the child welfare system.
Wolfe will use a $355,742 three-year grant to explore how a child’s chronic or severe health problem affects healthy siblings’ development, education, and employment outcomes.
Wolfe shares the award with Marsha Mailick Seltzer, director of the Waisman Center and an IRP faculty affiliate, and Jason M. Fletcher, an assistant professor at Yale University’s School of Public Health and former doctoral student of Wolfe.