School of Social Work News

Associate Professor Daphne Watkins has been appointed to the Movember Foundation Global Men’s Health Advisory Committee. The Movember Foundation is the only charity tackling men’s health on a global scale. Since 2003, the Movember Foundation has provided over $850 million in funding toward more than 1,200 health projects in 21 countries. Movember invests in programs that focus on men’s mental health and suicide prevention, prostate cancer, and testicular cancer.

Matthew Bakko, Joint PhD student in Social Work and Sociology has been selected for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Health Policy Research Scholars program.

The program supports and connects emerging scholars who are committed to bringing about meaningful change and building a national Culture of Health. Participants build the interdisciplinary skills and relationships necessary to extend their influence and impact, break down silos, address health disparities, and make our communities healthier.

His research will explore how new philanthropic and service delivery models and tools reconfigure organizations, engage with diverse communities, alter power dynamics and blur sector boundaries to affect the capacity building and social change process.

The Robert Woods Johnson Health Policy Research Scholars program supports underrepresented scholars, including first-generation, low-income background and students of color.

Assistant Professor Shanna Kattari is Bakko's Institutional Mentor for the Healthy Policy Research Scholars Program.

Cherish Fields, MSW '11 and a Blavin Scholar graduate, Miriam Connolly MSW '04 and director of the Blavin Scholar Program and Professor Joe Ryan highlight the importance of the Blavin Scholars program.
“The Blavin program is an innovative approach to helping young adults reach their full potential,” Professor Joe Ryan and co-director of the Child & Adolescent Data Lab.

Associate Professor Luke Shaefer will receive a Faculty Recognition Award on October 3 from the University of Michigan. Bestowed every fall by the Rackham Graduate School, the Faculty Recognition Award recognizes mid-career faculty who have made remarkable contributions to the University through scholarly research; excellence as teachers, advisors and mentors; and distinguished service.

The University of Michigan and Harvard University are forming a partnership to spur economic mobility and reduce poverty in Detroit. The Equality of Opportunity Project — led by Harvard faculty members Raj Chetty and Nathaniel Hendren and Brown University’s John Friedman — will work with U-M’s Poverty Solutions initiative, led by Associate Professor and Poverty Solutions Director, Luke Shaefer.

Pinghui Wu, PhD candidate, Professor Luke Shaefer and Michael Evangelist, PhD Candidate, received an award from Rackham Graduate School for their project on state Unemployment Insurance (UI) policies and the mental health unemployed workers.

Assistant Research Scientist Adrienne Lapidos is on a team that received funding from the National Institute of Mental Health for her project “Effectiveness and Implementation of a Peer Mentorship Intervention (PREVAIL) to Reduce Suicide Attempts Among High-Risk Adults” to determine the effectiveness of a peer mentorship intervention for reducing suicide attempts and suicidal ideation among recently hospitalized adult psychiatric patients at high risk for suicide.

Professor Edith C. Kieffer, MPH, Ph.D., is a co-investigator on an award from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) via the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services for ​the evaluation of the Healthy Michigan Plan (HMP), Michigan's Medicaid expansion program under the Affordable Care Act.