Willem Adema

Willem currently leads a team of analysts of Family and Children policies and is responsible for the on-line OECD Family database and the Doing Better for Families Policy publication (April 2011). Working with colleagues across the OECD he is project manager of the OECD Gender Initiative and his other responsibilities include the OECD Social Expenditure database and a labour market and social policy review of Russia. He has written extensively on a wide range of labour market, fiscal and welfare policy issues and was editor of the first issue of Society at a Glance: OECD Social Indicators. Willem was project manager and editor of the OECD Babies and Bosses Reviews on the reconciliation of Work and Family Life. Willem graduated from the Erasmus Universiteit in Rotterdam, and holds a doctorate from St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford.

Laura Lein

Laura Lein, Ph.D., was appointed Dean and Katherine Reebel Collegiate Professor at the School of Social Work at the University of Michigan in 2009, as well as Professor in the Department of Anthropology. She came to Michigan from the University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work where she taught for 24 years. She has taught in the areas of social policy, social work research, and community organization and participatory research. Her research has concentrated on the interface between families in poverty and the institutions that serve them. Her research on families in poverty has extended over three decades. She recently co-authored (with Ronald Angel and Jane Henrici) Poor Families in America’s Health Care Crisis (Cambridge University Press, 2006) and Life After Welfare (with Deanna Schexnadyer, University of Texas Press, 2007). She is the author, with Kathryn Edin, of Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low-Wage Work (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1997).

Patrick Parkinson

Professor Patrick Parkinson AM teaches in the Faculty of Law at the University of Sydney. He is the current President of the International Society of Family Law (an international scholarly organization with about 650 family law professor members from over 65 nations). Professor Parkinson also served from 2004-2007 as Chairperson of the Family Law Council, an advisory body to the federal Attorney-General, and also chaired a review of the Child Support Scheme in 2004-05, which led to the introduction of major reforms to the child support system in 2008. His most recent book is Family Law and the Indissolubility of Parenthood (Cambridge University Press, New York, 2011). He has also written The Voice of a Child in Family Law Disputes (with Judy Cashmore, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008) and numerous other books. He was the author of a major report, published in 2011, For Kids' Sake: Repairing the Social Environment for Australian Children and Young People.

Professor Parkinson is also well-known for his community work concerning child protection. He has been a member of the NSW Child Protection Council, and was Chairperson of a major review of the state law concerning child protection which led to the enactment of the Children and Young Persons (Care and Protection) Act 1998. He works with churches on child protection issues.