The Past, Present and Future of Child Welfare in Canada

Anika Ganness received her PhD from the Department of Political Science at the University of Toronto. She is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the IRPP and McGill University. She is co-supervised by  Shaimaa Yassin at the IRPP and Debra Thompson at McGill University. Her research areas include Comparative Politics, Public Policy, and Canadian Politics. Her current project examines racial disproportionality within child welfare in Canada, an under-researched area in political science. Prior to pursuing her doctoral studies, Anika was the Global Child Protection Officer for Plan International, one of the leading child rights organizations in the world. She integrates that public policy expertise in her scholarship.

Shaimaa Yassin is a senior research director at the Institute for Research on Public Policy, leading the Toward a More Equitable Canada research program, which has published studies on proposed dental care and pharmacare programs. She is also a member of the secretariat of the Affordability Action Council, a collaboration of diverse policy and community leaders that works to identify ways to help meet the basic needs of lower-income Canadians. She is a policy-oriented economist with over a decade of experience in translating challenging academic research into strategic advice for a broad audience.