School of Social Work News

Associate Professor Mary Ruffolo and Adrienne Lapidos, Program Coordinator for the Certificate in Integrated Behavioral Health and Primary Care received an award for an evaluation project. The project evaluates the integrated behavioral health and primary care learning community model established by the Department of Community Health to facilitate public behavioral health sites and primary health care sites in the state in implementing integrated care models. The evaluation involves assessing progress on the learning community tasks and goals, examining the degree by which participating sites are moving toward integration of physical and behavioral health services for adults living with serious mental health or substance abuse disorders and chronic physical health illnesses. 

Assitant Professor Emily Nicklett and Assoicate Dean Mike Spencer's article "Direct Social Support and Long-term Health Among Middle-Aged and Older Adults With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus" was selected as editor's choice by the Gerontological Society of America. The study examined whether or not direct social support is associated with long-term health among middle-aged and older adults with diabetes mellitus.

Professor Mieko Yoshihama's PhotoVoice Exhibit is on NHK Japanese TV and is also on the home page of the Center for Japanese Studies. The overall goal of the PhotoVoice project is to strengthen the disaster response policies and practices in Japan (and beyond) by engaging the very women affected by the disasters in the analyses of societal conditions and collective efforts to address them.

Assistant Professor David Cordova, Laura Moynihan (MSW student) and Nicole Waller, (MPH student) published " Preventing Substance Abuse and HIV among Adolescents in a Primary Care Setting" in the Journal of Substance Abuse and Alcoholism.

Assistant Professor Desmond Patton is quoted in "How Do You Tell When a Gang is a Gang?" published in the MetroTimes.

Assistant Professor Emily Nicklett was appointed to the 2014 - 2015 Native Investigator Development Program where she will research psychosocial determinants of diabetes outcomes among native elders.

Assistant Professor Desmond Patton discusses "cyberbanging" in the AP story, "Tweets and Threats: Gangs Find New Home on the Net".

Desmond Patton along with Abigail Williams (PhD student), Bakari Wallace and Sadiq Patel (MSW recent grads), had their paper selected to be presented at the 2014 Society for Research on Adolescence Biennial Meeting. The paper/presentation is entitled, “Pivotal moments: Experiences with neighborhood violence altering life trajectories for low-income African American adolescents in Flint, MI.”