NYU Social Work - NYU Silver School of Social Work

Transcription

NYU Social Work - NYU Silver School of Social Work
New York University | School of Social Work
NYU Social Work
NEWSLETTER
FALL / WINTER 2003
The School and SSWR: Leadership and Involvement
FEATURED INSIDE
Professor Deborah Padgett will become the sixth president of the
Social Work and Parkinson’s Disease
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Society for Social Work and Research
Report from the Dean
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(SSWR) this spring, succeeding Dean
New Faculty
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Paula Allen-Meares of the University of
In Memoriam: Anna Permaul King
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Michigan. Founded in 1994 by Janet
Surviving Chernobyl in America
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Aibels Establish First Visiting
Professorship in Social Work
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Shared Trauma in
the Therapeutic Encounter
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Child and Adolescent Treatment
in Social Work Practice
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Faculty Work and PhD
Dissertations in Progress
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Caribbean Families Are the Focus
of New MSW Learning Initiative
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School’s Shelter Program
Welcomes New Director
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Spiritual Applications in
Clinical Social Work
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School Participates in Survey
on Homelessness
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Williams, DSW, a noted research professor
at Columbia University’s Department
of Psychiatry, SSWR has experienced
phenomenal growth, attracting leading
social work researchers from around the
United States and abroad to its expanding
Deborah Padgett, PhD
Professor
membership. SSWR’s emerging prominence has been attributed to a number of factors, all related to its uniqueness as an
organization dedicated to showcasing the best in social work
research at its annual conference. Professor Allen-Meares, the
outgoing president, recently commented, “I believe that SSWR is
fast becoming one of the major forces shaping the social work
profession. The society should be viewed as the intellectual arm
Treating Depression in
Vulnerable Urban Women
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Philip Coltoff Receives University
Distinguished Alumni Award
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knowledge-based development. Its founding members had a clear
School Milestones
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focus of what was needed to enhance social work education and
of the profession that advances excellence in research and
practice. It is a responsive society that addresses the changes
within the profession, as well as those that are relevant within
VISIT OUR WEB SITES: For information on the
other disciplines.” The conference program attracts over 700
School’s alumni programs and general information about
abstract submissions each year of which about one-half are
the School, visit our Web site at www.socialwork.nyu.edu.
selected for presentation. Presentations cover a full array of social
For those interested in alumni benefits and services, visit
the NYU Alumni home page at www.nyu.edu/alumni
work research topics from child welfare to aging, from practice-
and click on Benefits/Services.
based research to policy analysis, and from in-depth case studies
continued
NYU
SOCIAL WORK
New York University | School of Social Work
The School and SSWR continued
to large-scale multisite studies. The upcoming conference,
to be held in New Orleans in mid-January, will feature a
plenary address by Dr. Thomas Insel, Director of the National
Institute of Mental Health. Other conference activities are
designed to help attendees improve their research skills, learn
grant preparation, and meet with funding representatives.
The organization has also become an important place to
network and to recruit for faculty positions.
As our PhD students have learned firsthand, SSWR’s
annual conference is a nurturing environment. Each year
since 2001, a preconference panel discussion has been scheduled for doctoral students, followed by a special reception.
At this and other events, students have an exceptional
opportunity to learn about academic recruitment and how
to survive and thrive as scholars and faculty members.
Our School’s faculty has had a prominent role in SSWR,
including incoming president Deborah Padgett and past
vice president Jeane Anastas. Faculty presenters at SSWR
conferences have included Professors Gary Holden, Trudy
Festinger, James Martin, Diane Mirabito, and George Patterson.
Professor Padgett’s leadership on the SSWR board and her position as program chair in 2001 and 2002 have provided significant
support in ensuring that qualitative methods are represented
in the program’s papers, workshops, and symposia. As she
embarks upon her presidency, new challenges await. Professor
Padgett notes, “As president of SSWR, I have been charged
by the board with forging a stronger infrastructure to support
the organization’s rapid growth. I also want to strengthen
existing relationships with other social work organizations
and to reach out to our colleagues internationally. Last, but
certainly not least, I want to work with the board to make sure
that SSWR’s conference remains as friendly and welcoming
as possible—and fun.” For more information, log on to
SSWR’s Web site, www.sswr.org.
Social Work and
Parkinson’s Disease
symptoms and treatment of PD, many allied health professionals
are trained in virtual isolation from other disciplines, only
to enter a fragmented health care system that neither teaches
them nor promotes interdisciplinary care planning. Interdisciplinary and family-centered care planning have been shown to
be the optimal approach to the complexity of PD care.
Family caregivers of PWP are in need of competent intervention, and those from culturally diverse backgrounds are
especially in need of outreach and culturally proficient care.
Although documented to be suffering from rather significant
rates of clinical depression, anxiety, health problems of their
own, social isolation, and caregiver strain, family caregivers
are typically neglected by the health care system.
At present, most centers of care create sporadic and fragmented systems which are usually not responsive to caregiver
needs. Part of the problem is the absence of social work
services in many health care facilities that see those affected
by chronic illnesses such as PD.
In response to these and other needs, Professor GonzalezRamos has become involved with the National Parkinson
Foundation to help develop national educational and care
initiatives. Among the funded programs is Allied Team
Training for Parkinson’s, a model interdisciplinary training
program designed to prepare current and future allied health
professionals to provide integrated and specialized care for
those affected by Parkinson’s in medically underserved areas.
Another program is Community Partners for Parkinson’s
Care, whose mission is to inform whole communities about
PD, to provide resources and support, and to improve access
to care for all those affected by this disease. The response to
these and other programs has been overwhelming, showing
the need for such initiatives and the central role social
work can play in planning and delivering interdisciplinary
education and care.
