Humble Strength

The thing about social work that is so vital is you come from very different disciplines and practices and yet you blend them all around the beauty of people working together.

The ZERO TO THREE Lifetime Achievement Award for Dedication to Improving the Lives of Young Children recognizes individuals who have made substantive contributions of national or international significance to improving the lives of infants, toddlers and their families. Award recipients are individuals whose research, practice, teaching, or advocacy has had a demonstrable impact on very young children and those who care for them.

Dr. Dolores (Dodie) Norton received ZERO TO THREE’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2021. Dr. Norton is the Samuel Deutsch Professor Emerita in the School of Social Service Administration (now the Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice) at the University of Chicago. Dr. Norton has published on early linguistic interaction and school achievement, diversity, early socialization, and temporal development in children, and black family life patterns.

Her 20-year longitudinal research, “Children at Risk: The Infant and Child Development Project,” investigates patterns of parent/child interaction related to the developmental outcomes, especially school achievement, of high-risk inner-city African American children and their families. Dr. Norton is a past board member of ZERO TO THREE.

Collectively, you have moved the field of child development forward. It’s been an honor to watch this occur and to be affiliated with this work. It’s just remarkable.

Dr. Dolores Norton