User:Rmekonnen/sandbox

Robin Hernandez-Mekonnen (Blicharz) was born in Pewaukee, Wisconsin on April 9, 1973. She attended St. Mary's Catholic School until the 4th grade, when she was asked to leave the school for challenging discriminatory employment policies. She then attended Lakeside Elementary, followed by Hartland Elementary North. Robin attended Arrowhead High school in Hartland, Wisconsin. Upon graduation (1991), Robin attended the University of Wisconsin- Madison, where she earned a BA in Cultural Anthropology (1995). After graduation, Robin moved to Philadelphia with her fiance, and married a year later. Working in child welfare in Philadelphia, Robin became frustrated with a failing system and decided to pursue a graduate degree in Social work. Robin attended the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice, where she earned her MSW (2002), and proceeded directly into the school's PhD program.

In 2002, Robin worked with Children's Rights Inc., a law firm charged with pursuing a class action lawsuit against the state on New Jersey for negligent practices in their child welfare system, under a contract with the University of Pennsylvania and then Dean of the School of Social Policy and Practice, Richard Gelles. The New Jersey child welfare system underwent a transformation in practices since the lawsuit, and remains under consent decree, in the form of a modified settlement agreement. She earned her PhD in 2012 from the university of Pennsylvania, with a dissertation chaired by her long term mentor, Richard Gelles. Her dissertation addressed the issue of placement stability for children in Foster care, after conducting a longitudinal cohort (n=400) study of children entering Philadelphia's child welfare system. The study was conducted at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, with the support of federal funding (NICHD) and foundation grants. Robin also worked in CHOP's inaugural PolicyLab that conducted research on the importance of Kin in foster care, and employed data from the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well Being (NSCAW) to inform policy makers in 2007 during congressional briefings, on the Fostering Connections legislation, which was passed several months later.

Robin currently works as an Associate Professor of Social Work at Stockton University, and serves as faculty in the Child Welfare Education Institute, the lead organization in New Jersey's Title IV-E university partnership project.

She lives in Philadelphia with her children and pets.