As a chronic, progressive, neurodegenerative illness leading
to advanced disability and often dementia over time, Parkinson’s disease (PD) takes a heavy toll on the person diagnosed
and his or her family caregivers. PD is estimated to affect one
million diagnosed individuals (and many more under- or misdiagnosed), most of them older adults, and their more than
one million family caregivers. As the disease progresses, family
caregivers, often themselves vulnerable and aging, are called
on to assume the most basic activities of daily living which can
no longer be carried out by persons with Parkinson’s themselves.
Professor Gladys Gonzalez-Ramos has become deeply
involved in research and service development for persons with
Parkinson’s disease (PWP) and their family caregivers. Her
work is based on growing recognition that the current service
system is fragmented and fails to meet the needs of those
living with Parkinson’s and their family caregivers.
Allied health professionals lack preparation to deal with
complex and multidimensional PD care. A JEHT Foundationsponsored community needs assessment indicates that the
mental health needs of patients and caregivers are typically
ignored in the present system of care; and that health care
professionals (1) fail to recognize and programmatically
address the needs of family caregivers, (2) report that they
have little or no knowledge of PD, and (3) are not trained to
competently assess, develop, and carry out appropriate intervention strategies for family caregivers.
Single-discipline approaches in isolation are often inadequate in response to the myriad problems faced by PWP
and their family caregivers. Beyond lack of training in the
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All You Need to Know: www.socialwork.nyu.edu
Professor Padgett is nationally known for championing qualitative research in
social work and developing the rigor of this discipline.
New York University | School of Social Work
Report from the Dean
Meaningful change in higher education proceeds from a vision
that expresses our highest aspirations, and in social work education, those aspirations reflect our sense of moral purpose. For
us, it is not enough to seek excellence, however defined; we must
fulfill our obligation to help build “the good society”—a more
humane and just world. This order of change is not simply instituted; rather, it is “grown” on the basis of very hard work by
faculty and administrators. During a period of intense effort, the
School has accomplished an extraordinary range of improvements over two years. The faculty has totally reshaped the PhD
program, with the prospect of being able to compete nationally
for the best students and to develop the next generation of
teachers/scholars for the profession. The new curriculum has
attracted a remarkable and diverse cohort of students who are
well prepared to undertake the rigorous program of study. The
faculty also made significant changes in the MSW program—
increasing standards for admission, improving the selection
process, involving the faculty in candidate selection, and
improving advisement. The results are already clear: our 20032004 entering class of 475 new MSW students is very strong.
Our faculty has attracted new colleagues who bring added
strength to our MSW and PhD programs and will be developing new ties to disciplines in the arts and sciences and the
health sciences.
JEROME WAKEFIELD, who is both professor of social work and University
Professor at NYU, comes to us from Rutgers University where he was Distinguished Professor of Social Work. A practicing
clinician, theorist, and researcher, he has gained
prominence for work in several areas, including the
definition of mental illness and how practicing
social workers reason about the cause of clients’
behavior. Professor Wakefield, who has two doctorates, one in social work and one in philosophy from
Berkeley, serves on the editorial boards of leading
publications and as a highly respected reviewer for
journals in social work, psychiatry, and psychology. He holds the position of
lecturer in the department of psychiatry at Columbia University’s College of
Physicians and Surgeons.
ROBERT MOORE has long been associated with the School as a research
adviser to our PhD students, and has joined the faculty on a full-time basis
as clinical assistant professor of social work.
Professor Moore (MSW, MA, DrPH) has more than
20 years of experience as a methodologist and
research director on NIH-funded projects, principally in the areas of access to services by the
homeless and children and adolescents. He will
continue to work with our PhD students and will
teach in the MSW program and participate in
School research projects. He began work this fall
with Professor Barbara Dane on the spirituality in social work project described
on page 9.
NYU
SOCIAL WORK
Our fundraising efforts have
resulted in a major scholarship gift
from Connie Silver, PhD (BS ’78,
MSW ’79), a substantial endowment
for visiting professorships from
Katherine W. (MSW ’72) and Howard
J. Aibel, and a significant gift from
Jane Eisner Bram (BA ’58, MSW ’79,
PhD ’00) and William B. Bram, to
support faculty development.
To meet student demand for access
to highly popular courses taught by
full-time faculty, we successfully
Suzanne England, PhD
implemented a model of instruction
Professor and Dean
permitting larger enrollments in
selected classes, complemented by small labs and discussion
groups for enrichment of the lectures. These courses are typically “sold out” very early and the labs, though voluntary, have
proven popular with students as well. The School has also taken
significant steps in the direction of the appropriate educational
use of technology — leading the University in shifting to
e-Reserves, whereby course materials that were formerly available only through the paper-based library reserve system are
now available to students over the Web. We have also created a
BlackBoard™ Web page for every course, making it possible for
faculty and students to communicate outside of class, for
students to access and download syllabi and assignments as well
as to submit assignments electronically.
On the grants side, we have increased our application
activity significantly, resulting in new foundation and government grants to Professors Barbara Dane, RoseMarie Perez
Foster, Marjorie Rock, Gerald Landsberg, Gladys GonzalezRamos, Carol Tosone and Caroline Rosenthal Gelman, and
Deborah Padgett. Our faculty received two of the six Curricular
Challenge Fund grants awarded by the University this year.
PhD candidate Ruth Forero has received a highly competitive
CSWE dissertation award to support her research on family
violence victims.
Finally, the faculty continues to provide leadership in the
profession and in several areas of substantive inquiry and
policy. To name a few: Professor Deborah Padgett is president
elect of the Society for Social Work and Research, Professor
Jeane Anastas, our PhD program director, is chair of the
national Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education
(GADE), Professor Gladys Gonzalez-Ramos has developed a
national leadership role in developing services for patients and
families affected by Parkinson’s disease, and Professor Lala
Straussner continues to take a prominent national role in
substance abuse education and treatment. School faculty
members continue to attract national attention through a wide
range of new publications, innovative training videos, and
ongoing expansion of World Wide Web Resources for Social
Workers (now serving more than 500 visitors each day).
