Policy and Systems Change - Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis

Student wins Skandalaris Center funding for youth civic engagement venture

admin — Thu, 07 May 2026 17:54:32 +0000

A �� has won funding to expand a youth civic engagement initiative aimed at increasing public understanding of policy issues and supporting emerging leaders. Ella Dennis, who is pursuing a master’s degree in social work, was awarded an Innovation Grant through the WashU Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship during the Spring 2026 Skandalaris Venture Competition (SVC) on April 15. Dennis was named an Innovator Funding winner for her startup, the Alliance for Civic Engagement (ACE). The ��-centered policy program provides hands-on mentorship and publication opportunities to young policy thinkers while producing accessible, nonpartisan policy briefs to cultivate a more informed public. “Too often, policy conversations feel inaccessible to the very people most affected by them, including young people,” Dennis said....

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Guaranteed income improved artists’ finances, innovation

Roger — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 15:53:47 +0000

A guaranteed income program for artists led to improvement in financial stability and reduced debt, but also improved their motivation and artistic output, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. “Our main finding is that giving people cash not only helps them live a more secure life, it also provides a pathway toward personal, professional and artistic growth,” said Stephen Roll, an assistant professor and an expert on asset building and economic security. Roll is co-author of the paper “Empowering Artistic Labor: How Guaranteed Income Enhances Intrinsic Motivation and Fosters Human Flourishing,” published online in the journal World Development Perspectives. Roll and his co-authors examined data from the Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY) Guaranteed Income...

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Clark-Fox Policy Institute event bridges research, community voices to advance refugee well-being in St. Louis

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 20:04:35 +0000

A new initiative designed to accelerate the translation of academic research into actionable policy drew a full crowd for its first event April 1 at Delmar DivINe. The session, hosted by the ��’s Clark-Fox Policy Institute Senior Policy Fellows program, brought together scholars, practitioners, and community members for a meaningful conversation about the experiences and well-being of refugees in St. Louis. In his opening remarks, Jason Jabbari, assistant professor at the Brown School and Clark-Fox Policy Institute (CFPI) faculty director, underscored the institute’s commitment to move research more quickly into policy impact. He emphasized supporting scholars who work closely with communities and are committed to translating evidence into action. “We’re here not just to share ideas, but to...

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Jason Purnell to speak at Brown School’s 2026 recognition ceremony

admin — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 18:15:37 +0000

Jason Q. Purnell, president and CEO of the James S. McDonnell Foundation, will be the featured speaker at the Brown School’s 2026 recognition ceremony. The event is set for 11 a.m. Wednesday, May 13, at the Athletic Complex Field House on WashU’s Danforth Campus. Purnell joined the McDonnell Foundation in 2023 after leading community health initiatives at BJC HealthCare, one of the nation’s largest nonprofit health systems. He oversaw the system’s Community Health Improvement strategy, launching programs to address health equity and improve the physical, emotional, and financial well-being of underserved populations. He also advanced BJC’s role as an anchor institution, investing in community and economic development and promoting hiring and purchasing in 22 zip codes with high poverty rates...

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Font testifies on adoption programs before House subcommittee

admin — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 18:09:32 +0000

Sarah Font, professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert on the child welfare system, testified March 26 before the U.S. House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies on the topic of federal funding for adoption programs. The hearing, titled “Advancing Permanency in Child Welfare: Leveraging Federal Funding for Adoption Programs,” focused on improving adoption outcomes for children in foster care. Font told the subcommittee that states routinely fail to facilitate timely, safe and stable adoptions. She cited federal data showing children spend a median of 31 months in foster care before adoption, with some states averaging more than 45 months. According to the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting...

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WashU Experts: Trump accounts must have auto enrollment

Roger — Tue, 10 Feb 2026 15:48:25 +0000

Widespread promotion has started for so-called Trump Accounts, including an ad during the Super Bowl. The accounts allow parents to opt in to claim investment seed money of up to $1,000 for their children. But that opt-in part is problematic, say two experts on child development accounts at Washington University in St. Louis. “Automatic enrollment is the difference between Trump Accounts functioning as a truly universal wealth-building policy and a policy that unintentionally leaves out many children,” said Michael Sherraden, the George Warren Brown Distinguished University Professor. “In the field of early wealth-building, automatic enrollment is the gold standard for achieving full participation.” The strongest U.S. evidence comes from the SEED for Oklahoma Kids (SEED OK) experiment conducted by Sherraden and the...

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CFPI launches Senior Policy Fellows pilot to accelerate research-to-policy impact

Mon, 09 Feb 2026 22:45:43 +0000

The Clark-Fox Policy Institute (CFPI) at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis has launched its inaugural Senior Policy Fellows pilot program, a new initiative aimed at accelerating the translation of academic research into actionable public policy that improves child and family wellbeing. While universities produce a wealth of policy-relevant research, many scholars lack the training, time, or institutional support to move their findings into policy arenas. CFPI’s Senior Policy Fellows model is designed to address that gap by providing structured support for faculty to engage directly with policymakers, communities, and practitioners. “Researchers are generating powerful evidence every day, but too often that knowledge doesn’t reach the people shaping policy,” said Jason Jabbari, assistant professor and inaugural faculty director...

