TA Partnership Newsletter — May 2009

In Memoriam of Jane Knitzer, Ph.D.

Jane Knitzer, children’s mental health champion, passed away on March 29, 2009.  The TA Partnership would like to honor Dr. Knitzer for her contributions to the health and well-being of children, youth, and families throughout the country.

Dr. Knitzer obtained her doctorate from Harvard Graduate School of Education and did post-doctoral work in community psychology at Albert Einstein School of Medicine. Dr. Knitzer had been on the faculty at Cornell University, New York University and Bank Street College of Education. She was a policy analyst with the Children’s Defense Fund.  She was the recipient of the first Nicolas Hobbs Award for Distinguished Service in the Cause of Child Advocacy from the American Psychological Association. Dr. Knitzer was a past president of Division 37, Child, Youth, and Family Services of the American Psychological Association, and of the American Association of Orthopsychiatry.  She was the recipient of many other awards and recognitions. 

Dr. Knitzer was best known for her landmark writings, Unclaimed Children: The Failure of Public Responsibility to Children and Adolescents in Need of Mental Health Services (1982) and At the School House Door: An Examination of Programs and Policies for Children with Behavioral and Emotional Problems, which brought the nation’s attention to children and youth with mental health challenges.  In 2008, she co-authored Unclaimed Children Revisited: The Status of Children’s Mental Health Policies in the United States.  As an outspoken advocate and staunch defender of children’s rights, Dr. Knitzer’s message was heard by those of us in the field, but also by policy makers in Congress. 

In large part, because of Dr. Knitzer’s passionate voice and unrelenting message, Congress passed the Child Mental Health Initiative authorized under Section 561 of the Public Health Service Act, now entitled the Cooperative Agreements for Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and Their Families Program or Systems of Care. We would not be doing the work we are engaged in today if it weren’t for Dr. Knitzer. Her vision and leadership provided the direction for us today.

Dr. Knitzer was director of Columbia University, Mailman School of Public Health’s National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) since 2004.  In this position, she continued her life’s work as a pre-eminent leader in identifying and promoting strategies that prevented child poverty and improved the lives of low-income children and families in the United States.  She had been with NCCP since 1994.  Her policy research on low-income and vulnerable children as well as her work on young children’s social and emotional development was extremely well respected and used by academics, policy makers and practitioners around the country.  What would make her most proud is that her work made a difference in the lives of the most vulnerable children to whom she dedicated herself.

We honor Dr. Jane Knitzer for her immeasurable contribution to the fields of children’s mental health and early childhood promotion, prevention, and intervention.  On behalf of the TA Partnership, our partners and our communities around the country, we would like to thank Dr. Knitzer and express our condolences to her family.  Jane we will miss you.

The National Center for Children in Poverty has established the Jane Knitzer Directorship in Early Childhood to honor Dr. Knitzer ’s legacy and sustain her commitment to supporting research that improves public policy for America’s youngest children.  Contributions to the directorship fund can be made at the National Center for Children in Poverty website.

Background information from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health