Chapin Hall

Casey Family Programs honors Chapin Hall’s Bryan Samuels and Clare Anderson with national leadership award

Chapin Hall Executive Director Bryan Samuels and Senior Policy Fellow Clare Anderson are among the recipients of this year’s Casey Family Programs Leadership Awards. Every year Casey Family Programs recognizes those whose inspiring leadership and dedication build hope and make a difference in the lives of children and families engaged with the child welfare system. For more than a decade, Chapin Hall and Casey Family Programs have partnered to improve outcomes for children and families by supporting jurisdictions throughout the country, designing and testing new ways to build capacity in community-based organizations and systems to employ evidence-informed strategies.

Samuels was chosen for leading Chapin Hall in its active integration of empirical evidence into public policy, and Anderson for her national thought leadership on supports for families to prevent child welfare involvement and effecting large-scale system transformation by guiding state implementation of the Family First Prevention Services Act.

Relatedly, Chapin Hall received the Research and Evaluation Innovation Award at the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA) National Human Services Summit last summer. APHSA referred to Chapin Hall’s translational efforts with economic and concrete supports in the preservation of families and prevention of child welfare involvement as “groundbreaking.”

“The Casey Family Programs Leadership Award is very meaningful for Chapin Hall,” Samuels said. “We are focused on positive policy change for millions of children and families, ensuring the systems that serve them are equitable, effective, and backed up by evidence. Working closely with the incredibly dedicated staff at Casey Family Programs allows us to be even more effective.”

Anderson and her Chapin Hall colleagues have synthesized, translated and made actionable 40 years of evidence regarding economic and concrete supports. This evidence has been integrated into policy and fiscal decision making across the country.

“It is incredibly rewarding to contribute to a robust evidence base that shows how economic and concrete supports uplift families and prevent child welfare involvement; the evidence shows all of us there is a better way forward,” said Anderson. “I’m honored to collaborate with colleagues at Chapin Hall who have made the translation and application of the economic and concrete support evidence possible, our partners at Casey Family Programs on the implementation of the Family First Prevention Services Act, and the countless family members, researchers, administrators and policymakers across the country who are contributing to a transformation of child welfare.”

Dr. William C. Bell, President and CEO of Casey Family Programs, said: “This year’s honorees all share a passion for improving the lives of children and families. This heartfelt commitment to ensuring children and families have what they need to thrive is the essence of what it means to build Communities of Hope.”

In addition to the Leadership Award given to Samuels, Anderson and other child welfare leaders and change-makers, there is a Family and Alumni category. That group includes alumni of foster care, resource parents, kinship caregivers and birth parents who have demonstrated extraordinary efforts to improve the lives of children and families. View recipients’ full biographies and video stories at casey.org/ceca.

The awards are named in honor of Jim Casey, the founder of United Parcel Service, who established Casey Family Programs in 1966 as an operating foundation to help improve the safety and success of children and their families across America. The honorees will be celebrated at a ceremony in Seattle today.