LEADERSHIP:

Mark Courtney, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Partners for Our Children

Executive Director Mark Courtney, a leading expert on child welfare services in the United States, has joined the faculty of the University of Washington School of Social Work as the Ballmer Chair in Child Well-Being, the first endowed chair in the School. He has conducted extensive research on individual, family, and societal contributors to the well-being of children placed in out-of-home care. Mark focuses on applied research; his studies involve active collaboration with multiple stakeholders in the policy and practice communities to determine how to improve children’s services nationally.

Most recently Mark was the McCormick Tribune Professor at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and served as the Director of the Chapin Hall Center for Children from 2001 to 2006. Before that, he was on the faculty of the School of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In addition, Mark was a faculty affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a member of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood and Public Policy.

Mark has served as a consultant to the federal government, state departments of social services, local public and private child welfare agencies around the country, and the foundation community. He has a master of social work degree in management and planning, as well as a doctorate from the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley.

Mark and his wife have two daughters.