School of Social Work Professor Selected for 2016-2017 Core Fulbright U. S. Scholar grant

Pitt School of Social Work Professor Selected for 2016-2017 Core Fulbright U. S. Scholar grant Mary Elizabeth Rauktis will study child welfare practices in Portugal Mary Elizabeth Rauktis, a research assistant professor and faculty member for the Pennsylvania Child Welfare Resource Center in the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work, has been awarded a Core Fulbright U. S. Scholar grant to conduct research and teach at the University of Porto, Portugal from September to December 2017. The Fulbright Program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to “increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.” Rauktis is the very first Pitt School of Social Work faculty member to receive a Fulbright. Rauktis will study restriction of living environment as part of a team tasked with assessing the needs of children and youth and the quality of care provided in residential institutions. Portugal is currently conducting a nationwide evaluation of its residential child welfare care system, and the information collected using the restrictiveness of living environment measure or REM-Y can be used to help inform policies and practices which support developmentally appropriate out-of-home care for children/youth in the country. Rauktis was inspired to pursue this research when she discovered that in Portugal 90% of the children placed in –out-of-home go into a group residence or institution, a model inconsistent with best practice models of other countries. “I want to collaborate with my research colleagues in Portugal and with family and child caseworkers to create a culturally sensitive tool to assess the needs of a child and help to match them with the “home” that will best meet their developmental and therapeutic needs” says Rauktis. “An institution is not a home, but in the absence of a safe home or foster home, then the institution or residential group home should be the best possible placement.  I hope to aid in the national efforts underway to improve institutional and residential home care.” In addition to research, Rauktis will also teach a course in the graduate program. She previously lectured as a guest faculty at the University of Minho in Braga, Portugal, in 2004 and in 2006. Her partners in this research are Jon Huefner, Ron Thompson from Boys Town in Nebraska, and she has received funding from Casey Family Foundations, the Pressley Ridge Foundation, and Boys Town. Established in 1946 by Senator J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Annually, the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program sends about 800 American professionals to 155 countries to lecture, research, and participate in a range of endeavors. ###For more information please contact Director of Marketing and Communications Shannon Murphy at shm87@pitt.edu

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Mary Elizabeth Rauktis, a research assistant professor and faculty member for the Pennsylvania Child Welfare Resource Center in the School of Social Work, has been awarded a Core Fulbright U. S. Scholar grant to conduct research and teach at the University of Porto, Portugal.