Nomination forms are now open for the School of Social Work Alumni Awards. Nominations are being accepted for the Community Achievement Award, Distinguished Alumni Award, and Outstanding New Social Worker Award. Forms will close at 5:00pm on November 6, 2020 and decisions will be announced by the end of November. Awards recipients will be invited to the annual School of Social Work Awards Ceremony to be honored for their accomplishments.

October 30 | 8 am -12 pm

November 6 | 8 am -12 pm

$130 students

$140 SSW alumni

$150 non-alum professionals

Interested in an LSW/LCSW review before you take your exam? Or do you need a refresher? Professor Brenda Lindsey will be teaching the Licensing Exam Prep (LEAP) LSW/LCSW review course virtually. This course will consist of two 4-hour sessions via zoom. If you already have your license, you can earn 8 CEU’s.

Once you register for the class and your payment is confirmed, you will receive an email about a week before the event that contains the link to the comprehensive study guide along with the Zoom webinar link. You must attend both sessions in their entirety in order to receive credit.

Join us on October 21 at 12 pm (CST) for a discussion with Isaac Ford Jr., MSW

Up From the Bottom: Ford's memoir is a story of tragedy, resilience, forgiveness, and unconditional love. He is a childhood trauma survivor, the child of an alcoholic parent who struggled with depression, a child who grew up without a father in the home. He is a former police officer who stood up against police brutality and disparate treatment of people of color in Augusta, Georgia.

This event is open to all students, faculty, staff and alumni.

A two-year grant in the amount of $199,993 from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) was recently awarded to Doug Smith to refine and promote the substance use curriculum at the MSW-level.

This award is part of SAMHSA's national Practitioner Education initiative, which targets training a national workforce to address substance use disorders (SUD), one of the leading causes of disability globally.

For this project, Dr. Smith and his team will develop and infuse substance-related content into required classes in the Advanced Clinical concentration, design substance-related simulations, and create a practicum-style class in collaboration with Promise Health Care, a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) serving low-income and underinsured people.

Hyunil Kim recently received the Mentored Research Scientist Development Award from the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This grant is to support new investigators in conducting research related to preventing interpersonal violence impacting children and youth.

Dr. Kim is awarded a two-year grant in the amount of $211,114 for investigating the relationships of community conditions and public policies with child abuse and neglect report rates using national and statewide data.

Rachel Garthe was awarded a grant from the Center for Social and Behavioral Science (CSBS) Small Grant Program, entitled “The Prevalence and Impact of Stalking and Cyberstalking among College Students.”

This project will examine the prevalence of these forms of violence and examine how they coalesce with other forms of violence, including intimate partner violence and sexual assault. Additionally, this project will examine how stalking and cyberstalking behaviors and experiences are associated with substance use, mental health, college adjustment, and help-seeking behaviors.

This project aims to inform campus and community-based prevention and intervention efforts in areas of stalking and cyberstalking. Garthe’s co-investigators are Dr. Nicole Allen (Professor in the Department of Psychology) and Sarah Colomé (Director of the Women’s Resource Center).

Advanced Standing MSW student, Magdelene Thebaud's submission, "Intimate Partner Homicides: Has the increase in mandatory arrest laws been counter intuitive for the very people they were set out to protect?" has been published to The John Hopkins University Macksey Journal.

Additionally, her abstract, entitled “Effects of Current Healthcare System to Accessing Pap Smears for Black Women in Chicago,” has been accepted for an oral presentation by The DePaul Master of Public Health Program and the Center for Community Health Equity for the upcoming virtual Health Equity & Social Justice Conference on Friday, November 6th.

Magdelene has also been accepted into the BHWELL scholars program. She received her Bachelor of Social Work degree from Northeastern Illinois University.

The Family Advocacy Center in Champaign (FACC) has recently partnered with local community organizations to build a ramp for an Urbana family in need after the previous ramp for their 12-year-old son’s wheelchair was deemed unsafe. Executive Director of FACC, Grace Mitchell, MSW ’79, and four University of Illinois School of Social Work interns took the initiative to organize the project. The students wrote letters to local lumber companies, facilitated the donations of materials, and worked to obtain necessary permits. “Being a part of the ramp project has been exciting as I can see the process of different community organizations working to help this client,” says MSW student, Abigail Snow. The project began in June and was completed this fall.

The participating SSW interns are BSW students: Eric Velasco and Anna Kim and MSW students: Abigail Snow and Jessica Wilson.