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Melissa Van Wert

Title(s)
Sessional Lecturer
Degrees: 
MSW, PhD
Email: 
Biography: 

Melissa Van Wert, MSW, PhD, recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre for Research on Children and Families, McGill University. She received her PhD in Social Work with a specialization in Human Development at the University of Toronto in 2015.

Melissa’s research focuses on behavioural, emotional, educational and other developmental outcomes of children and youth who are involved in the child welfare system, in particular those who enter out-of-home care. Melissa has almost ten years of experience conducting community-based research involving collaboration and communication with children’s service agencies as well as provincial and federal policy makers. She is committed to engaging in participatory research and advocacy in partnership with service providers, governments and communities in order to better understand how to improve trajectories of vulnerable children and youth.