Email: ruth.mcroy@bc.edu
Adoption and Foster Care outcomes for children and families; African American families; Systemic Disparities
BCSSW Launches RISE Initiative to Address Race, Place, & Poverty
Boston College Chronicle: Conference on Foster Care Affirms GSSW Partnership
In September 2009, Ruth G. McRoy, PhD, became the first holder of the Donahue and DiFelice Endowed Professorship at Boston College School of Social Work. She is a Co-Founding Director with Tiziana Dearing and David Takeuchi of the Research and Innovations in Social, Economic, and Environmental Equity (RISE) at Boston College.
Prior to joining the Boston College faculty, Dr. McRoy was a member of the University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work faculty for 25 years and held the Ruby Lee Piester Centennial Professorship. She received her BA and MSW degrees from the University of Kansas and her PhD degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
Dr. McRoy’s teaching focuses on the History and Philosophy of American Social Welfare and Contemporary Issues in Adoption and Foster Care. Her research and scholarship has focused on many topics including racial disproportionality in child welfare, family preservation, kinship care, longitudinal study of outcomes of openness in adoptions for birthmothers, adoptive parents, and adopted children, adoptive family recruitment and retention, minority recruitment, racial identity development, transracial adoptions, older child adoptions, and post-adoption services.
She has published over 100 journal articles and book chapters and twelve books, including:Openness in Adoption: Family Connections(with H. Grotevant),Challenging Racial Disproportionality in Child Welfare(with D. Green, K. Belanger, and L. Bullard),Building Research Culture and Infrastructure(with J. Flanzer & J. Zlotnik) and Transracial and Intercountry Adoptions: Culturally Sensitive Guidance for Professionals (with R. Fong)
Over the years, Dr. McRoy has had numerous federal, state, foundation, and local research grants. Currently as part of the federally funded AdoptUSKids project, which is operated through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Children’s Bureau, Dr. McRoy and her research team recently completed two nationwide studies (2002-2007) on barriers to adoption and factors associated with successful special needs adoptions. Currently, she is leading an evaluation team which is conducting a ten year (2007-2017) evaluation of all components of AdoptUSKids.
Dr. McRoy recently completed her term as Board Member of the Society for Social Work and Research, as Board Member and President of the North American Council on Adoptable Children (NACAC), as Chair of the Council on Social Work Education Commission on Diversity and Social and Economic Justice, and as Senior Research Fellow and Donaldson Adoption Institute Board Member. She currently is Co-Chair of the Council on Social Work Education’s Diversity Center , Co-lead of the Social Work Grand Challenge Achieving serves on the Board of Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of Boston, on the Rudd Adoption Advisory Board, and Program Chair and Board Member of the National Center on Adoption and Permanency. She is Vice-President of the Black Administrators, Researchers and Scholars (BARS), is a member of the Walker Trieschman Institute for Research and Training’s Professional Advisory Council on Legal Permanency for All Children.
Dr. McRoy's honors include the following: 2004 Flynn Prize for Social Work Research from the University of Southern California, the 2005 George Silcott Lifetime Achievement Award from the Black Administrators in Child Welfare, the 2006 Distinguished Achievement Award from the Society for Social Work and Research, the 2006-2007 University of Texas at Austin Graduate School’s Outstanding Alumna Award, the 2010, the 2013 U.S. Children's Bureau Adoption Excellence Award, the 2014, and the 2014by the University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work. In 2010 she was selected as a fellow in the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.
McRoy, R. G. and Belanger, K. (Eds.) (2014). Examining Racial Disproportionality Through Research: A Handbook for Social Work Education. Washington, DC: Child Welfare League of America.
Fong, R. & McRoy, R. (Eds.) (2016) Transracial and Intercountry Adoptions: Culturally Sensitive Guidance for Professionals (NewYork: Columbia University Press).
Madden, E., Chanmugam, A., McRoy, R., Kaufman, L., Ayers-Lopez, Boo, M., Ledesma, K. (2016) The Impact of Formal and Informal Respite Care on Foster, Adoptive, and Kinship
Parents Caring for Children Involved in the Child Welfare System. Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal (Vol. 33, #6).
McRoy, R. G., Padilla, Y. C., Calvo, R., Goldbach, J. T., & Teasley, M. L. (with Amaro, H., Waters, M. C.). (2016, September). Policy recommendations for meeting the Grand Challenge to Achieve Equal Opportunity and Justice. (Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative Policy Brief No. 12). Cleveland, OH: American Academy of Social Work & Social Welfare.
Teasley, M., McRoy, R. Joyner, M., Armour, M., Gourdine, R., Crewe, S., Kelly, M., Franklin, C., Payne, M., Jackson, J., Fong, R. “Increasing Success for African American Children and Youth. Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative, Working Paper No. 21, Revised January 2017. American Academy of Social Work & Social Welfare.
Calvo, R., Teasley, M., Goldbach, J., McRoy, R., & Padilla, Y. (2018). Grand Challenge #12: Achieve Equal Opportunity and Justice. In Fong, R., Lubben, J., & Barth, R. (Eds.), Grand Challenges for Social Work and Society. UK: Oxford University Press.
Battalen, A., Farr, R., Brodzinsky, D., & McRoy, R. (2018) Socializing Children About Family Structure: Perspectives of Lesbian and Gay Adoptive Parents, Journal of GLBT Family Studies, DOI: 10.1080/1550428X.2018.1465875
Child Welfare Services Training Grants Program, Children's Bureau, Department of Human Services (1981-1982).
Child Welfare Services Training Grants Program, Children's Bureau, Department of Human Services (1982-1983).
University Research Institute: “Transracial and Inracial Adoptees: The Adolescent Years” (1981-1982), $500.
University Research Institute (with Professor Clay Shorkey): “Psychological Characteristics and Problem Solving Skills of Child Abusing Mothers” (1982-1983), $500.
University Research Institute: “Psychological and Contextual Factors Associated with the Placement of Adopted Children in Residential Treatment” (1983), $500.
Hogg Foundation for Mental Health Grant (with Harold D. Grotevant and Louis A. Zurcher, Jr.): “Psychological and Contextual Factors Associated with the Placement of Adopted
Children in Residential Treatment” (1983-85), $22,453.95.
2001 - 2005, Associate Dean for Research, School of Social Work, The University of Texas at Austin
2005 - Present, Ruby Lee Piester Centennial Professor Emerita, School of Social Work, The University of Texas at Austin
2005 - Present, Research Professor, School of Social Work, The University of Texas at Austin
2005 - 2008, Visiting Research Professor, Boston College Graduate School of Social Work, Boston, Massachusetts
2008 - 2009, Consultant, Boston College Graduate School of Social Work, Boston, Massachusetts
2009 - 2011, Consultant, University of Southern California School of Social Welfare, Los Angeles, California