Conna Craig: Director, Institute For Children

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INSTITUTE FOR CHILDREN

DIRECTOR'S PROFILE

Conna Craig is a Director and President of the Institute for Children. Ms. Craig brings to the Institute a solid commitment to promoting effective and humane approaches to substitute care. She advises governors, other policy makers and opinion leaders on practical steps that must be taken to restructure foster care and adoption and help tens of thousands of children find permanent families.

Born and raised in Northern California, Ms. Craig graduated with honors from Harvard College. At Harvard she wrote her honors thesis on the relationship between research and legislation on child abuse. In the course of her research, she traveled across the United States, meeting not only with experts in child protective services but also with children in foster care, group homes and shelters. She met many children who, temporarily or permanently separated from their families of origin, languished for months or even years in state-run care. Her deep and abiding interest in discovering how best to serve these children led her to investigate how other countries approach substitute care. Ms. Craig has lived in Japan as a Harvard Graduate Fellow; there she studied child abuse and related issues. She has traveled throughout the world to research foster care and adoption practices; most recently, she has advised legislators and scholars in China, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea and the United Kingdom.

Ms. Craig's commitment to rebuilding foster care and adoption is rooted in her belief that children get a better start in life with a family and a loving, permanent home and that indeed every child deserves such a foundation. Adopted into a family that has to date cared for 110 foster children, Ms. Craig has spent her entire life involved in and very much aware of the "client" side of the foster care equation.

18 BRATTLE STREET CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS 02138 USA TELEPHONE 617 491-4614 FACSIMILE 617 491-4673