Adjunct assistant professor Sarah McCafferty received the 2018 Steve Hicks School of Social Work Lecturer Teaching Excellence Award. Sarah has been a lecturer since 2009, and has taught field seminars, the capstone course, and classes on social justice, organizations and communities, and group and family intervention among other topics. Congratulations to Sarah!
Fall 2018
First-ever social worker to receive Harrington fellowship
NYU Silver School assistant professor Lailea Noel is the first-ever social worker to be awarded a Donald D. Harrington Faculty Fellowship by The University of Texas at Austin. This fellowship is awarded annually to as many as five early career faculty members, who take a leave from their home institutes and serve as visiting members […]
Most downloaded
“Solution-Focused Brief Therapy: A systematic review and meta-summary of process research,” published in the Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, is one of the journal’s most downloaded recent papers: 2,596 downloads in 2017. Authors of the article are professor Cynthia Franklin and Anao Zhang (PhD ’18).
Helping asylum seekers
Dora Gonzalez likes to keep busy. She is a dual-degree graduate student in social work and Latin American studies, and a board member of the nonprofit Justice For Our Neighbors, which provides free immigration legal services and education. This past June, Gonzalez traveled to McAllen and Brownsville in the Rio Grade Valley to deliver supplies […]
Texas drug trends
Methamphetamine remains the major drug threat in Texas, according to Jane Maxwell’s latest statewide report. All indicators of drug use, such as poison control calls and deaths, show that methamphetamine is a larger problem than heroin. Heroin in Texas is either black-tar heroin or powdered brown heroin. To prevent an overdose, fentanyl test strips should […]
Older adults and marijuana
Does marijuana use affect healthcare use among older adults? The answer is yes, according to a recent study by Namkee Choi, Nathan Marti and Diana DiNitto focusing on individuals 50 years of age and older. Results from the study show that marijuana users had higher rates of injuries and Emergency Department visits despite being younger […]
We are in the top 5!
Our Master of Science in Social Work program is ranked No. 5 (No. 3 among public schools) in the nation according to the 2019 edition of U.S. News and World Report. In the previous edition of the report, the program was ranked No. 7.
Dual degree with business
The Steve Hicks School of Social Work has launched a new dual-degree program with the McCombs School of Business. Graduates of this program will be combine skills in core business functional areas such as accounting, marketing, and statistics; and social work skills in administration and policy. Students can apply for admission for the fall 2019 […]
NASW spotlight
A recent NASW News article on interdisciplinary training in social work featured Cossy Hough, assistant dean for undergraduate programs. Hough highlighted initiatives such as simulations and clinics in which UT Austin social work students collaborate with students in medicine, nursing, pharmacy and law. She said that these initiatives boost social work students’ confidence in their […]
Family Minds
Family Minds is a new brief and practical psycho-educational intervention for foster parents that is based on attachment theory and is designed to help parents understand the emotional needs that form the basis of their child’s behavior. In a recent study, Tina Adkins and colleagues found preliminary evidence that Family Minds helps increase reflective functioning […]