Faculty News

Assistant Professor Mathieu Despard was named a Faculty Associate with the Center for Social Development at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. He is currently conducting research on the outcomes of a large scale tax-time savings experiment and on the promise of employer-based financial wellness programs in partnership with the Center for Social Development. 

Webmaster Robert LaRoe was chosen as a session presenter and will give his talk, "Improving Your Website's Performance" at the May 5th-6th HighEdWeb Michigan Regional Conference at Grand Valley State University. 

Professor Emeritus Charles Garvin and Professor Richard Tolman's book, Group Work Research, was published this month by Oxford University Press as part of the "Pocket Guide to Social Work Research Methods" series. The book illustrates how to plan and conduct group work research, including studies of the impact of groups on individual members, group conditions, and other systems external to the group. 

Professor Emeritus Charles Garvin's new book Social Work and Social Justice: Concepts, Challenges, and Strategies will be published on March 25, 2016 by Oxford University Press. The book details the importance and complexity of social justice work and discusses the practical and ethical challenges involved.

Associate Professor Daphne Watkins and Assistant Professor Jamie Mitchell recently published an article, "Perceptions and Receptivity of Non Spousal Family Support: A Mixed Methods Study of Psychological Distress Among Older, Church-Going African American Men" in the Journal of Mixed Methods Research. The study explores the role of nonspousal family support on mental health among older, church-going African American men.

Associate Professor Daphne Watkins project Young Black Men, Masculinities, and Mental Health (YBMen) is featured in Concentrate. Her project, is a social media-based intervention that seeks to combat that lack of support, information and conversation around critical issues affecting what Watkins calls "a minority within a minority."

The Child and Adolescent Data Lab, directed by Associate Professors Joe Ryan and Brian Perron received an award from the W. K. Kellogg Foundation to include educational data in their studies

Edie Kieffer and Katie Mitchell hosted the Michigan Community Health Worker Alliance (MiCHWA) annual meeting in Lansing for 206 community partners and participants. Meeting materials and summaries are available on the MiCHWA web site.