School of Social Work News

Associate Professor Leslie Hollingsworth was presented the Distinguished Individual Service Award at the 48th Annual Conference of the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW), held in New Orleans March 23-26th. 

The School of Social Work’s environmental justice conference was featured in The Michigan Daily article, “Environmental justice conference highlights Flint water crisis”. Diana Copeland (lecturer) and Emily Friedman (CASC student) were both cited in the article.

Associate Professor Andrew Grogan-Kaylor’s article, “PTSD Symptoms in Young Children Exposed to Intimate Partner Violence from Four Ethno-racial Groups” was published in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma.

Assistant Professor Mathieu Despard’s dissertation, “Challenges in Implementing Evidence-Based Practices and Programs in Nonprofit Human Service Organizations" was published in the Journal of Evidence-Informed Social Work. 

His article, "Strengthening Evaluation in Nonprofit Human Service Organizations: Results of a Capacity-Building Experiment" was also published in Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance.

Professor and Associate Dean Jorge Delva is a member of a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee (Health and Medicine Division), involved with developing a global framework for educating health professionals. The committee's model demonstrates ways in which organizations, education, and communities can come together to address health inequalities. The committee is presenting the framework to the World Health Organization.

Robert Joesph Taylor was installed as the Harold R. Johnson Professor of Social Work on March 6. Taylor delivered an installation address "Family and Church Support Networks of Older African Americans" highlighting his research. He is one of the nation’s foremost experts in the informal social support networks (i.e., family, friends and church members) of adult and elderly Black Americans as well as religious participation among African Americans. 

He is the founding editor of African American Research Perspectives and is currently on the editorial boards of the Journal of Marriage and the Family and Race and Social Problems. Taylor was ranked number one in the top 20 most cited African American scholars in social work.

Associate Professor Luke Shaefer's book, “$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America” is referenced in The Washington Post article, “Bernie Sanders is right: Bill Clinton’s welfare law doubled extreme poverty”.  

Alex Gould-Werth (PhD '15) has been selected to receive a ProQuest Distinguished Dissertation Award for 2015. This award recognizes the most exceptional scholarly work produced by doctoral students at the University of Michigan who completed their dissertations in 2015.