All You Need to Know: www.socialwork.nyu.edu
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SOCIAL WORK
New York University | School of Social Work
In Memoriam:
Anna Permaul King
First-year doctoral student Anna Permaul King died suddenly of illness in
August 2003. Her family and classmates remember her, noting that she
considered coming to NYU’s PhD program in social work to be among the
proudest of her achievements.
Anna Permaul King (RN, MSW), a Canadian national,
spent her professional life in practice with underserved populations in Waterloo, Canada, and New York. She worked with
homeless men in an emergency shelter, women in a residential
treatment center for addictions, victims of domestic violence,
and adults with developmental disabilities. In each of these jobs,
she did more than just provide service—she always found a
way to develop and enhance the program itself. Having lived
in a developing country as a child, Anna was deeply committed
to helping the poor and the underserved, and it was this motivation that seemed to inspire all of those around her.
Anna came to NYU to bring these commitments to a
new level in her professional career. Her family notes that she
considered her time at NYU to be one of the best experiences
of her life. Her major areas of interest were feminist theory,
social justice, domestic and international women’s issues,
and civil and human rights. Anna was mindful of her biracial
identity, which contributed to her developing a strong appreciation of multicultural and multiethnic environments and
a desire to reach out to people on a global level. A career at
the United Nations was one option she had in mind.
Anna Permaul King
As expressed at her memorial service in Canada: “Anna
was a rare combination of power and kindness, extremely
competitive yet able to channel that energy to helping those
less fortunate than she was. [She was] a woman with an
astonishing lucidity of mind who possessed the courage to
rise and meet the demands of each moment with total delight,
knowing she was equal to them. In all of her endeavors—
educational, professional, spiritual, and personal—she fully
committed to the choices she had made.” Anna’s untimely
death has of course been a great sorrow to her family and
friends, but it is also a loss to the future of the social work
profession. All who knew Anna at NYU are resolved to
remember her and to continue to draw inspiration from her
professional commitments.
With thanks to Kenneth Wagner, Anna’s fiancé, for the materials on which much
of this tribute is based.
Surviving Chernobyl
in America
Professor RoseMarie Perez Foster has gone to extraordinary
lengths to communicate the results of her research to the 500
survivors who were interviewed in her study of the long-term
effects of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. At a large Brooklyn
community meeting in July 2003, copies of Surviving Chernobyl
in America were distributed to research participants and
other community members. This volume, which Professor
Perez Foster wrote specifically for survivors and their families
(in Russian and English), summarizes the medical and mental
health effects of the nuclear accident, provides guidance on
coping with real problems and understandable worry, and
lists service resources for Russians in various U.S. cities.
Academic researchers rarely manage to share the results
of their research directly with the people who participate as
research subjects. Professor Perez Foster, who also publishes
widely in academic and professional journals, views such
feedback to the community as an integral and ethical aspect
of scientific investigation. “When you conduct research that
results in knowledge that could be of direct use to research
participants, feedback — with careful attention to effective,
culturally sensitive communication — is simply part of your
obligation as a scholar.”
continued
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All You Need to Know: www.socialwork.nyu.edu
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New York University | School of Social Work
SOCIAL WORK
Surviving Chernobyl continued
Fifteen years after the Chernobyl disaster, respondents
show anxiety and traumatic stress reactions—with stronger
associations for the subgroup that lived closer to the disaster
and had greater exposure to it.
Begun in 1998, Professor Perez Foster’s Chernobyl
research involved hundreds of interviews with survivors
and their family members, community professionals, and
other researchers and clinicians here and abroad. Eight
Russian-speaking graduate students from the School played
a key role in the research as Glass Research Fellows involved
in interviewing and data analysis. The research was supported
in part through fellowship contributions from the Leslie Glass
Foundation and continues with a follow-up on the finding
that survivors report certain types of cancer at higher rates
than the general population.
A presentation of some of the results from this large study
can be found in “The Long-Term Mental Health Effects of
Nuclear Trauma in Recent Russian Immigrants to the United
States,” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 2002, Vol. 72,
No. 4, 492-504.
Katherine W. Aibel, ‘72,
and Howard J. Aibel Establish
First Visiting Professorship
in Social Work
A major gift from Howard J. and Katherine W. Aibel has
established the Howard and Katherine Webster Aibel Visiting
Professorship in the School of Social Work at New York
University.
The gift, according to Social Work Dean Suzanne England,
marks a milestone for the School. “This visiting professorship
ensures visiting appointments for nationally and internationally recognized experts who will share their expertise with our
students and collaborate productively with our faculty,” Dean
England said. “It gives us the opportunity to reach out to
leaders whose existing affiliations and commitments would
not otherwise allow them to accept positions at the School.”
Katherine Webster Aibel received an MSW degree from the
School in 1972 under a Carnegie Foundation-NYU program
that provided opportunities for women with young families
to return to school and earn degrees in social work. She earned
her undergraduate degree from Wells College. Mrs. Aibel
spent the bulk of her professional career as a social worker in
the Stamford, Connecticut school system. Thereafter she was
a caseworker at Person-to-Person, a community social service
agency based in Darien, Connecticut, serving the neighboring
community of Stamford. Currently, as a volunteer, she serves
as a court-appointed guardian ad litem in Connecticut’s juvenile courts for children from families of abuse.
