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UNC SCHOOL of SOCIAL WORK    August 2020

An Evening with Rev. Dr. William J. Barber will launch new Centennial Speaker Series


This presentation is the first of four in the Centennial Speaker Series, which will focus on issues of social justice, and is among several events planned to commemorate the School of Social Work’s 100th anniversary year.


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What's new
School to host webinar on weaponizing and disrupting systemic racism on Sept. 3
During the event, social workers across disciplines will be invited to share where and how they notice and perpetuate systemic racism and in what ways they work to disrupt it.

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Race, Racism, and Racial Equity (R3) Symposium
Allison De Marco, equity lead with the Jordan Institute for Families, is a co-convener for the series, which will provide context on the state of race at UNC and in the nation, advancing the work of the Chancellor’s Commission on History, Race and a Way Forward.

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Family commits $1.7 million planned gift for MSW endowed scholarship
The Henry and Sandra Hobbs Endowed Scholarship Fund will support the tuition and fees of MSW students, especially those scholars who strengthen the social, economic, and cultural diversity of the school's student body.

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School launches fall semester with virtual JumpStart
This year’s students enter the social work profession during a time of significant tension and change across the country, as society faces down two viruses: COVID-19 and systemic racism.

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FCRP to develop training to strengthen N.C. kinship care 
Understanding families’ needs and ensuring that foster care staff in public and private agencies are trained to support successful outcomes for children are vital components of phase one of the pilot project.

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New study shows stress in children affects parents' stress
Although the study was completed before the rise of the pandemic, the results highlight the need for parents to be aware of their own stress levels right now, said social work researcher Melissa Lippold.

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Neil Bilotta joins SSW and Global Social Development Innovations research team 
Bilotta’s work explores social inclusion and culturally responsive ethics of global social work, including youth participation in evaluation research and social development.

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Ph.D. students co-author article on racism in academia in blog for Oxford Press
The Q&A, written by Anderson Al Wazni, Melissa Jenkins, and Stefani N. Baca-Atlas, aims to provide white colleagues with a view into the world minoritized students navigate and to offer hope and solidarity to Black students and minoritized allies.


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MORE UNC SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK NEWS
Our faculty and students continue to contribute to research and leadership efforts to address the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our communities. Below are just some of the ways our School is working to make a difference locally and globally.
  • Professor Gina Chowa and her Global Social Development Innovations team are exploring ways to mitigate the far reaching effects of COVID-19 by working with GSDI partners on innovative interventions that help to ensure access to services to marginalized and vulnerable youth in Sub-Saharan Africa and India.
  • Professor Sheryl Zimmerman is leading a team of researchers who found that 95% of nursing homes that follow the Green House model of care, with single-occupancy rooms, have reported zero cases of COVID-19 among their residents and staff. When COVID-19 cases did occur, mortality rates were lower, compared to rates from nursing homes overall.
  • Associate professor Lisa de Saxe Zerden co-authored, “Contact tracing: An opportunity for social work to lead,” for the journal, Social Work in Public Health. The article explores how social work is well-positioned to participate in inter-professional efforts to design, oversee and manage highly effective front-line contact tracing efforts.
  • Professor Mimi Chapman, in her new role as UNC-Chapel Hill's faculty chair, continues to represent the interests of faculty, staff and students as the University navigates COVID-19 decisions. Over the past few weeks, Chapman has appeared on CNN, NPR, and even the Sydney Morning News, just to name a few. As Dean Gary Bowen noted, "Dr. Chapman is both a tremendous asset to this campus and a wonderful representative of our School of Social Work."
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Faculty and student recognition and news
Jamie Flowers-Burgess and other members of an interprofessional team at the Adams School of Dentistry were accepted as Duke-Johnson & Johnson Nurse Leadership Program Fellows for the 2020-2021 program year. Flowers-Burgess is the lead social worker on the team. This nationally recognized program involves multiple activities and supports for personal and professional development for advanced practice nurses and interdisciplinary teams. The work will culminate around a “transformational project” at the School of Dentistry. Burgess-Flowers and her team have proposed an interprofessional tobacco cessation service line for patients, involving multiple evidence-based practices from behavioral counseling to medication treatment. The goal is to offer services in-person, by phone, and via telemedicine.

