The new Institute for Military & Veteran Family Wellness is a joint effort of the Steve Hicks School of Social Work and the Dell Medical School Department of Psychiatry. The institute focuses on researching best practices to help service members, veterans, and their families; training current and emerging professionals with evidence-based practices known to effectively […]
Spring 2019
ProtectHer Award
The Institute on Domestic Violence & Sexual (IDVSA) assault received the 2018 ProtectHer Award from New Friends New Life, for its work on raising awareness about human trafficking.
Champion for Life
Social work undergraduate Jarmarquis Durst is one of the Big 12 Champions for Life. This campaign highlights student athletes with life-changing stories from each of the conference’s ten universities. Selected students embody the defining characteristics of a champion — leadership, perseverance, community service, and discipline — and serve as role models both on the field […]
Showing up for black mothers
Black women in Texas are 2.3 times more likely to die while giving birth than white women. To address this disparity, professor Michele Rountree founded the Black Mamas Community Collective, an organization comprised of black mothers, activists, leaders and advocates with the goal of saving the lives of black mothers in Travis County through education […]
Marijuana ‘s long term impact
In the context of the increased prevalence of marijuana use among youth and the movement towards legalization in many states, it is important to understand the long-term impact of marijuana-use initiation. Doctoral student Hydeen Beverly, professor Yessenia Castro and colleagues examined whether age of first marijuana-use is associated with educational attainment and employment status. Controlling […]
Doctoral award
Sehun Oh received the 2019 SSWR Doctoral Fellows Award for his dissertation proposal, which focuses on mindfulness-based interventions in the context of opioid misuse during pregnancy and mother-infant relationships. Congratulations Sehun!
Field and FASDs
The Health Behavior Research and Training Institute developed the free webinar “Women, risky drinking and alcohol-exposed pregnancies: A framework for field instructors,” as part of its work with the Collaborative for Alcohol-free Pregnancy, a CDC-funded initiative. The webinar describes risk factors for alcohol-exposed pregnancy, fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), and what social workers can do […]
Girasol program
The Texas Institute for Child & Family Wellbeing has launched Girasol, a program to help Texas immigrant children and families to heal from trauma through support, education, and connection. Girasol projects include a social work team that collaborates with legal teams to provide support to women and children in detention; a social work team that […]
Poverty simulations and social justice
Professor Susan De Luca and Adam Benden (MSSW ‘17) studied the impact of the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Challenge on undergraduate and master’s level social work students taking social justice classes. The SNAP Challenge is an innovative simulation designed to increase empathy by challenging students to adopt a SNAP food budget ($4.50 a day) […]
VOICE Survey
The VOICE Survey (Victim Services Occupation, Information, & Compensation Experiences Survey) examines the experiences of people working in the fields of intimate partner violence and sexual assault services. The survey asked questions about turnover intention, job satisfaction, resiliency, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress. This survey was conducted by the Institute on Domestic Violence & Sexual […]