We are pleased to share the Fall 2017 newsletter of the University of Maryland PhD Program in Social Work! This newsletter is designed to keep our alumni, students, and supporters informed of important developments. We are excited to celebrate the accomplishments of our students and alumni. In this issue, we feature a noteworthy alumnus, a scholarship recipient, and a second-year PhD student. We are proud to share information on recent graduates and featured faculty.
Charlotte Bright, Associate Dean for Doctoral and Post-Doctoral Education
Jen Canapp, Academic Services Specialist
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You are cordially invited to attend the
UMB School of Social Work reception honoring
Professor Donna Harrington
recipient of the Group for the Advancement of
Doctoral Education in Social Work’s
2018 Award for Excellence in Mentoring
of Doctoral Students
Saturday, January 13
th
8 pm-10 pm
Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steak House
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Your Scholarship Support in Action!
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Susan Zuravin Scholarship Recipient Catherine "Kelly" Moon
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Most people call me Kelly. Kelly, an allegedly shortened version of Catherine, causes much confusion so I will answer to anything as long as it is nice. I live with my spouse, two kids, and as many rescued senior pugs as my family and space will allow. I am currently owned by Ruby, an eleven-year-old blind/deaf pug who can put any diva to shame.
Like most PhD students, I wear many hats. I work at the Ruth Young Center as a Lead Clinical Research Specialist during the day, and write my dissertation on nights and weekends. I am fortunate that my work and dissertation complement each other and both work toward my long-term research agenda: (1) uncovering the etiology of child maltreatment in underrepresented communities and contexts; and (2) adapting evidence-based interventions to best serve these communities’ unique needs.
My dissertation,
Neighborhood and Cumulative Ecological Risk: Predicting Physical Abuse and Neglect in an Urban Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN) Sample
, seeks to illuminate how neighborhood structures and processes in distressed urban environments contribute to child maltreatment. I am using geocoding to link census block group data with the LONGSCAN age 6 data to predict child physical abuse and neglect through age 18. The inspiration for my dissertation came from my work with The Family Tree, a Maryland agency that serves families, where I provide technical assistance and evaluation of their parenting programs.
Currently, I am conducting a randomized control trial of an adjunct texting intervention. During the day, I split my time between The Family Tree and The National Adoption Mental Health Competency Training Initiative (NTI) where I manage the individual-level program evaluation which includes over 5000 online users.
I am passionate about tailoring parenting interventions and child maltreatment prevention programs to serve underrepresented communities and contexts. My dissertation sets the stage for this work by developing a better understanding of the risk factors specific to distressed urban contexts. In the future, I plan to continue exploring the etiology of child maltreatment in differing contexts and study how to adapt evidence-based interventions to best serve the unique needs of communities. Just like medicine, no social work intervention should be one-size fits all.
I am planning a 2018 graduation, and I am currently looking for a tenure-line assistant professorship. My ideal fit would be a mix of research and teaching where I can partner with existing community-based agencies. I’ve been teaching for 10 years, and can’t imagine a professional life without it. It inspires me and allows me to see social work with fresh eyes.
Dr. Kelly Hyde, PhD class of 2002, established the Susan Zuravin Scholarship for a deserving PhD student in recognition of her professor and mentor, Dr. Zuravin. As the current Chief Executive Officer of Organization at
FidelityEHR
, Dr. Hyde’s primary focus is on the design, analytical modeling, development and management of applied online database solutions. Dr. Hyde has successfully combined her unique expertise in the behavioral health field to develop the first customizable Software as a Service (SaaS) product that is theoretically grounded in evidence-based practice and research.
Susan Zuravin is a retired Professor from the School of Social Work. She mentored numerous PhD graduates including Diane DePanfilis, Professor at Hunter College; J. Curtis McMillen, Professor and Deputy Dean for Curriculum at the University of Chicago; Joy Ernst, Associate Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at Wayne State University; and Denise Pintello, Chief of the Child and Adolescent Research Program, National Institute of Mental Health; to name a few. Professor Zuravin taught the two-semester research methods course in the PhD program and was well known for her clear, focused teaching and for guiding students to select the best matched and highest quality research design to answer their research questions. Having worked in the field of child welfare for over twenty years, she brought real world experience to the classroom, and led research teams (many including PhD students) to answer questions about teen parenting and child maltreatment, the ecology of child maltreatment, and the recurrence of child maltreatment. Nationally, she was recognized for her contributions to child maltreatment related research with the Research Career Achievement Award of 1998 by the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children. Her use of survival analysis, now a commonly used analysis method in social work, was one of the first in all of social work. Her 1996 article on the intergenerational cycle of child maltreatment, authored with three former PhD students, presages findings that continue to this day and has been cited nearly 200 times.
