Sarah Schulman

Sarah co-directs InWithFor, an organization that works in, with, and for communities to solve social problems and improve problem-solving. InWithFor blends design, business, and social policy methods to co-create, prototype, and scale new kinds of public responses to issues like child abuse, ageing, youth reoffending, and chronic disease.

Sarah started her career breaking laws as a nine-year old sting agent with the Texas Department of Health. She went on to making laws as a youth advocate with the American Cancer Society and American Lung Association. By age twelve, she discovered legislation was not enough.

As a teenager, Sarah founded Youth Infusion, which worked with state governments, local municipalities and national non- profits to engage users in program and policy design. There have been projects on tobacco, alcohol, obesity, sexual and reproductive health, and school reform. Frustrated with these projects failure to grow and embed, Sarah looked for other ways to think about and do change, both in and outside of systems.

As a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Sarah has worked with central government departments in three countries to join-up policy with practice, and enable civil servants to think and do different in the office, the boardroom, and out in the field .

As a Project Lead for the London-based social enterprise Participle, Sarah partnered with designers, entrepreneurs, ethnographers, service providers, policymakers and young people to radically redesign universal youth services. This project resulted in Loops, a platform for community and youth engagement which is currently being scaled in the UK.

As a Youth Advocate and Legislative Liaison, Sarah has worked with the US Congress and Assistant Surgeon General to incrementally advance health and education reform agendas.
In all these roles, Sarah merged different methods and approaches: critical policy analysis, qualitative research, change management, action learning, and participatory pedagogies.
These methods and approaches are drawn from on-the-ground experience and academic training. Sarah holds a B.A (honors) in Human Biology and a M.A in Education from Stanford University. She hopes to receive her DPhil in Social Policy from Oxford University in 2010.



Interview with Sarah Schulman