LB Klein, Ph.D. candidate, has been awarded a $3,250 grant from the National LGBTQ Institute on Intimate Partner Violence of the Northwest Network of Bisexual, Trans, Lesbian, and Gay Survivors of Abuse. The funding will support her dissertation research, “Sexual and Relationship Violence and LGBTQ+ College Students: Implications for Prevention.” For her three-paper dissertation, Klein has interviewed 33 U.S. individuals who identify as LGBTQ+ and who are also experts on campus sexual and relationship violence and LGBTQ+ issues. Based on her findings, she will produce evidenced-based resources that will be shared with prevention educators through the institute’s national networks and housed within its online clearinghouse. Klein also co-authored the book chapter, "Leveraging Partnerships Between Faculty and Staff to Transform Rape Culture on Campus," in the book, "Collaborating for Change: Transforming Cultures to End Gender-Based Violence in Higher Education." The book was published by Oxford University Press.

Diana Baker, a third year MSW student in Winston-Salem, was selected as the School's liaison for the N.C. Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.

Michael McGuire, clinical assistant professor, was appointed by N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper to the North Carolina Addictions Specialist Professional Practice Board.

Rachel Goode, assistant professor, Mariah Cowell, clinical research assistant, and Courtney Cooper-Lewis, graduate research assistant, co-authored the article, “Preparing social workers to confront social injustice and oppression: Evaluating the role of social work education,” which appeared in the journal, Social Work.

Lisa de Saxe Zerden, associate professor, co-authored the article, “Prevention, health, promotion and social work: Aligning health and human services systems through a workforce for health,” which was published in the American Journal for Public Health. Zerden and Ph.D. alumnae Erica Richman and Brianna Lombardi also co-authored "Mapping colocation: Using national provider identified data to assess primary care and behavioral health colocation," for the journal, Family, Systems and Health.

Todd Jensen, research associate, co-authored the article, “Like parent, like child: Intergenerational patterns of cardiovascular risk factors at midlife,” which was published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

Rainier Masa, assistant professor, and Gina Chowa, professor, co-authored three articles: “Household food insecurity and educational outcomes in school-going adolescents in Ghana,” in Public Health Nutrition; “Direct and indirect associations of food insecurity, adolescent-parent relationship, and adolescent future orientation,” in Journal of Family Issues; and “Youth food insecurity in Ghana and South Africa: Prevalence, socioeconomic correlates, and moderation effect of gender,” in Children and Youth Services Review.

Betsy Bledsoe, associate professor, co-organized the 2nd Annual Train the Trainer series in Trauma Adapted-Family Connections, hosted by the University of Maryland School of Social Work. Bledsoe worked with the FITT-Family Informed Trauma Treatment Center to organize the series.
In the news
The work of associate professor Paul Lanier and the Jordan Institute for Families was featured in the Education North Carolina article, "Preschoolers are being suspended and expelled, and NC activists say racial inequity is the root problem."

UNC’s The Well republished the School of Social Work article, “FCRP adapts training for 100 N.C. counties responding to COVID-19.”

Recent alumni updates
Michelle McEntire, MSW ’98, was appointed by N.C. Gov. Roy Cooper as district court judge for Judicial District 29A, representing McDowell and Rutherford counties. McEntire will fill the vacancy left by the retirement of former Judge Randy Pool. She has been a sole practitioner at McEntire Law, PLLC since 2018 and previously worked in the District Attorney’s Office for District 29A and as a clinical social worker.

Julie Tatko, MSW ’03, was selected as interim CEO of Family Health Care in Baldwin, Mich. Tatko is the former chief operations officer at Cherry Health in Grand Rapids. Her duties there included the administrative and operational oversight of the organization with an emphasis on medical and behavioral health programming. Before joining Cherry Health, she was director of operations and enabling services at Michigan Primary Care Association.

Martha Summers Satterwhite, MSW '67, died earlier this summer. Satterwhite worked in psychiatric and family social work and was living in Houston, Tex., at the time of her death.

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