School of Social Work

Congratulations to Trina Shanks who was named the Harold R. Johnson Collegiate Professor of Social Work. Shanks is the director of the School of Social Work Community Engage Program as well as the newly launched Center for Equitable Family & Community Well-Being, which connects the university with community leaders in Detroit and in Washtenaw County. This is the second endowed professorship honoring the School’s former dean and supports a scholar whose teaching and research address the advancement of race relations, diversity and inclusion." Trina Shanks has made significant and influential

Professor Lisa Wexler has received a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Grant for her project, Family Safety Net: Developing an Upstream Suicide Prevention Approach to Encourage Safe Firearm Storage in Rural and Remote Alaskan Homes. The study will support, encourage and assess safe firearm storage practices relevant to Alaska Native families. Alaska has suicide rates far above national averages, including a teen suicide rate among Alaska Natives 18 times higher than the rate for other American teens.

Student Services Admissions Coordinator Nyshourn Price has been selected by NEW: Solutions for Nonprofits as a Champions of Change fellow. Champions for Change is a racial justice fellowship shifting hearts, minds and actions away from the collective harm of white supremacy and toward a liberated path on which we all get to live into our purpose.

Associate Professor Kathryn Maguire-Jack has received an R01 grant from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control to examine the preventive impacts of childcare subsidies and paid family leave policies on child maltreatment and intimate partner violence. She is a co-investigator of the 3-year $1.05 million project led by Prevent Child Abuse America. Maguire-Jack is working with researchers from the Prevent Child Abuse America and Casey Family Programs

Associate Professor David Córdova and co-authors received the Reuben Hill Award from the National Council on Family Relations. The award is presented for the best research article that makes substantial and significant contributions to family research and theory.

Karla Goldman's article "Fifteen Years after Katrina: Lessons for August 2020" reflects on Hurricane Katrina and draws connections to the pandemic. Writes Goldman, "A crisis offers the opportunity to draw upon established strengths and reach forward for new possibilities implicit in working across differences, even as we hold fast to the essential connections and stories that define who we are."

We are angry and disheartened at the recently released video showing Daniel Prude’s death at the hands of police in March. This treatment of police officers toward Prude, a Black man with mental health issues, is the latest of too long a series of police brutality cases that stain our nation. We grieve with Prude’s family and recognize the cruel and inhumane restraints that led to his death. Black Lives Matter. We demand justice, accountability and racial equality. We also call for a complete and fundamental philosophical overhaul in the training and behavior of police officers, giving them

Professor Robert Joseph Taylor was quoted in Salon and CNN: "People are talking about the race disparity in COVID deaths, they're talking about the age disparity, but they're not talking about how race and age disparities interact: They're not talking about older Black adults."

The political and social unrest in Wisconsin in response to the shooting of Jacob Blake echoes the violence that killed George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless other Black lives. This is happening again and again because violence against Black bodies and minds has been institutionalized, normalized, as Black people have been dehumanized. 

Michigan Social Work stands with others in demanding justice, equity and accountability. We join the resounding cry that BLACK LIVES MATTER because achieving racial justice requires a movement, not a moment, and none of us can afford to

Assistant Professor Fernanda Lima Cross' new research finds that parents who are undocumented immigrants are more likely than documented parents to teach mistrust to their children and to be wary of interactions with law enforcement. "Ethnic-racial socialization is often used to prepare adolescents for life outside of the home and tends to be protective," says Cross.