School of Social Work News

Clinical Assistant Professor Daicia Price discusses mental health in the community in the latest Mental Minute with Michigan Medicine. The Mental Minute discusses a variety of prescient mental health topics and features expert interviews from within and outside the U-M community.

Required Weekly COVID-19 Testing

All students – including graduate and professional students – who live on or come to campus will be required to be tested weekly through the U-M Community Sampling and Tracking Program starting February 16. Currently, over 10% of all COVID reports of students are graduate students.

Weekly testing will be required for all SSW students (including those who have received the vaccine) who:

• Live in Michigan housing.
• Are registered for any in-person courses that meet on campus, regardless of how frequently the course meets in-person.
• Are employed or have in-person field placement on campus (including Michigan Medicine).
• Conduct research in a campus facility/building.
• Come to campus to use facilities (e.g. libraries, unions, Rec Sports, SSW building).

Field

Listed below is testing information for field:

• If your field placement is on campus and in-person, you will be required to participate in the weekly testing program.
• If your field placement is not on campus, you only need to test if it is a requirement of the field agency/site. You can participate in the U-M testing program.
• If you are uncomfortable with testing protocols related to field education, please contact your field faculty about options.
• If your field placement is entirely off campus AND you do not come to campus for any reason, you are not required to be tested weekly. You are eligible, though, to voluntarily sign up for periodic testing on campus.

If You Have Tested Positive for COVID-19

If you have previously tested positive for COVID-19, you are excluded from testing for a 90-day period from the date of your test. If you were tested by the U-M Community Sampling and Tracking Program, University Health Service or Occupational Health Services, your result will automatically be captured. If you were tested elsewhere, please submit your positive results.

Luke Shaefer spoke with the New York Times about the expansion of the child tax credit in Biden’s plan against child poverty. “To me, it’s the most transformational thing that’s under discussion, and nobody’s talking about it,” says Shaefer.

PhD student Charles Williams has been appointed chair of the Bipartisan Protect Michigan Commission African American workgroup by Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Housed within the Department of Health and Human Services, the commission will help raise awareness of the safety and effectiveness of an approved COVID-19 vaccine, educate the people of the state, and help protect the health and safety of all Michigan residents.

Washtenaw County Health Department in partnership with the University of Michigan issued a public health emergency “Stay in Place” directive for University of Michigan undergraduate, graduate and professional students enrolled in winter 2021 effective immediately and ending on February 7, 2021 at 11:59 PM.

Associate Professor Terri Friedline and PhD student So’Phelia Morrow call on President Biden to stop the predatory burden of student loan debt in an article in Ms.“To advance his promises of racial and gender justice and to better ensure an inclusive economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, President Biden should cancel all student loan debt—not just a meager portion of it.” Their article also cites research conducted by a team at Michigan Social Work, which focuses on the physical and mental health tolls women face due to their debts and outstanding obligations.

MSW student Olivia Stillman has been named a 2021 Dow Sustainability Fellow. Designed to support the next generation of sustainability leaders in business, government, and nonprofits, The Dow Sustainability Fellows Program is among the most prestigious and productive graduate programs at U-M. Fellows are selected through a competitive process from a pool of applicants nominated by their academic units.

During the year-long program, Stillman will work collaboratively with the cohort to solve real-world sustainability challenges. Each fellow receives a $20,000 stipend, along with sustainability skills-development opportunities and professional experience working on a team with an external client.

“I am excited and honored to learn that I was chosen for the Dow Fellowship. I consider myself to be a scholar and advocate of interdisciplinary collaboration, especially when it comes to issues of sustainability. It is impossible to be an expert on everything and I think it is absolutely essential to know where and how to find help from experts in other fields. I am also excited to bring the social work perspective into discussions of sustainability, especially since I believe the values of social work are often underrepresented in this area of study,” says Stillman.

The Michigan Social Work marketing and communications team has won a Pride of CASE V Award for the fall 2019 cover of Ongoing. Niki Williams’ photo of Juliana Huxtable — taken during her February 2019 performance presented by the School — makes use of lasers and fog to frame the artist. CASE is the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, a global non-profit association dedicated to educational advancement, alumni relations, communications, development, marketing and advancement services.