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Brown School ��s call for social work approach to improve St. Louis disaster response

admin — Mon, 09 Feb 2026 10:01:00 +0000

St. Louis is not adequately prepared for increasingly frequent and severe climate-related disasters, according to a new ��-led report from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. The report calls for more inclusive, coordinated and community-driven emergency planning. The report, “Community Development and Disaster Preparedness in the City of St. Louis: A Vision for Response with a Social Work Lens,” was written by graduate ��s in social work, public health and social policy as part of the Brown School’s spring 2025 Community Development course. It was published by WashU’s Center for the Environment. Guided by Molly Metzger, a teaching professor at the Brown School, and teaching assistant Rachel Hurtado, the project incorporated input from local agencies, community leaders...

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Brown School ��s take social work lessons to local policy hearings

admin — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 20:42:53 +0000

When a tornado tore through the St. Louis region last May, Chloe Brewer, a Master of Social Work �� at Washington University’s Brown School, lost her apartment. Though her home was uninhabitable, her property management initially insisted she continue paying rent. Brewer recently recounted that experience during a meeting of the Housing, Urban Development and Zoning Committee of the St. Louis Board of Alderman, advocating for full funding of the city’s Housing Eviction Law Program, also known as the Right to Counsel Program. The program provides access to legal representation for tenants facing eviction. “They would have made me pay rent for the month of June, only two weeks after the tornado, despite having no place to live,” Brewer told...

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Jonson-Reid, Drake co-author new book on child welfare systems

admin — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 18:10:45 +0000

Melissa Jonson-Reid, the Ralph & Muriel Pumphrey Professor of Social Work Research, and Brett Drake, Professor of Data Science for the Social Good in Practice of Washington University’s Brown School, are co-authors of a new book that examines the processes and outcomes of child welfare services in the United States, with global comparisons highlighting both challenges and opportunities in the field. “Understanding Child Welfare,” was released in January 2026 by Edward Elgar Publishing as an open access publication. It is part of Edward Elgar’s “Understanding” series, which features works authored or edited by leading scholars. The book helps to shed light on which child welfare system reforms may be most likely to benefit at-risk and maltreated children and families. Chapters address key and...

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McKay, Naseh awarded seed grants for international research projects

admin — Tue, 25 Nov 2025 13:03:00 +0000

Two Brown School faculty members have received 2025 Global Incubator Seed Grants to launch new international research projects focused on improving public health and refugee well-being. The awards, up to $25,000 each from WashU Global and the Office of the Provost, are intended to help faculty build new international collaborations and advance early-stage global research partnerships. Mary McKay, executive vice provost and professor, was awarded funding for a collaborative project on climate change and intimate partner violence among young women living with HIV in Uganda. In partnership with Makerere University, McKay’s team plans to collect quantitative data from 200 young women living with HIV and conduct interviews with 20 participants to capture their lived experiences. Findings will inform the development of integrated,...

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To address gun violence, focus more on people than on guns

Roger — Tue, 28 Oct 2025 21:16:26 +0000

When it comes to curbing gun violence in America, the field of public health should consider focusing less on the guns themselves and more on a rising sense of distrust that makes people reach for guns in the first place, says a researcher from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. “Public health has long ignored the political and social aspects of gun ownership and failed to recognize that firearms are, for many people, a means of replacing fear and uncertainty with a sense of strength and self-sufficiency,” said Caitlin McMurtry, an assistant professor. “Before we can make progress toward a safer society, we need a better understanding of, and more research on, Americans’ motivations for self-armament.” McMurtry, whose...

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Ahn explores AI, social work and inequality

admin — Fri, 17 Oct 2025 15:40:40 +0000

Spot Eunhye Ahn on campus in deep thought, and you might catch her wrestling with a question she considers both urgent and underexplored: What does “human-centered” really mean from a social work perspective when it comes to artificial intelligence? “It’s interesting, literally every day there’s some new aspect of the AI field,” said Ahn, an assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis and an affiliated researcher with WashU’s new AI for Health Institute, which explores responsible uses of AI in health and social systems. But Ahn challenges the notion that AI is impartial. “AI is not neutral. It reflects the biases and structures of the society that created it,” she said. “I get really angry...

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Brown School welcomes first standalone Master of Social Policy cohort

admin — Fri, 19 Sep 2025 21:45:00 +0000

The Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis has welcomed the inaugural cohort of its standalone Master of Social Policy (MSP) program. Previously offered only as part of a dual-degree track, the MSP is now available as a one-year, three semester program that includes a summer internship, and emphasizes practical skills in advocacy, negotiation, evaluation, and economic decision-making. “The MSP degree builds skills in all aspects of the policy ecosystem, from economics to advocacy to strategy to evaluation,” said Anna Goldfarb Shabsin, assistant dean of the MSP program. “This degree is perfect for anyone who is interested in impacting policy, from those new to policy work to those who already have experience in the field.” The inaugural class of...

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Polarization around vaccine hesitancy was 12 times greater than past outbreaks, study finds

Roger — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 19:22:00 +0000

Political polarization during COVID-19 was 12 times greater than in past disease outbreaks in terms of vaccine hesitancy, according to a comprehensive new study by Caitlin McMurtry, an assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. In addition, polarization was five times greater around concern about infection, the study found. The research, published in the American Journal of Public Health, analyzes nearly seven decades of archival survey data, going back to polio in 1954. It highlights how partisanship can shape risk perceptions, compliance with preventive measures and vaccine uptake during health crises. “Our findings indicate that political polarization during COVID-19 was about five times greater than in any other disease outbreak for which we have public opinion data...

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