Beyond Silos: An Inter-Institutional Framework for Understanding Poverty and Advancing Social Change

Kess Ballentine is an assistant professor at Wayne State University School of Social Work and a research affiliate with Labor@Wayne, Detroit PEER, and the Center for Gender and Sexuality. Drawing on professional experience in child welfare, labor organizing, and social services, her community-engaged research examines how labor policy and working conditions shape the well-being of low-wage workers and their families. Her work on job quality, unionization, and workplace policy has informed municipal policy in Detroit, been featured in national media, and been published in leading journals, including Health Affairs and Social Services Review.

Cosponsored by the University of Michigan Center for Innovation in Detroit.

Center for Innovation

labor

City of Detroit

workplace policy

labor policy

Labor Unions

unions