The Center for Social Development (CSD), part of the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, will mark its 10th year as an innovative academic research and policy center with a weeklong series of events beginning Oct. 11 in Brown Lounge.
“Ten years goes by very quickly,” said Michael Sherraden, Ph.D., center director and the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development.
“CSD has been very fortunate to have the strong support of Chancellor Wrighton, former Dean Shanti Khinduka and Dean Edward Lawlor. Our hope is that CSD will continue to be a vital part of the School of Social Work and Washington University long into the future.”
The events, which are free and open to the public, include:
• Oct. 11, 12-2 p.m.: CSD’s projects on state and tribal assets, college savings (529) plans, and tithing and community economic development will be presented.
• Oct. 12, 12-2 p.m.: CSD staff and student research associates will present information about MOKANSave (a bi-state asset-building coalition), children’s savings accounts and individual development accounts.
• Oct. 14, 12-2 p.m.: CSD faculty and student research associates will discuss some of the ongoing center initiatives, including Civic Service Worldwide, Assets Africa and productive aging.
• Oct. 15, 4:30-6:30 p.m.: A celebration reception will conclude the week.
Sherraden founded CSD in 1994 with support from Khinduka. CSD was instituted in part to expand Sherraden’s research, which is dedicated to creating a more inclusive, universal asset-building policy system for the United States.
Sherraden’s book, Assets and the Poor: A New American Welfare Policy, and subsequent research have made contributions toward changing the way academics and policy-makers think about assets policies for low-income families.
In his book, Sherraden proposed individual development accounts (IDAs), which are savings accounts similar to 401(k)s except they can be instituted at birth and are subsidized for low-income families. These accounts may be used for high-return assets such as homeownership, business capitalization and college education.
“Through CSD research on IDAs, we have shown that the poor can save, if given incentives and institutional supports similar to those that people with middle and high incomes enjoy,” Sherraden said.
The effects of this work have reached outside the United States. The United Kingdom has instituted policy for universal children’s accounts at birth, with greater deposits for low-income families. Called the Child Trust Fund, this new policy was influenced by Sherraden’s work and is scheduled to roll out in 2005.
Sherraden and CSD staff grew Khinduka’s investment into a leading academic research center of theory and research on asset-building in social policy, and a leading center for work on civic service, innovative work in productive aging and research in other areas.
CSD employs 11 staff members, including five project directors. The center works with more than 30 faculty associates from WUSTL and other universities and with more than 25 student research associates and assistants.
“The CSD staff has done exceptional work in research and policy-innovation projects,” Sherraden said. “I am very fortunate to work with these fine people.”
CSD receives support for its research initiatives from several private foundations and government agencies, including the Ford, Charles Stewart Mott, and Annie E. Casey foundations and the Office of Community Services at the Department of Health and Human Services.
For more information, call Karen Edwards, CSD project director, at 935-7299 or go online to gwbweb.wustl.edu/csd.