Howard J. Aibel, a graduate of Harvard College and the
Harvard Law School, recently retired as a partner of LeBoeuf,
Lamb, Green, & MacRae. Previously, he had retired from ITT
Corporation after 30 years of service as general counsel and chief
legal officer. Prior to joining ITT, Mr. Aibel was with General
Electric’s legal department as antitrust litigation counsel. He
started his career as an associate of White & Case in New York
City. A past chair of the Executive Committee and the Board
of the American Arbitration Association, he presently serves as
a mediator and arbitrator of complex commercial disputes.
Howard and Katherine Aibel
“My husband and I decided we would assist the School
in attracting outstanding professionals in the field who could
enrich the educational experience of social work students as
they prepare to face the difficult tasks required of them in
this new century,” said Mrs. Aibel. “Dean England was instrumental in emphasizing the importance of such a gift and how
it would provide greater flexibility in building new programs
and enhancing existing ones.”
According to Mrs. Aibel, she was partly inspired to endow
the visiting professorship at NYU Social Work by a recent
New York Times Magazine article in which NYU President
John Sexton discussed the importance of attracting stellar
faculty to the University. “I understand, from personal experience, how important outstanding teachers are. The special
program I was in, when working for my MSW, provided
top professors from the New York City area’s schools of social
work—not just NYU, but Columbia, Fordham, Hunter, and
Yeshiva as well.”
Howard and Katherine Aibel are the parents of three sons:
David, Daniel, and Jonathan. Daniel is a 1984 graduate of the
NYU School of Law. The Aibels live in Weston, Connecticut.
All You Need to Know: www.socialwork.nyu.edu
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NYU
SOCIAL WORK
Shared Trauma in the
Therapeutic Encounter
An excerpt from Professor Carol Tosone’s
Online Clinical Briefing
The effects on mental health professionals of dealing
with traumatized clients have been characterized in many
different ways and have been given numerous meanings
and names. Among the terms that have been used to capture
secondary reactions to trauma are “burnout,” “traumatic
countertransference,” “compassion fatigue,” “secondary victimization,” “secondary traumatic stress disorder,” and “vicarious
traumatization.” While each of these concepts was originally
developed in a specific context and with individual nuances,
they have also been used interchangeably in connection with
the phenomenon of secondary trauma—the reactions of
clinicians to the traumatic events experienced by their clients.
Symptoms can manifest themselves in emotional, cognitive,
behavioral, or physical reactions. These symptoms arise in
response to the client’s experience and in interaction with
the clinician’s subjectivity, but do not take into account the
experience of the therapeutic dyad being exposed to the same
trauma simultaneously as occurs in shared trauma.
Shared trauma, a relatively new concept in the United
States, has been receiving increased attention in the literature
following the attacks of September 11, 2001. Shared trauma
refers to the clinician and the client experiencing the same
trauma at the same time. Disasters such as explosions, war, and
terrorist attacks, as well as other kinds of mass violence, are
examples of events and situations that can lead to traumas
that are shared simultaneously by the survivors and their
helpers. This concept was discussed briefly in the context of
the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Office building
in Oklahoma City in 1995: “The pressure of work is so
constant and immediate that you forget you are part of this
community and its bereavement as much as you are its clinician. A terrorist act simultaneously assaults physical lives and
their cultural underpinning. More than simple displacement
occurs, and despite discipline and training, you begin to experience the mania and exhaustion that accompany such an
intense shared experience” (Krug, Nixon, and Vincent, 1996).
One way to consider the concept of shared trauma is
through its similarity to clinician self-disclosure. From an
intersubjective perspective, the coconstructed reality of the
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All You Need to Know: www.socialwork.nyu.edu
New York University | School of Social Work
therapeutic endeavor is one in which clinicians’ and clients’
unconscious, preconscious, and conscious experiences form
the psychological field. In other words, the shared experience
of the clinician and client is unique to that particular dyad,
and the nature of the experience would differ if the client
were working with another clinician. In the case of shared
trauma, each participant is exposed, not only to the trauma
but to the unique response of the other, and each is affecting
the other’s cognitive schemas, or fundamental views, about
the world. Issues of countertransference and secondary trauma
are exacerbated, as the clinician is more likely to self-disclose.
Consequently, it becomes more difficult for clinicians to
remain neutral as they help clients deal with their responses
to trauma. The tragic events surrounding the September 11
attacks and the ongoing fear of the spread of anthrax are
examples of this kind of a collective shared trauma. Professionals in such situations function in a dual capacity as both
fellow victims and professional helpers, sometimes leading
to a blurring of their perspectives.
In the unique situations arising from collective traumatic
events of mass violence that result in shared trauma, both
the clinician and the client respond to the event at the same
time and simultaneously experience the same processes of
mourning and disruption of their existing schema. Clinicians,
however, have the added responsibility of dealing with their
own traumatic alterations while fulfilling their professional
responsibilities to clients and helping clients work through
their responses to trauma.
In cases of shared trauma, clinicians need to open themselves up to their own fears and terrors that may be lying just
below the surface, helping to make their personal anxieties
conscious. In reality, both the client and clinician are dealing
with the painful process of looking into a “heart of darkness,”
with its losses, mourning, and need for reconstruction. In
spite of the darkness, however, the clinician needs to maintain
her or his professional role and be available to help the client
through the complex healing process. Both the client and the
clinician need to develop a worldview that accommodates
the new reality, a process that, while painful and frightening,
contains within it the seeds for greater awareness, personal
growth, and wisdom.
For the full briefing and bibliography, visit www.socialwork.nyu.edu and
click on Continuing Education.
NYU
SOCIAL WORK
1953 - 2003
Fifty Years of Leadership in
Social Work Education at NYU
This year we celebrate our 50th year of social work education at
NYU, and I invite you to make a special gift in honor of the occasion.
You may contribute $35 or more to the Dean’s Annual Fund, and
your gift will help to meet pressing operating needs including
scholarship assistance.