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Alumni Feature - Mitchell Rosenwald, PhD, LCSW
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Mitchell Rosenwald, PhD, LCSW, is a 2004 graduate of the PhD program. In this feature, he responds to Charlotte’s questions about his experiences and memories.
You graduated from our PhD program in 2004. Where has your career taken you since then?
After graduating in the spring of 2004, I moved to upstate New York and taught at State University of New York (SUNY) - Binghamton for three years. This was a wonderful beginning to my career but the cold weather and grey skies eventually sent me to south Florida where I moved in 2007 and joined the faculty of Barry University’s School of Social Work. Since this time, I was promoted to Professor and now serve as the Doctoral Program Director. My scholarship followed my dissertation research – political diversity in social work – and also developed into additional research trajectories in child welfare and group work. I was fortunate to have served as NASW-Florida President for several years. Currently, I am completing a U.S. Children’s Bureau evaluation (I serve as co-evaluator) of a Housing First randomized control trial of child welfare-involved families. I have also launched an intergroup dialogue project called “TRACKS” at Barry.
What are some of your fondest memories from your time in the PhD program?
I would say my fondest memories were of the people I met. My cohort and I studied for tests and comps together, “let off steam” together, wrote together and developed a bond that you can only make in a doctoral program. I have been in touch with some of my cohort over the years and it is hard to believe with the passage of time that we are now becoming senior faculty at universities around the country!
The faculty was terrific. Dr. John Belcher served as my Chair and was instrumental in my success. Dr. Bruce DeForge, Dr. Donna Harrington, Dr. Carlton Munson and Dr. Geoff Greif all served as wonderful mentors to me as well as many former faculty including Dr. Cheryl Hyde, Dr. Susan Zuravin and Dr. Kathy Deal. I worked with Ms. Debbie Linsenmeyer and the Title IV-E Program during my 3-year graduate research assistantship and she and the rest of the staff were terrific! Also, it was great having the student lounge where we all could take some respite.
What brought you to our PhD program?
I had received my MSW from the University of Maryland School of Social Work in 1997 and so I already knew of the caliber of the faculty scholarship! After graduating with my MSW, I worked for several years at Jewish Family Services and that was followed by several years at Baltimore County Department of Social Services. Though direct practice did require critical thinking and honored my “heart work,” I realized that something was missing. This “missing” ingredient was a deeper dive into social work knowledge including how knowledge is created through the research enterprise. I am from Maryland and was residing in the Baltimore area when I applied for the PhD program. Maryland was my first choice!
What is your advice to someone considering, or pursuing, a PhD in social work from the University of Maryland?
Definitely consider the University of Maryland! It is a top-twenty school and while you will work tremendously hard, your efforts will pay off. The faculty and administrators care for students and contribute to scholarship that informs social work direct practice, child welfare, community engagement, and so many other subfields of social work. As you enter your dissertation studies, find a research interest that is both doable and builds a foundational component of your research trajectory. You want to balance expeditiousness with rigor and research impact on the field. Envision your success and you will find it.
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Current Student Feature - Patrice Foster
Do you ever wonder what PhD students do when they aren’t in class or conducting research? A second-year student, Patrice Forrester, participated in a service trip to Haiti in August and wrote a blog post describing her experience. She is in the back row on the left in the photo. Please visit
https://umsswphdprogram.tumblr.com/
to read the full post and see more about the PhD program activities. Here is an excerpt from Patrice’s post:
I traveled to Cap Haitien, Haiti in late August 2017 with a group of Haitians who now lived in the States and others like me who were not from Haiti. We went ostensibly to serve the children of a community in a “poor” area. Yet, even as I gave, I received much from the people of the beautiful land of Haiti.
Greeted by a kiss. “Bonjou. Koman ou ye?” “Hello. How are you?” That was my entrée into a slightly different culture from my own. My first days were spent in a Catholic priest’s parish in the town of Limonade.
