Fall 2020

In early February, Weiwen Zeng received a call from a colleague in Hong Kong. Now a doctoral student at the Steve Hicks School of Social Work, Zeng was a clinical social worker in Hong Kong before coming to the Forty Acres. February was the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in Wuhan. Through an online network, […]

Professor Michele Rountree was selected as a member of the prestigious Academy of Distinguished Teachers at The University of Texas at Austin. The Academy of Distinguished Teachers represents the university’s commitment to excellence in teaching. To be selected to the Academy is one of the most prestigious awards and honors that the University bestows. The […]

The Girasol team at the Texas Institute for Child & Family Wellbeing published a free, trauma-informed digital workbook in Spanish titled Un Rayito de Luz.  This workbook intends to support immigrant women currently in detention or who have been previously detained. It contains activities to help process the migration journey, grounding techniques, psycho-education on trauma […]

Angela Vela, MSSW ‘21, was recently awarded the 2020 Consuelo W. Gosnell Memorial Scholarship by the NASW Foundation, for her commitment to American Indian and Latino populations and her outstanding academic record. The scholarship is awarded to master’s degree candidates in social work who have demonstrated a commitment to working with, or who have a […]

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that Black women in America were three times more likely to die of pregnancy- and childbirth-related causes than white women. Now, the pandemic is compounding inequity even further. Recent data reveals that Black and Latino individuals are twice as likely to die of […]

Telehealth visits by lay counselors may improve depression in older homebound adults, though not as effectively as sessions involving licensed clinicians, a new study led by professor Namkee Choi suggests. In a randomized controlled trial, patient depressive symptoms improved significantly with both lay counselor sessions and clinician tele-visits compared to controls, according to the report […]

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about one in nine pregnant women say they have had at least one drink in the past 30 days, and about one third who have had alcohol report binge drinking–for women, this means having four or more drinks at one time. These statistics are especially […]

Dean Luis H. Zayas was a panelist in a Social Work Leadership Town Hall organized by NASW on the topic of racial equity on August 14, 2020.  Panelists discussed #BlackLivesMatter, what are social work organizations doing to advance anti-racism and answered questions from the audience. Access the town hall recording…