With an eye to the future, I have established the Fund for the
Future of Social Work Education at NYU, which will help us to
advance our ambitious 10-year plan. You may participate with
a special contribution of $500 or more and help to shape programs
of excellence and innovation that will carry us well into the 21st
century. We are planning a special event to honor Fund for the
Future donors, and I hope to see you there.
At whatever level you contribute, I assure you that your
contribution will be much valued and used wisely.
Kindly use the enclosed envelope
for your gift and make checks payable
to “NYU-Social Work.”
THE SOCIAL WORK
A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N
Washington Square Officers
President: Steve Schwabish ’81
First Vice President: Toni Halbreich ’81
Second Vice President: Maureen Mingle ’97
Treasurer: Gloria Samuels ’89
Committee Chairs
Membership: Maureen Mingle ’97
Fundraising: Bill Cook ’71
Suzanne England, Professor and Dean
Rockland County Chapter Officers
All alumni are invited to return for
NYU Alumni Reunion Weekend
April 16 –18, 2004
R e m i n i s ce · R e j o i ce · R e u n i o n
We hope you will return to campus for a weekend planned exclusively for NYU alumni.
This is a great opportunity to reunite with old friends, tour the NYU campus and
New York City, and meet current students and faculty members.
The highlight of the weekend is the Alumni Gala Dinner Dance, held on
Saturday evening at the Grand Hyatt at Grand Central Station.
More than 1,700 alumni came back to Washington Square for Alumni Weekend
2003! Start planning now to be among those who will help make NYU Alumni Reunion
Weekend 2004 even more successful.
If you graduated in a class year ending in a 4 or 9 (1954, 1959, 1964, 1969, etc.),
this year marks your milestone reunion year! We are forming reunion committees
to ensure a wonderful celebration. Please e-mail us at alumni.reunion@nyu.edu for more
information on reunion activities or to join a reunion committee. You can also get
more details online at www.nyu.edu/alumni.
Save the date for NYU Alumni Reunion Weekend April 16–18, 2004!
President: Roberta Schiffer ’90
Vice President: Lynn Ellis ’99
Secretary: Rosemary Kirk ’92
Treasurer: Mary Lynn Schiller ’01
Committee Chairs
Program: Merry Mans ’92
Mentoring: Lisa Brateman ’02
We welcome your comments
and suggestions. Contact us:
Wendy Maragh Taylor
Alumni Relations Helpline
212-998-5906
Steve Schwabish
Washington Square Alumni
212-721-3119
Roberta Schiffer
Rockland County Alumni
201-883-0909
To inform us of position announcements,
e-mail ssw.joblistings@nyu.edu.
NYU
SOCIAL WORK
ALUMNI NOTES
1990s
1970s
is an assistant professor in the social
work department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
She is a member of the Affilia–Journal of Women and Social
Work editorial board and the professional advisory board of Hospice
at Charlotte.
JOSEPHINE GOTTESMAN, ’79,
CAROLE A. WINSTON, PhD ’99,
is a practicing attorney specializing
in disability law.
is a licensed social worker and attorney
who earned a PhD in social work from Clark Atlanta University.
His doctoral dissertation was entitled “A Study of the Relationship
Between Health Care Access and Access Barriers to Behavioral
Health Care for African Americans Utilizing the Managed Care Model.”
DARRELL NEARON, BS ’77,
MARY PENDER GREENE, ’74, is chief of social work services at the
Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services. She is a frequent
contributor to the agency newsletter. Her article, entitled “Supervisor
as Coach: How to Improve Your Supervisory Skills,” appeared in
the March 2003 issue.
has joined the Learning Disabilities
Association of New York City as executive director. He formerly
served as Senior Consultant, Borough Coordinator, and Assistant
Commissioner with the New York City Department of Mental
Health, Mental Retardation, and Alcoholism Services.
ARNOLD KOROTKIN, ’72,
has been teaching and providing clinical services in the English speaking community of Prague over the
past year. She will be presenting a paper entitled “Self-Psychology:
A Case Study” to the Czech Psychoanalytic Society this year.
DIANA B. SEASONWEIN, ’72,
1980s
was appointed assistant director of the Jewish
Community Relations Council of Greater New Haven, Connecticut,
in February of this year.
LAURI J. LOWELL, ’86,
HEIDI J. SORVINO, ’85, has joined the law firm, Arent Fox Kintner
Plotkin & Kahn, PLLC, as a partner in the bankruptcy group, based in
the New York City office. Ms. Sorvino is a member of the American
Bankruptcy Institute and the American Bar Association, and is active
in a number of community programs in the Summit, New Jersey area.
serves as fundraising chair on the board of
directors for the Samaritans, a New Hampshire nonprofit organization and is also involved in volunteer work at several other local
social service agencies. She is currently attending the Giving
Monadnock Training Institute for Fundraising and Development.
KRISTIN TARGETT, ’96,
has been named director of the Hope Adult
Program at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas. The program
serves adults with long-standing mood, anxiety, and psychotic disorders coexisting with personality disorders, addictions, or other
conditions. She formerly held several roles at New York Presbyterian
Hospital, including program coordinator of the schizophrenia
disorder program and clinical evaluator in the admissions office.
SUSAN ROMANELLI, ’95,
is director of social work at Nassau
Extended Care Center in Hempstead, New York. She is pursuing
a DSW degree at Adelphi University.
CHARLENE G. LANE, ’94,
JENNIFER REDDIN, BS ’94, is an MSW and attorney. Her law practice
focuses solely on representing children in the foster care system and
children in contested custody cases.
SUSAN KURNER, ’94, is the return to work coordinator for Shands
Health Care in Florida, providing services for injured and ill employees.
She also works as a consultant providing comprehensive assessments of children and their families to local social services agencies.
