Welcome!

Dr. Johanna Greeson is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. She is passionate about reforming the child welfare system, using research to build better futures for youth who age out of foster care, and realizing the power of connections to caring adults for all vulnerable youth. Her research agenda is resiliency-focused and based in the strengths and virtues that enable foster youth to not only survive, but thrive. Dr. Greeson’s published work has been cited in the peer-reviewed literature over 2,000 times and includes scholarly articles on natural mentoring, life course theory, the resiliency perspective, evidence-based practices for youth in foster care, independent living services for older youth in foster care, residential group care, intensive in-home therapy, low-income homeownership, child/adolescent traumatic stress, and domestic minor sex trafficking.

Her treatment manual C.A.R.E.: A Natural Mentoring Intervention for Older Youth in Foster Care (2019) is now available for order on Amazon.com. This comprehensive, empirically-supported guide provides practical advice on how to train and effectively engage natural mentors, as well as how to help cultivate nurturing relationships between youth in care and their natural mentors. C.A.R.E. leverages youth’s pre-existing social networks to identify adults who can be natural mentors. Youth are empowered in this process because C.A.R.E. prioritizes the youth’s preference for which adults will take on the role of natural mentor.

Dr. Greeson is also the Managing Faculty Director at the Field Center for Children’s Policy, Practice, & Research at the University of Pennsylvania.