Foundation funds fellowship, research of faculty members

Two La Follette School of Public Affairs faculty members at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have received honors from the William T. Grant Foundation to advance the well-being of families and children.

Barbara “Bobbi” Wolfe will use a $355,742 three-year grant to investigate the effects of one child’s health problems on siblings. Maria Cancian has been named a distinguished fellow and will receive a $190,966 award to fund a collaboration with the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families.

“We are honored to have two of the most productive and highly regarded woman scholars at the University of Wisconsin as faculty members of the La Follette School of Public Affairs,” says La Follette School director Carolyn Heinrich. “Their research efforts generate knowledge that is critical to improving the well-being of children and families, particularly those who are most vulnerable to health and economic problems.”

Both are former directors of the Institute for Research on Poverty.

Wolfe’s project will explore how a child’s chronic or severe health problem affects healthy siblings’ development, education and employment outcomes.

“We know that the chronic health problems and disabilities of one sibling will likely impact the relationship between siblings and influence the healthy sibling’s development,” Wolfe says, “but little is known about how, under what circumstances and to what extent a sibling’s health conditions affect the other sibling’s educational and employment outcomes.”

Wolfe, an economist who focuses on health, shares the award with Marsha Mailick Seltzer, director of the Waisman Center and a Vaughan Bascom Professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Jason M. Fletcher, an assistant professor at Yale University’s School of Public Health and former doctoral student of Wolfe.

They will use data collected from several national surveys on more than 5,000 youth ranging in age from newborn to 25 years. They will track outcomes for healthy siblings, including years of schooling and college attendance. Health problems examined will include developmental disabilities, mental illness, learning disabilities, childhood attention-deficit and hyperactivity disorder, and adolescent depression.

“We also plan to examine the impact of a sibling’s death on the surviving siblings, again focusing on education and employment when they are young adults,” Wolfe says.

Cancian will use her award to spend the summer and fall of 2010 working with policymakers at the Department of Children and Families on a range of activities, including quality service reviews and reviews of child deaths within the child welfare system.

“My main academic interest is learning about how the child welfare, child support and welfare systems interact, and what this says about the logic of public support for children and families,” Cancian says.

Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle reorganized several state agencies to create the Department of Children and Families in the summer of 2008.

“I look forward to gaining a deeper appreciation of the day-to-day challenges of reorganizing state efforts to serve families,” Cancian says.

She also will shadow child welfare caseworkers in two county offices to observe the intersection of policy and practice.