WILLIAM MECCA, JR., ’93, is a social worker and alcohol and drug
counselor for the New Canaan Public Schools in Connecticut. He
is pursuing a doctoral degree in education at Southern Connecticut
State University.
JANET COHEN, ’91, is a social worker in the Ambulatory Care
Department at Harlem Hospital in Manhattan. She is a New York
State Society for Clinical Social Work Fellow.
SUSAN MAROTTA-WARNER, ’91, is director of Health Industry
Resources Enterprises Supported Housing Program in the Bronx
and Queens, New York.
We gratefully acknowledge those alumni and friends who have supported the School during the fiscal year of September 1, 2002- August 31, 2003.
Your generosity clearly demonstrates your support of our commitment to prepare the future generations of social work leaders.
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1.
CLASS NOTES (for publication): What’s new? Job? Recent achievements?
2.
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Do you have ideas/suggestions for topics and courses?
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New York University | School of Social Work
Child and Adolescent Treatment
in Social Work Practice
An excerpt from Professor Theresa Aiello’s
recent Online Clinical Briefing
In a profession so dominated by women, it is probably no
accident that the child became an important early focus in
social work. Children are the least vocal members of society,
relying on adults to speak to their needs and to care for them.
Social workers historically were among the first to advocate
and represent children and families within social welfare
programs, in the child guidance movement, and in settlement
houses. This is still true today.
Social work and psychoanalysis are both disciplines of
great integrity. Psychoanalysis has greatly influenced and
enriched clinical social work. In turn, clinical social work has
begun to influence psychoanalysis, both in theory and in
practice. This is already evidenced by the recent interest of
psychoanalysts in multiculturalism, intersubjectivity, gender
and sexual orientation, social class, linguistics, and, in particular, the reexamination of the importance of the narrative
with an emphasis on the right to personal autonomy. All
of these are old social work principles that take on new and
ever-evolving life in the welding together of social work
practice with theory.
Child treatment has traditionally taken second place to adult
treatment. However, in the last 20 years, infant research has
had the most profound and startling impact upon constructions
SOCIAL WORK
of the self in both the intrapsychic and the interpersonal
arenas. Child treatment will naturally unfold as the next
domain for further investigation of the evolution of human
identity. Relational principles intersect very well with social
work principles of practice. The social construction of self,
as illuminated by a subjective and intersubjective examination
of ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, trauma, and social
class is present in the narrative that the client presents. The
clinician in turn presents a narrative participation of his or
her own. The concept of self- and mutual-regulation from
infant research speaks to the importance of the therapist and
client as coconstructing a sense of meaning of the client’s life.
In child treatment the difficulty of this kind of coconstruction is considerable. Children often speak in fragments, shifting
in and out of symbolic play that the therapist must translate
simultaneously into meaning. The greatest difficulty that
beginning clinicians describe is how to integrate theoretical
concepts into practice while balancing an empathic connection with their clients.
The difficulties (and rewards) of child treatment are
manifold. Child therapists have the task of receiving a kind
of bicultural split screen in translating symbolic play into
meaning. Since children aren’t always verbal and rarely consistently so, we often use rare bits of narrative to construct
meaning out of a child’s life—something like sewing together
a patchwork quilt of fragments of dialogue.
For the full briefing and bibliography, visit www.socialwork.nyu.edu and click on
Continuing Education.
S O M E FA C U LT Y
WORK IN PROGRESS
A N D PhD D I S S E RTAT I O N S
U N D E R WAY
Muslim Americans’ Beliefs and
Attitudes About Mental Illness Professor Marjorie Rock
The Stories of Lesbian Partners of Women
with Breast Cancer Sabina Primack
Substance Abuse Among Soviet Immigrants
to Three Countries Professor Lala Straussner
Book project: When the Bubble Breaks: Narcissistic
Vulnerability and Mid-Life Issues Professor Eda Goldstein
Spirituality and Transcendence in Sexuality: Implications
for HIV Prevention Among Gay Men Professor James Martin
Book project: Attachment-Based Clinical Practice
Professor Jeff Seinfeld
Practice-Based Research on Adolescent Termination
from Mental Health Treatment Professor Diane Mirabito
(Greenstein Award Winner, 2003)
Evaluating Cultural Competency in
Social Work Field Education: An Agency and
University Collaboration Benjamin Kohl
Exposure: An Exploratory Study of Adolescent
Males’ Coping Responses to Domestic Violence
Samuel Aymer
An Exploration of HIV/AIDS Perceptions,
Knowledge, and Beliefs Among Individuals
Who Are Deaf Elizabeth Eckhardt
Forensic Mental Health: Planning and Advocacy
for Adults Professor Gerald Landsberg
All You Need to Know: www.socialwork.nyu.edu
7
NYU
SOCIAL WORK
Caribbean Families Are
the Focus of New MSW
Learning Initiative
Professors Alma Carten and Judith Lemberger have
developed an MSW learning initiative in child welfare,
focusing on services to English-speaking Caribbean families in New York City and in the West Indies. Supported
by an NYU Curricular Challenge Fund Grant, the project
is a partnership of NYU Social Work, the University of
the West Indies (UWI), and the NYC Administration for
Children’s Services (ACS).
The project, called the Caribbean Child Welfare Fellowship, has been launched with six advanced concentration
New York University | School of Social Work
MSW students from the School who are in field placements
at three cooperating agencies in Brooklyn: the ACS Family
Service Unit, the Caribbean Mental Health Program at
Kingsbrook Medical Center, and the Caribbean Women’s
Health Association. Michael Hernandez, an NYU doctoral
candidate, is the project coordinator.
