Presenter Bios
Kathleen Faller
Kathleen Coulborn Faller is professor of social work, director of the Family Assessment Clinic, and principal investigator of the Interdisciplinary Child Welfare Training Program. Her research interests lie in the area of child welfare. These include research on interview techniques for possible sexual abuse, decision making in child sexual abuse, and understanding different subcategories of sexual abuse, such as female perpetration, sexual abuse in divorce, and sexual abuse in daycare contexts. In addition, she is interested in the co-occurrence of child maltreatment, substance abuse, mental illness, and domestic violence and is a frequent and often-requested presenter, both locally and nationally, for professionals interested in child welfare. Another area of research/scholarly interest is interpersonal violence.
Bill Meezan
William Meezan was the Marion Elizabeth Blue Professor of Children and Families. His interests lay in the development, implementation, and evaluation of a broad range of community-based services for children, youth, and families, and in issues regarding the traditional child welfare system. He has conducted research and written across the entire spectrum of child welfare services, including family support, child abuse and neglect, family preservation, foster care, and adoption. His current research involves the evaluation of an incentive-based payment system for foster care services in Wayne County, an evaluation of a continuum of care for juvenile offenders, and an evaluation of a training program for supervisors working in the field of child welfare. His work has been funded by state and federal agencies and by private foundations. Meezan has served as a consultant to the American Bar Association, the American Civil Liberties Union (now Children's Rights Inc.), the Children's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse (now Prevent Child Abuse America), and the Child Welfare League of America, and currently serves on the editorial boards of seven professional journals. He has been a Congressional Scince Fellow and a senior Fulbright Scholar in Lithuania, where he helped to start one of the first social work program in the fomer Soviet Union. He is the recipient of the Outstanding Research Award from the Society for Social Work and Research, and has served as secretary of that organization.
Michelle-Marie Mendez
Michelle-Marie Mendez is a research associate with the Michigan Child Welfare Law Resource Center at the University of Michigan Law School. From September 1997 to July 2000 she served as special assistant to the deputy director of the U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, after receiving her law degree from Northeastern University School of Law. Ms. Mendez also served as a volunteer instructor for Pro-Se-Plus Uncontested Divorce Clinic sponsored by the Director of Columbia Bar Public Service Activities Corporation from 1998 to 2000. She is fluent in both Spanish and French, and her particular area of interest is adoption law and policy.
John Tropman
Professor Tropman's research focuses on the organizational elements that create high performing human service (and other) organizations. Topics of special interest are entrepreneurship, effective group decision making, the person of the executive (executive director, chief professional officer, or chief executive officer), the problem of executive burnout and flameout, and organizational rewards systems. Tropman is also interested in culture in general, and organizational culture in particular. His book The Catholic Ethic in American Society addresses this issue. Other areas of research/scholarly interest are social welfare policy and community organization and planning.
Frank Vandervort
Frank E. Vandervort is program manager of the Michigan Child Welfare Law Resource Center at the University of Michigan Law School and an adjunct professor of law at the University of Detroit Law School. During the 2000-2001 academic year he was a visiting clinical assistant professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, where he taught in the Child Advocacy Law Clinic. He has focused his practice in children and family law since receiving his law degree in 1989. Mr. Vandervort currently serves as chair of the State Bar of Michigan's Children's Law Section and in 2001 was the president of board of directors of the Michigan chapter of the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. He is a member of the State Advisory Committee to the Michigan Child Death Review program. He speaks and writes frequently on issues relating to children and the law.
Deb Willis
Deborah A. Willis is a research assistant with the Training Program for Child Welfare Supervisors at the University of Michigan School of Social Work. Her responsibilities include constructing and administering appropriate instruments to measure change in knowledge level pre- and post-training; serving as an instructor of one educational component; and coding, entering, and conducting initial analysis of pre- and post-test data. Her research experience includes the Kent County Evaluation Project from 1995 to 2000 and the Center for the Study of Youth Policy at the University of Michigan School of Social Work from 1989 to 1994. Ms. Willis is currently a Doctoral Candidate in the University of Michigan Doctoral Program in Social Work and Sociology. Ms. Willis is also a Graduate Student Instructor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work and a Lecturer at Eastern Michigan University Department of Social Work. Her areas of interest include child welfare policy development and program evaluation.