The Chicago Community Trust’s 1995 awards for outstanding work by community-service professionals will go to Karen Selman of the Children’s Home and Aid Society of Illinois and Ann Seng of the Chicago Council on Urban Affairs.
The award is in the form of a fellowship providing up to $75,000 for a year of study and career development. Recipients undertake their own course of study while on a leave of absence from work.
The trust, one of Chicago’s largest philanthropies, has awarded two or three such fellowships every year since 1983. The program’s aim is allow Chicago-area community-service professionals to enhance job skills.
Based in Libertyville, Selman, 52, has been executive director for the north central region of Children’s Home and Aid, a child-welfare organization. In her 10 years in that post, Selman has been responsible for innovations in day care, child and family therapy, foster care and chemical-dependency-prevention programs, the trust said.
The trust said Selman plans to use her year off to study substance-addiction programs for mothers and children across the country.
Seng, 57, has been president since 1988 of the Chicago Council on Urban Affairs. The council works with local community organizations and other groups to help them affect social policy.
The trust said Seng will use her year off to research multicultural approaches to public policy across the U.S. She also plans to study Spanish.
