Conference Presenters
- Opening Keynote Address - Bernadine Dohrn
- Closing Keynote Address - Dr. David G. Gil
- Featured Luncheon Speaker - Dr. Carol Wilson Spigner
Opening Keynote
Bernadine Dohrn
"Children and Human Rights:
A Comprehensive View of the Welfare of the Child"
Bernadine Dohrn, activist, academic and child advocate, is Director of the Children and Family Justice Center and Clinical Associate Professor of the Northwestern University School of Law Bluhm Legal Clinic. The Center is a holistic children’s law center and a national policy center for the comprehensive needs of adolescents and their families, providing critical analysis and knowledge about youth law and practice, matters associated with the administration of justice, and the preparation of professionals who advocate for children. She is an author and co-editor of two books: A Century of Juvenile Justice and Resisting Zero Tolerance: A Handbook for Parents, Teachers and Students and the author of “I’ll Try Anything Once: Using the Conceptual Framework of Children’s Human Rights Norms in the U.S.,” Univ. of Mich. Journal of Law Reform (2007); “Somethin’s Happening Here: Children and Human Rights Jurisprudence in Two International Courts,” UNLV L.Rev. Summer 2006; “All Ellas: Girls Locked Up in Feminist Studies” (Summer 2004); and “Look Out Kid/It’s Something You Did! Zero Tolerance for Children” in The Public Assault on America’s Children: Poverty, Violence, and Juvenile Injustice (2000).
She writes and lectures on international human rights law, torture, children in conflict with the law, racism and juvenile justice, and school law. Dohrn teaches children’s rights and human rights law at Northwestern and is a visiting professor at the University of Chicago and Leiden University faculty of law in the Netherlands.
Ms. Dohrn is a graduate of the University of Chicago College and the Law School.
Closing Keynote Speaker
Penn School of Social Polity & Practice Centennial Speaker
Dr. David Gil
"Child Welfare and the Politics of Human Liberation"
David G. Gil, a social worker and social scientist, is Professor of Social Policy at the Heller School of Social Policy and Management, Brandeis University. Born in Vienna, Austria in 1924, he left as a refugee in 1939, without his family, one year after Austria was annexed by Germany under Hitler.
Before joining the Brandeis faculty in 1964, David Gil worked in agriculture, industry, and social work in Sweden, Palestine, Israel, and the United States.
David Gil received an MSW and DSW from the University of Pennsylvania, and a BA in Sociology and Education from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. His research and teaching trace links between social institutions, human development, and human problems, and strategies to overcome societal violence and transform development-inhibiting social orders into development-conducive alternatives. His writings include Violence Against Children (Harvard University Press, 1970) Unravelling Social Policy (Schenkman 1973, 1976, 1981, 1990, 1992), The Challenge of Social Equality (Schenkman 1976), Beyond the Jungle (Schenkman and G.K. Hall, 1979), Confronting Injustice and Oppression (Columbia University Press 1998), as well as numerous edited books and essays in scholarly journals.
David Gil has served as President of the Association for Humanist Sociology, on the Board of Directors of the American Ortho-psychiatric Association, on the Delegate Assembly of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), as member and Chair of the Faculty Senate of Brandeis University and faculty representative to the Brandeis Board of Trustees. He is also serving on the editorial boards of several professional journals.
In addition to his scholarly work, David Gil is engaged in social and political action, serving as Co-Chair of the Socialist Party, USA (1995-1999), and as a member of the Executive Committee of the National Jobs for All Coalition.
David Gil teaches at present four courses in the Heller School: Theories of Social Policy, Social Justice, and Social Change; Oppression and Social Movements; Violence in Everyday Life: Sources, Dynamics, and Prevention; and Work, Individual and Social Development, and Social Welfare.
Featured Luncheon Speaker
Dr. Carol Wilson Spigner
"Disproportionality and Disparities in Child Welfare: Facts, History and the Challenge"
Carol Wilson Spigner, DSW, Kenneth L. M. Pray Distinguished Professor, joined the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice in July, 1999 as a visiting professor and joined the faculty permanently in September, 2000. At Penn, Spigner directs the social policy program and teaches policy and macro practice. Prior to her arrival at Penn, Dr. Spigner had been the Associate Commissioner of the Children’s Bureau at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families (ACF) and was responsible for the administration of federal child welfare programs. Most recently Spigner has served on the Pew Commission for Children in Foster Care; the Mayor’s Child Welfare Review Panel for the City of Philadelphia; and the Workgroup for the Michigan Racial Equity Task Force. She also serves on the Board of the Center for the Study of Social Policy.
Dr. Spigner has served as a senior associate at the Center for the Study of Social Policy, Washington, DC and as the director of the National Child Welfare Leadership Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Additionally she has held professorships at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Spigner has published a variety of articles in the areas of cultural competency, permanency planning and relative care.
Dr. Spigner has received numerous awards including the University of Pennsylvania’s 2008 Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching; The Black Administrators in Child Welfare’s 2008 George Silcott Award for Lifetime Achievement; University of Southern California’s award for “Lifetime Contributor to the Development of Policies and Programs for Underserved Populations;” the National Association of Black Social Workers “Outstanding Contributors Award,” and the National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators “Award for Leadership in Public Child Welfare.”
A native of Los Angeles, Dr. Spigner began her career working for the Los Angeles County Departments of Adoption and Probation and received her undergraduate degree from the University of California at Riverside and her graduate degrees from the University of Southern California.