In Limonade, I watched the priest stopping often along the way when driving or walking to greet and kiss his parishioners. He even knew the local nightclub owner who turned down his music when the priest had guests or church meetings. The priest was intimately involved in the community he served, living with them and living like them. At various hours of the day, people came to the priest with issues ranging from the death of a young mother in childbirth to lack of money for necessities. And the priest gave all he could – from counsel to money – to serve his fellow community members.
My last few days were spent in the capital of Port-au-Prince where my fellow workers and I got to tour this city which is still rebuilding from the earthquake. Yet, here is where I learned the term, Kombit, which is a traditional way of labor sharing. When someone wants to clean up their neighborhood or build a roof, they call the community together to help in accomplishing the task, paying them with food. I saw this in action at the home of our host in the city. Early in the morning, the mother of the home prepared breakfast for young men of the community who would then work cleaning the streets and helping to repair property in the neighborhood. When one was tired, another would take over. As we drove out in the mornings, we saw a line of young men working to beautify their own community where the government had failed.
As I reflect on my trip to Haiti, I am most grateful to have had the opportunity to be a part of working with Haitians to support the healthy development of children. When I have heard Haiti spoken of in the media in the past, the focus has been on its grinding poverty, natural disaster, and political instability and corruption. But now that I have experienced Haiti for myself, I know it is so much more than that. Haiti is the people – their resilience, joy in living, and their willingness to work together to make things better for themselves, their children, and nation.
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Professor Donna Harrington was recently selected as the winner of the GADE Award for Excellence in Mentoring of Doctoral Students. Dr. Harrington will receive her award at the annual GADE Reception at the Society for Social Work and Research Conference in Washington, DC.
Congratulations to Dr. Harrington on this well deserved award.
The GADE Award for Excellence in Mentoring of Doctoral Students is given to a faculty member at a GADE member organization who has made extraordinary and sustained contributions to the scholarly development of social work doctoral students. This award recognizes that mentoring is an essential component of doctoral education and that mentoring helps to shape the future direction of the field of social wor
k. Faculty distinguished by this award display a strong commitment to, and effectiveness in, mentoring social work doctoral students
. Please watch for an invitation to a reception celebrating Dr. Harrington’s award.
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Dr. Bruce DeForge was featured in the November issue of the Grad Gazette, published by the University of Maryland, Baltimore Graduate School. Below is an excerpt:
Associate Professor Dr. Bruce DeForge has been on campus almost continuously since 1983. He’s spanned three schools, taught many students, seen Presidents and faculty come and go, and watched new buildings rise up. “UMB has grown significantly since I came here,” says DeForge. “The footprint of the campus has grown. Most of the schools have been replaced or enhanced.”
From the graduate student perspective, one of the most exciting changes that DeForge has seen is in regards to the research being conducted on campus. “The sophistication of research studies that doctoral students are involved in is amazing,” he says. “The advancement in technology, theory, methodology and statistics, has allowed doctoral students to do very advanced,
creative, relevant and important research that was not possible when I came to campus in the 1980's.”
You can read the full feature here:
Congratulations to Our May 2017 Graduates!
Leah Hambright Bartley
Making it Happen: Understanding Factors Related to Worker and Organizational Fidelity to Family Connections, a Child Maltreatment Prevention Program
Hyun-Jin Jun
The Relationship Between Alcohol Use and Gambling in Emerging Adulthood
Kyeongmo Kim
County Context and Mental Health Service Utilization among Older Racial and Ethnic Minorities
Hyeshin Park
Assessing the Relationship Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Body Mass Index Trajectory of Children and Adolescents
Sara Colby Peters
The Validation of a Set of Leadership Principles for Social Work
Brittany Schuler
Toddler Overweight Prevention: Developing a Model by Socioeconomic Gradients
Stacey Shipe
Alternative Response in Child Welfare: A Mixed Methods Study of Caseworker Decision Making
Mathew C. Uretsky
High School Graduation in Context: A Multilevel Examination of the Factors Related to On-Time Graduation for Students Who Persist Through Four Years of High School
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From left to right: Donna Harrington, past program director, with distinguished alums Joy Ernst, Denise Pintello, Diane DePanfilis, and Joan Levy Zlotnik.
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Please share your contact information, updates, and accomplishments with us!
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