AMY CONLEY WRIGHT, MSW, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Department of Child and Adolescent Development, College of Health and Human Services, at San Francisco State University. She received a B.A. in Child Development and Public Policy from Boston University and a Masters and PhD in Social Welfare from UC Berkeley. Her teaching, research, and practice experiences are in the areas of child and family policy, child advocacy, family support, and child abuse prevention, both domestically and internationally. She was the director of Romanian Children�s Relief from 2000-2001, where she managed three programs in hospitals and orphanages that promoted children�s healthy development in… institutional settings and transition to foster care. She has published several articles on child welfare innovations, including differential response and birth parent peer support. With James Midgley, she is the co-editor of Social Work and Social Development: Theories and Skills for Developmental Social Work, Oxford University Press, 2010, (translation into Korean and Chinese are in progress). Future writing plans include continued work on child advocacy and development of a text on ecological influences on children�s development. Dr. Wright teaches classes on child advocacy, child and family policy, and child development for undergraduates at San Francisco State University. She is a board member of the International Child Resource Institute and an advisory board member of Romanian Children�s Relief.
KENNETH JAFFE, M.A., J.D., is the Executive Director of the International Child Resource Institute (ICRI), which he founded in 1981. ICRI is a non-profit organization committed to improving the lives of children and families throughout the world through technical assistance and consultation, resource dissemination, and the establishment of model projects. ICRI has now worked in 57 countries on projects serving children and families. Mr. Jaffe currently oversees ICRI offices in Kenya, Malaysia, Zimbabwe, Ghana, India, Norway, and Nepal and 10 project sites in the United States. Mr. Jaffe received his child development training at the University of Uppsala in Sweden and his Master's degree… from the University of California, Berkeley, where he conducted comparative research in international child care and development practices. He earned a Juris Doctor degree in Law from John F. Kennedy University, where he studied juvenile justice and children's rights. He is the author of numerous articles on international early childhood education, child advocacy, nonprofit management and work and family policy issues. Most recently, he co-authored the book, Straw into Gold, published by Mother Goose Press in 2010 (a translation into Haitian Creole is in progress). Mr. Jaffe served as Chair and member of the California Governor's Advisory Committee on Child Development for nine years. He has worked extensively on family child care issues and was a founding member of the International Family Child Care Association and the World Forum on Early Care and Education. He was the Vice-Chair of the California Commission to Formulate a State Plan for Child Care and Development. He has assisted in the improvement or establishment of more than 300 child care, child health, and child abuse prevention programs worldwide. He has been a consultant to the Children's Defense Fund in Washington, D.C., and has advised the governments of Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, China, Liberia, Ghana, Nepal, Sweden, Costa Rica, and Ecuador on child and family issues. In addition, Mr. Jaffe has presented hundreds of seminars to professionals worldwide and has held teaching positions at the University of Boras and Gothenberg University in Sweden, the Womenrsquo;s University in Harare, Zimbabwe, and California State University- East Bay in Hayward, California. Future writing plans include topics such as developmentally appropriate early childhood care and education practices and responsible international development.