Trudy B. Festinger MSW, DSW
Professor of Social Work
Curriculum Vitae
trudy.festinger@nyu.edu | (212) 998-5974
bio
Trudy Festinger is a professor of Research at the School of Social Work, New York University. She has conducted (principal investigator) a number of large-scale studies in the fields of foster care and child adoption, including a major follow-up study of youth discharged from foster care. More recently, studies have concerned rates and correlates of adoption disruption of children with special needs, and factors related to reentry in foster care, both published by the Child Welfare League of America, Inc. She has completed analyses of child adoptions in New York City for 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, and 2000. Under the auspices of the NYC Administration for Children.s Services Families for Kids Kellogg Grant she has conducted two evaluative studies of child adoption procedures in New York City. Both of these reports, Speeding the Adoption Process: Evaluation of the Adoption Expediting Unit Project, and Accelerating Adoptions: Evaluation of the Use of Chapter 588 have been completed in the past five years.
She has also co-directed a study on the vision and hearing of children in foster care, and recently finished research on rates of adoption dissolution and the need for post-adoption services (After Adoption: A Study of Placement Stability and Parents. Service Needs), as well as a telephone survey of the NYC Administration for Children.s Services adoption hotline callers. She has delivered numerous speeches in the field of child welfare, both in the U.S. and abroad. She is a past member of the editorial board of the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, the advisory board of the Interagency Council of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Agencies, Inc., was a consultant to the Children.s Defense Fund of Washington, D.C.; a member of a task force on open adoption of the NYC Comptroller.s office; is currently on the editorial board of the Journal of Public Child Welfare, and is a member of the advisory board of the N.Y.C. Administration for Children.s Services, and member of its Child Welfare as well as Finance subcommittees. She is on the Board of Directors of the Citizens. Committee for Children of New York City, currently co-chairing a task force on Preventive Services in NYC; and is vice-president of the Kenworthy-Swift Foundation.
selected recent publications
- Festinger, T. and Maza, P. (2009). Displacement or Post-Adoption Placement? A Research Note. Journal of Public Child Welfare, 3, 275-286.
- Festinger, T. (2008). "The influence of an adoption experiment on social policy" in A. Schlonsky and D. Lindsey. Child welfare research: Advances for practice and policy. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Festinger, T. (2006). Adoption disruption and dissolution. Entry in Stolley, K and Bullough, V. The Praeger Handbook of Adoption, Vol 1, pp. 189-194. Westport, CT, Praeger Publishers.
- Festinger, T. (2006). Adoption and after: Adoptive parents' service needs. In M. Dore (Ed.), The postadoption experience: adoptive families' service needs and service outcomes (pp. 17-44). Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America.
- Shlonsky, A., Festinger, T. & Brookhart, M. A. (2006). Is survival the fittest?: A post-hoc evaluation of event history estimations in an experimental design. Children and Youth Services Review (in press).
- Festinger, T. (2005). Adoption and disruption. In G. Mallon & P. Hess (Eds). Child welfare for the 21st century: A handbook of practices, policies, and programs (pp. 452-468), New York: Columbia University Press.
- Festinger, T. & Fenster, J. (2005) Factors related to substance abuse treatment acceptance of mothers/guardians reported to protective services. Veritas, New York City.
- Festinger, T. & Duckman, R. (2004). Vision Status Among Foster Children in NYC: A Research Note. Social Work in Health Care, 38(4), 77-81.