About Me

Dr. Jenna Shelton is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis whose research centers on child welfare policy, kinship care, and family wellbeing. They examine how involvement with multiple public systems—including child welfare, criminal justice, education, and health—shapes outcomes for children and families, particularly those experiencing structural inequality. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, Dr. Shelton examines how multi-system involvement influences wellbeing among marginalized youth, exacerbates inequality across the life course, and creates unintended gaps in policy that affect the effectiveness of social services. 

Drawing on their lived experience within the child welfare system and their professional expertise, Dr. Shelton brings an informed lens to their scholarship, grounding their research in the realities of families and youth involved with child protective services. Their work is particularly concerned with how multi-institutional involvement affects children in poverty and how policy levers can be designed to foster positive relational processes between children and the adults in their lives.