Distance learning by teleconference will link students in
New York with UWI students in Jamaica for a series of seminars and exchange of experiences. Future summer exchange
visits by students are being planned. The project builds on
the findings of a study completed under the auspices of the
New York City Social Work Education Consortium that
recommended the use of field learning specialization as one
approach to strengthening child welfare content in schools
of social work.
School’s Shelter
Program Welcomes
New Director Yvette Fort, ‘99
Approaching its 20th anniversary, the School’s support
program for mentally ill women has appointed Yvette
Fort, MSW ’99, as its new director. Ms. Fort, a clinician
with strong skills in program development and management, will have responsibility for the School’s 30-bed
support unit and other activities of our professional
and student staff within the 200-bed Brooklyn Women’s
Shelter. Ms. Fort, who has experience in housing placement and work with mentally ill and substance abusing
clients, has already begun the tasks of improving management, funding, and services in the program.
The Community Support Services Unit, opened in 1983,
provides case management, mental health, peer support,
and outreach services to mental health unit clients and to
the larger shelter community. Sixty percent of the women
in the School’s shelter program report significant (and often
multiple) instances of violence in their lives—as children,
spouses, and homeless women living on the streets or in
shelters. Approximately 95 percent of clients are poor and
have no more than a high school education. Ten to fifteen
percent have developmental disabilities, making them our
most vulnerable clients. Residents typically suffer from
more than one serious condition or circumstance simultaneously and present an enormous challenge as clients.
Moreover, they are poorly served through a fragmented
system that fails to mount a coordinated response to their
life circumstances. The New York City communities from
which the shelter residents are drawn rank among the
8
All You Need to Know: www.socialwork.nyu.edu
Yvette Fort
highest with respect to the incidence of severe poverty,
mental illness, domestic violence, substance abuse, homelessness, HIV, and other life-threatening medical conditions.
Program staff members use a variety of interventions
to provide individualized services to clients, including oneon-one counseling, psychoeducational groups, self-help
referrals, and recreational and community activities. Ms. Fort
summarizes the program’s central philosophy: “We believe
that these women are not beyond help, but are underserved.
And our program demonstrates this: Ninety-eight percent of
our clients move to independent or supportive housing in the
community, largely through the provision of intensive services.”
New York University | School of Social Work
Spiritual Applications in
Clinical Social Work
Professors Barbara Dane and Robert Moore have received
a $75,000 grant from the Achelis-Bodman Trust for research
on spiritual approaches in clinical social work. The spiritual
beliefs and practices of both professionals and their clients
are important—but little-studied—aspects of social work.
Despite the obvious ways that spiritual values and concerns
are embedded in social work practice, there has been little
systematic research on this dimension of social work—either
with respect to the beliefs and practices of social workers and
their clients, or with respect to the ways social workers help
clients to use their spiritual foundation in addressing problems. The proposed project is the first stage in development
of a program of serious research in this area. The project
combines the expertise of Professor Barbara Dane, a clinician
with extensive experience in building on client spiritual
strengths and a recognized leader in end-of-life care, with
that of Professor Robert Moore, an experienced quantitative
researcher and methodologist.
School Participates in
Department of Homeless
Services Outreach Survey
on Homelessness
Earlier this year, faculty and students from the School
participated in the first borough-wide Homeless Outreach
Population Survey sponsored by the City of New York.
Students and faculty were among the approximately 1,000
volunteers who canvassed Manhattan in an effort to assist
the Department of Homeless Services (DHS) to assess and
reduce homelessness and improve services to this population.
The goal of the survey was to cover 330 miles of
Manhattan streets and parks in addition to visiting 60 subway stations. Volunteers received one hour of training before
embarking on this historic count. DHS personnel and volunteers with social service experience led teams of four or five
volunteers. Teams canvassed their designated areas between
the hours of midnight and 4 a.m. to identify homeless
people who were not in shelters for the evening. The teams
approached the homeless, offered food, water, and transportation to shelters, and gathered demographic information.
Professor Catherine Medina, director of field learning and
community partnerships, coordinated the efforts of NYU
NYU
SOCIAL WORK
The proposed research is designed to begin the process
of replacing our impressions of clinical social work practice in
this area with carefully analyzed empirical data. The ultimate
goal of this research and other activities is to promote the
effective use of spiritual approaches in clinical work by social
workers and other clinicians.
The project will explore what factors most powerfully
influence the personal spirituality of social work clinicians
and shape their use of spiritual approaches in their work
with individuals and families. Personal spirituality is defined
as the personal spiritual and/or religious beliefs that shape
the clinician’s life and sometimes his or her work. Spiritual
approaches in clinical social work range from simple acknowledgement of a client’s spiritual and/or religious beliefs, across
varying levels of engagement around spiritual themes to help
the client draw on this area of strength, to active participation
and encouragement through meditation and prayer.
The initial research will involve surveys of clinical social
workers from the NYS Association of Clinical Social Workers
and the Social Work Network in End of Life and Palliative Care.
faculty and student volunteers. She also provided leadership
as liaison between DHS and the other New York City schools
of social work to promote the importance of the survey and
recruit volunteers. On the evening of the survey, Professor
Medina was assigned to canvas a section of the West Village
and Chelsea. Her group identified 12 homeless people who
had decided to spend the evening on the streets in the cold
rather than stay in one of the city’s shelters.
Professor Medina described the experience as “a cohesive
effort by interested volunteers from every walk of life—
counseling, marketing, law, medicine, business, retirement,
and others—to do something to help street homelessness.”
She explained that although no one on the team knew each
other prior to that evening, they quickly bonded on their
mission to help with this social issue. They even developed
an unspoken communication, somehow knowing, as a
group, when and how to approach and interview individuals
about their housing situations. As the evening wore on,
the group empathized more and more with the plight of
the street homeless.
