Staff News

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. 

On Friday, December 5, 2014, the Curtis Center Program Evaluation Group convened a panel to talk with the University and the community about the delicate dance between evaluation and philanthropy.  In total, over 70 people were in attendance, including students and faculty from the School of Social Work, members of the University community, representatives from foundations, consumers of evaluation, and professional evaluators.  The conversation was facilitated and moderated by John Tropman, PhD, Professor of Social work.  Panelists included Harlene Appelman, Executive Director of Covenant Foundation; Rob Collier, President & CEO of Council on Michigan Foundations; Jane Fran Morgan, JFM Consulting; and Pam Smith, President and United Way of Wasthenaw County.

The School of Social Work Alumni Board of Governors is accepting nominations for the Distinguished Alumni Award. The Distinguished Alumni Award recognizes School of Social Work alumni whose achievements exemplify the values of the School of Social Work and who have made an exceptional impact on the profession, the community and/or Social Work education. Nominations are due September 5, 2014.

The Curtis Research and Training Center at the School of Social Work hosted the first annual Program Evaluation Symposium on Friday, February 14, 2014.  This day-long event was organized by the Program Evaluation Group and culminated with a keynote address by the President of the American Evaluation Symposium (AEA), Dr. Beverly Parsons.

Dr. Parson's keynote, "Visionary Evaluation for a Sustainable, Equitable Future," highlighted the need for systems thinking, buidling new relationships, and an emphasis on sustainable, equitable living in evaluation. After the keynote address, attendees were invited to participate in small group discussions based on the topic of the keynote. Dr. Parsons will use feedback from the event to inform the direction of the AEA Annual Conference.

The Curtis Center Program Evaluation Group (CC-PEG) received a grant from the New York Community Trust to improve the macro social work profesion.  The awarded Place-Based Evaluation (PBE) Fellowship project was developed to better understand the needs and challenges related to building internal evaluation capacity within non-profit organizations.  The project will place three (3) PBE Fellows into community-based non-profit organizations in southeast Michigan for 20 hours per week for a period of eight (8) months.

The aims of the PBE Fellowship are to: (1) provide recent MSW graduates with the skills and experience necessary to work as professional evaluators in the field of social work; (2) provide communtiy-based non-profit organizations with quality evaluation services at a reduced cost; and (3) build and test the internal capacity for evaluation at each organization.

CC-PEG is happy to announce the selection of the PBE Fellows and non-profit organizations they will be placed in:

• Phylicia Allen, MSW, will be placed at Detroit Parent Network
• Ashley Eason, MSW, will be placed at Detroit Police Athletic League
• Lauren Emerson, MSW, will be placed at SOS Community Services in Ypsilanti

For more information on the PBE Fellowship project, contact programevalgroup@umich.edu. 

Assistant Clinical Professor Sue Ann Savas presented on a panel titled "Innovative Approaches to Child Support Enforcement: Evidence from Field Research" at the Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management (APPAM) 35th Annual Fall Research Conference on November 9, 2013.  Sue Ann Savas and Jeremy Gaertner, MSW presented on the Re-tooling Michigan's Child Support Enforcement Program project in conjuction with representatives from Washington and Iowa who received the same grant from the Office of Child Support Enforcement (DHHS).

The APPAM Fall Research Conference was held in Washington, DC from November 7-9, 2013.

The Curtis Center Program Evaluation Group presented twice at the American Evaluation Association national conference in Washington, DC on October 16-19.

Staff member Laura Sundstrom and MSW/MPH student Nick Yankey presented on a panel titled "Creating Infrastructure for Experiential Learning and Practical Skill Development for Novice Evaluators" on the implementation of and experience with the Curtis Center Program Evaluation Group.

Staff members Jeremy Gaertner and Desiree Liwosz presented a poster titled "Re-tooling Michigan's Child Support Enforcement: Using Predictive Modeling and Supportive Methods in Michigan's Child Support System to Increase the Financial Well-being of Children and Self-Sufficiency of Families" on the progress and preliminary results from the Re-tooling Michigan's Child Support Enforcement Program project through the Curtis Center Program Evaluation Group.