School of Social Work News

Assistant Professor Shawna J. Lee, along with her colleagues, came up with the idea of a new phone app, Mobile Dad, which is featured on the Today Show. The app was created at the request of the U.S. Air Force, to facilitate military fathers' long-distance relationships with their families. It was developed and tested at U-M, and it will transition from beta testing to the public in April.   

David Cordova presented his research, "The Impact of Family Functioning on HIV Risk Behaviors among Urban Adolescents: A Latent Class Growth Analysis," and "Religiosity, Acculturation, and Substance Use among Latino Adolescents: Results from a National Sample," at the 15th Society for Research on Adolescence Biennial Meeting.
 

Students and faculty in the SSW and the School of Education will collaborate on a project to improve the high school experience for local teens dealing with hardships. The collaboration was awarded a Discovery Grant which will be used to develop a new initiative, in collaboration with a southeast Michigan alternative school, to prepare young teachers and social workers to work with adolescents who have experienced violence, instability or other traumatic events.

Andrew Grogan-Kaylor and Shawna Lee's research on spanking was featured in the Washington Post, CBS Detroit, MLive and the Wallstreeter.
 

Barbara Ngwenya (PhD 2000) of Okavango Research Institute became the first Motswana woman to become professor in the field of Applied Anthropology at the University of Botswana.

David Cordova published his article entitled, “Do Parent-Adolescent Discrepancies in Family Functioning Increase the Risk of Hispanic Adolescent HIV Risk Behaviors?” in the journal, Family Process.
 

Grace Adofoli (MSW student) wrote an article, “Nelson Mandela: Willingness to Forgive in Strive for Equality,” which was published in the NASW 2014 Annual Conference Issue, The Bridge.
 

Congratulations to Sara Konrath (Psych) who, along with colleague Richard Tolman (SSW) has just received an award from the John Templeton Foundation. A brief description of their project follows:

Some research shows that new media can have the effect of making users more
self-focused and less empathic. We use new media to increase empathy through
the design of an empathy-building app and evaluate its impact
longitudinally, comparing adolescents who use the app with those using a
control app. We will examine whether the app users have higher empathy and
compassion, and more prosocial and less aggressive beliefs and behavior. One
interdisciplinary collaboration spans researchers from Psychology,
Communication, and Social Work, and includes a team of app development
professionals who will create, evaluate, and market a high quality
research-based app.