The goal of the survey was not only to get a count but
also to gather data that will make a difference in service
delivery to shelter-resistant homeless people. That evening
the survey identified approximately 1,780 homeless people
in Manhattan; 88 percent were on the streets and in parks,
while the remaining 12 percent were underground in subway
continued
All You Need to Know: www.socialwork.nyu.edu
9
NYU
SOCIAL WORK
New York University | School of Social Work
School Participates in Department of Homeless Services
Outreach Survey on Homelessness continued
stations. Of the 1,780 homeless, 13 percent were women and
15 percent were 55 years of age or older. No families with children were identified. The DHS is using this data to improve
services to the homeless population and is planning to conduct
the survey in the other boroughs.
The survey did not focus on the many homeless people
who stay in city shelters. That evening there were three
people housed in shelters for every one person counted on
the streets of Manhattan.
Treating Depression in
Vulnerable Urban Women
THE NEED. Female depression is destructive to daily func-
tioning, maternal nurturing, work life, and general family
well-being. In 2002, one out of every 10 women in the United
States—an estimated 12.4 million women—suffered a
major depressive episode. The effect of depression transcends
generations: longitudinal research on child development
shows that a mother’s clinical depression is one of the most
consistent predictors of childhood maladjustment. While
these phenomena are true for the general population of
women in the United States, their impact carries exponential
power for poor and disenfranchised women from underserved
groups. Multicompromised by the lack of economic resources,
education, social mobility, and quality medical care, these
women can experience depressive symptoms that take on
particularly refractory and high-risk dimensions.
While the problem of depression in poor women is well
documented, and there has been some professional and policy
acknowledgement of its scope, little has been done to develop
combined treatment approaches for use in real-world community settings where these women typically seek and receive
care. These settings include outpatient clinics in municipal
hospitals, homeless shelters, and community-based mental
health agencies.
Clinical outcome research has repeatedly shown that a
combined treatment regimen of cognitive behavioral psychotherapy and medication is the optimal intervention for
depressive disorders. While this combination has been shown
to be effective for more socioeconomically stable women,
there is little research on the real effectiveness of such
approaches for multicompromised female populations
who are at the highest risk.
10
All You Need to Know: www.socialwork.nyu.edu
THE PROJECT. In 2000, Professor RoseMarie Perez Foster
adapted a short-term cognitive behavioral group therapy
treatment protocol, originally developed by Dr. Ricardo
Munoz at San Francisco General Hospital, for use with poor,
multiproblem, and underserved women suffering from
depression in New York City. This protocol is being evaluated
by offering it to groups of women in several community
settings and comparing its effectiveness with treatment that
is usually offered. Through the application of a scientifically
rigorous research protocol that is specifically designed for the
mental health needs of vulnerable women, the project aim
is to create an intervention that is best suited to the complex
needs of this population. If proven effective, the protocol
can be used widely to provide responsive treatment for this
population. Group therapy can contribute directly to the wellbeing of depressed patients and serve to increase compliance
with the medication regimen.
THE SETTINGS. The research is being conducted in three
community-based agencies providing mental health services
to African American, Afro-Caribbean, and Latina women.
The Bedford-Stuyvesant Community Mental Health Center
has primarily African American and Afro-Caribbean clients,
and the groups for depressed women will be based in its
HIV clinic. The Brooklyn Women’s Shelter houses homeless
mentally ill women, predominantly African American and
Latina, who receive group counseling services. The Bellevue
Hospital Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic is a bilingual treatment program.
This research is being supported in part by generous gifts
from Forrest Laboratories, Inc., and the Leslie Glass Foundation.
NYU
New York University | School of Social Work
SOCIAL WORK
Philip Coltoff, ‘64, Receives
University Distinguished
Alumni Award
Philip Coltoff, chief executive officer of the Children’s
Aid Society (CAS) and leading spokesperson and advocate
for children, was honored at the 2003 NYU Alumni Awards
Dinner on April 4 for his outstanding achievement and
service to the social work profession. Under Coltoff ’s
leadership, CAS delivers direct services to the city’s neediest
children and families through almost 200 different programs.
He is also known for his written contributions to child
welfare literature. He serves on numerous local and national
advisory committees and task forces, including the White
House Panel on Children and the Mayor’s Task Force
on Child Abuse and Neglect. Coltoff, who earned his MSW
from the School in 1964, says, “More than 30 years ago,
NYU helped teach me to leave the world a better place
than I found it.”
The distinguished alumni award is presented to respected
and distinguished graduates who have demonstrated extraordinary achievement and/or service to profession, vocation,
or cultural endeavors and who deserve acknowledgment
as embodying the spirit of distinction that brings pride to
School
Milestones
10 th
Philip Coltoff
the University. Other 2003 recipients were Eric R. Kanel,
2002 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine; Stanley
Kasten, president of the Atlanta Hawks, Atlanta Braves, and
Atlanta Thrashers; and New York City Police Commissioner
Raymond W. Kelly (NYU Eugene J. Keogh Distinguished
Public Service Award recipient).
Anniversary
MSW Extension Site Program
at Sarah Lawrence College
20 th
Anniversary
School’s Shelter Program
for Homeless Women
50 th
Anniversary
School of Social Work
All You Need to Know: www.socialwork.nyu.edu
11
Breakfast at
Washington Square
Served with your choice of topics:
— Health and Wellness for Women
with Disabilities
— Psychodynamics and Institutional Life
— Pros and Cons of 12-Step Groups
— Shared Trauma
The breakfast discussion series is brought
to you by the School’s Division of Lifelong
Learning and Professional Development.
For more information or to register,
visit us at www.socialwork.nyu.edu
and click on Continuing Education.
COMING IN THE NEXT ISSUE
The School as an Idea Center
The William B. and Jane Eisner Bram Fund
for Faculty Excellence
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