Jill Duerr Berrick

JILL DUERR BERRICK is the Zellerbach Family Foundation Professor at the School of Social Welfare.

Dr. Berrick's research focuses on the child welfare system and efforts to improve the experiences of children and families touched by foster care. Her interests target the intersect of poverty, early childhood development, parenting and the service systems designed to address these issues. Berrick’s research approach typically relies upon the voices of service system consumers or providers to identify the impacts of social problems and social service solutions on family life.

For over two decades Dr. Berrick has conducted a range of studies examining child welfare services for vulnerable families. She has written or co-written 11 books and numerous articles on topics relating to family poverty, child maltreatment and child welfare. Her most influential works have examined the benefits and limitations of kinship foster care; the characteristics of highly effective foster caregivers; and the human impacts of poverty-related policies for children and families at risk of foster care involvement.

Her newest book, The Impossible Imperative: Navigating the Contested Principles of Child Protection (Oxford University Press) lays out a framework for conducting principled child welfare practice. Berrick argues that the field is shaped by competing ideas that force child welfare professionals to make choices that are both contested and contentious. Although the principles serve to animate child welfare practice and policy, they are fraught with contradiction when placed in a real-world context. Joined by 15 co-authors who are former Berkeley students and who have served as child welfare professionals across California, these writers share their stories about working on the front lines of child protection. Using these rich case exemplars, the book draws the reader into that liminal space where ethics, morality, and reasoned choice are challenged. The book can be used as a teaching tool for aspiring professionals and as motivation for those looking to social work to make a difference in children’s and families’ lives.

For more info, see: http://socialwelfare.berkeley.edu/faculty/jill-duerr-berrick