Rami Benbenishty

Rami Benbenishty is a Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at Bar Ilan University, Israel. He got his Ph.D. in Social Work and Psychology from the University of Michigan, 1981. His main areas of interest are the safety, welfare, and well-being of children around the world. He is studying children and youth both in community normative settings, such as schools, and in out of home placements, such as foster homes and residential care. He investigates and tries to improve decision processes that lead to referral to protective services, removal of children from their biological families, and their reunification after that. With his colleague, Prof. Anat Zeira from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem he has led multiple studies on youths and young adults in care and after leaving care. Their work is having an impact on the policies and services developed for care leavers. Benbenishty has developed a conceptual, methodological, and technological framework for monitoring processes and outcomes in human services. This framework was implemented in foster care services in the US and is being utilized to monitor school violence and climate in schools, districts, and at the national level. With his colleague, Ron Avi Astor from UCLA, he is studying multiple aspects of school climate and victimization. They have conducted a series of studies that examined school violence from an ecological perspective. The insights gained from this work contributed to an ecological theory of school violence in evolving contexts and to consultation with several educational systems around the world. Dr. Benbenishty’s work has been recognized in Israel and abroad. He is France’s Chevalier des Ordre de Palmes Academique (Knight in the Order of Academic Palms), he received Israel’s EMET prize, and the US Society for Social Work Research Distinguished Career Achievement Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare.