Debra Schilling Wolfe

Debra Schilling Wolfe, MEd, is the Founding Executive Director of the Field Center for Children's Policy, Practice & Research at the University of Pennsylvania, where she leads interdisciplinary efforts to improve the lives of child maltreatment victims through system-level reform. Her groundbreaking research includes leading one of the largest studies on trafficking among homeless youth, which revealed that 20% of interviewed youths were victims of human trafficking, with 17% experiencing sex trafficking. She developed the first measurement tool to examine correlations between trafficking and child welfare experiences, finding that 95% of sex trafficking victims had histories of child maltreatment. As a certified trainer on recognizing and reporting child abuse in Pennsylvania, she chairs a child fatality review committee and serves on the statewide Child Welfare Council. Her policy reform work spans crucial areas including mandated reporting of child abuse, human trafficking of minors, and child maltreatment fatalities. Through the Field Center's collaborative approach, involving Penn's schools of Social Policy & Practice, Law, Medicine and Nursing, and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, she continues to drive significant improvements in child welfare policy and practice.