SSR Seminar Series: Living on the Edge: How Economic Insecurity Harms Children and Families

Trina Shanks is Harold R. Johnson Endowed Professor and Founding Director of the Center for Equitable Family & Community Well-Being at the University of Michigan.  She is an expert who has published and spoken extensively on child savings accounts, the impact of poverty and wealth on child outcomes, youth employment, the racial wealth gap, comprehensive community change efforts, and historical policy such as the Homestead Act. She has led multiple evaluations of Detroit’s Summer Youth Employment Program—Grow Detroit’s Young Talent (GDYT) and leads a local multi-sector network focused on equitable employment. Shanks has a MSW and Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis and a Masters in Comparative Social Research from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.  Dr. Shanks is currently a non-resident fellow at Urban Institute, and a national network co-lead for the Social Work Grand Challenge: Reversing Extreme Poverty and Economic Inequality.