Institution
Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago
Education
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Ph.D. from the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago
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M.S.W. from Marywood University
Research Interests
Biography
Fred Wulczyn is a Senior Research Fellow at Chapin Hall. He is the 2011 recipient of the James E. Flynn Prize for Research and has been recipient of the National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators’ (NAPCWA) Peter Forsythe Award for leadership in public child welfare. In 2014, he was elected to the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare. He is lead author of Beyond Common Sense: Child Welfare, Child Well-Being, and the Evidence for Policy Reform (Aldine, 2005) and coeditor of Child Protection: Using Research to Improve Policy and Practice (Brookings 2007).
Dr. Wulczyn is director of the Center for State Foster Care and Adoption Data, a collaboration of Chapin Hall, the American Public Human Services Association, and other research partners. An expert in the analysis of administrative data, he was an architect of Chapin Hall’s Multistate Foster Care Data Archive and constructed the original integrated longitudinal database on children’s services in Illinois, now in use for more than 25 years. The databases he has developed give state administrators capacity to analyze key child welfare outcomes, compare outcomes across agencies and jurisdictions, project future service patterns, test the impact of policy and service innovations, and monitor progress.
Dr. Wulczyn also designed two major social experiments: the Child Assistance Program and the HomeRebuilders project. The Child Assistance Program was awarded the Innovations in Government Award from Harvard University and the Ford Foundation. Also in the realm of public policy, he developed the nation’s first proposal to change the federal law limiting the ability of states to design innovative child welfare programs, which then led to the development of the Title IV-E waiver programs used by states to undertake system reform in child welfare programs. He continues to lead the field in developing alternative approaches to financing child welfare programs.
Dr. Wulczyn received a Ph.D. from the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. A graduate of Juniata College, he was awarded the distinguished Alumni Award for his contributions on behalf of children and families. He earned a M.S.W. from Marywood University, which honored him with its distinguished Alumni Award.
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Contact Information
773.256.5200
