Neil Guterman and Sheila Kennedy Join BPI’s Board of Directors

Join BPI in welcoming two new Directors!

Neil B. Guterman is Dean of the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago.  He is the director of the Beatrice Cummings Mayer Program in Violence Prevention at the School of Social Service Administration, and is also a faculty associate at Chapin Hall. Dr. Guterman is one of the nation’s leading experts on child abuse and neglect and the effect on children of exposure to violence.  He is the author of Stopping Child Maltreatment Before it Starts: Emerging Horizons in Early Home Visitation Services (2001), and co-editor of the forthcoming reference volume, Child Maltreatment Prevention.  He has advised government legislators, agencies, and nonprofits on issues related to child abuse and neglect.  He joined the University faculty in 2006 after serving from 1993 to 2006 on the faculty at Columbia University.

Dr. Guterman received a B.A. from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1983, an M.S.W. from the University of Michigan in 1986, and a Ph.D. in social work and psychology from the University of Michigan in 1992.  He completed a Lady Davis Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Hebrew University Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare in Jerusalem in 1993.

Sheila Berner Kennedy is the Executive Director of Top Box Foods, a non-profit organization that sells delicious, healthy, high-quality foods at affordable prices in Chicago’s most underserved areas.  Top Box Foods has partnered with scores of churches, senior centers, community organizations, CHA and Chicago Public Schools, delivering over 25,000 boxes of food since May 2012.

From 2008 to 2011, Sheila served as volunteer attorney for Legal Assistance Foundation where she focused on landlord-tenant issues, foreclosure, eviction, public benefits, family law, and bankruptcy.

In 2011, Sheila Kennedy was appointed by the Illinois Supreme Court to serve on the Illinois Board of Admissions to the Bar.  In 2012, she was appointed by Governor Quinn to serve as a Trustee of the Lincoln Academy.  The Academy awards the state’s highest honor, the Order of Lincoln, to individuals who have contributed to the betterment of humanity in Illinois. She is also a board member of the Shriver National Center on Poverty Law.

Upon graduation from law school, Sheila joined the Environmental Law practice at Sidley Austin in Chicago.  She left in 1992 to raise her four children.  Sheila received her B.A. from Boston College and her law degree from Northwestern University School of Law.