Ruth McRoy, Ph.D., is the Ruby Lee Piester Centennial Professor Emerita at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work, and Donahue and DiFelice Endowed Professorship at Boston College School of Social Work. Prior to joining the Boston College faculty, McRoy was a member of The University of Texas at Austin School of social work faculty for 25 years and held the Ruby Lee Piester Centennial Professorship. She received her BA and MSW degrees from the University of Kansas and her PhD degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
Her research and scholarship has focused on many topics including racial disproportionality in child welfare, family preservation, kinship care, longitudinal study of outcomes of openness in adoptions for birthmothers, adoptive parents, and adopted children, adoptive family recruitment and retention, minority recruitment, racial identity development, transracial adoptions, older child adoptions, and post-adoption services.
Over the years, McRoy has had numerous federal, state, foundation, and local research grants. Currently as part of the federally funded AdoptUSKids project, which is operated through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Children’s Bureau, McRoy and her research team recently completed two nationwide studies (2002-2007) on barriers to adoption and factors associated with successful special needs adoptions. Currently, she is leading an evaluation team which is conducting a ten year (2007-2017) evaluation of all components of AdoptUSKids.
She has published over 100 journal articles and book chapters and twelve books, including: Openness in Adoption: Family Connections (with H. Grotevant), Challenging Racial Disproportionality in Child Welfare (with D. Green, K. Belanger, and L. Bullard), Building Research Culture and Infrastructure (with J. Flanzer & J. Zlotnik) and Transracial and Intercountry Adoptions: Culturally Sensitive Guidance for Professionals (with R. Fong)
Professional Interests
Open adoptions, outcomes for birthmothers, adoptive parents and adopted children, trans-racial adoptions, family preservation, special needs adoptions, post-adoption services, female sexual abuse perpetrators, racial identity, adolescent pregnancy, effectiveness of residential treatment services.
Research
- AdoptUSKids Evaluation Project (2022)
- Adoption Openness—Longitudinal Birthmother Outcomes (2017)
- Adoption Recruitment Campaign and Response Initiative Evaluation Project (2017)
- Travis County foster care reintegration (2009)
- Resilience in young adolescents exposed to adult intimate partner violence (2009)
- Adoptive and Foster Couples Retreat and Support Network Program (Healthy Marriage) (2007)
- Adoption Assessment Project (2006)
- Interpersonal violence and adolescent mothers (2005)
- Adolescent Family Life Care Evaluation (2003)
- Cultural awareness and The University of Texas at Austin Police Department (2003)
- Stepping Stones: A transitional living program for homeless youth (2002)
- Minority drug abuse prevention and treatment (2001)
- Changing adoption agency practices: Mental health implications for birthparents, adoptive parents, and adopted Children (2000)
- CASA of Travis County (2000)
- East Texas CASA (1998)
- CASA of Travis County evaluation (1998)
- Development of a Curriculum in Cultural Diversity (1998)
- Evaluation of the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1998)
- Residential group homes: An outcome evaluation of treatment effectiveness (1997)
- Mental health treatment of female children and adolescent sex offenders (1997)
- Evaluation study of post-adoption services (1996)
- Collaboration to AdoptUsKids (0101)
Other projects
Minnesota Texas Adoption Research