Trudy Festinger (New York University) is being honored for her leadership and research which has directly shaped most aspects of child welfare policy at federal and state levels and meaningfully changed direct practice in child welfare settings.Dr. Festinger is, unquestionably, a translational researcher.
She has been a faculty member at the Silver School of Social Work at New York University for over forty years and her research career spans almost fifty years.
Her passion for community based research in foster care and adoption has consistently been pioneering and transformative precisely because she asks and seeks answers tough questions that have direct application on the ground with families and in agencies to improve the services to children in the system.