College of Social Work in the News. University of South Carolina.

News Release: COSW Hires New Development Officer

The University of South Carolina Board of Trustees awarded Dr. Terry Tirrito the title Distinguished Professor Emerita concurrent with her retirement December 31, 2007.

Michael Garnet Rank, COSW Ph.D. graduate, is pictured in the March/April issue of the AARP Magazine, page 39. He is on the faculty of the University of South Florida.

Dr. Rita Chou has been selected as a Hartford Geriatric Social Work Faculty Scholar. This is a highly prestigious, highly competitive award. The award provides up to $50,000 each year for two years in support of salary and benefits, attending national professional meetings and/or research and statistical consultation, as well as other costs related to work on Dr. Chou's research project.

Seokwon Yoon, COSW doctoral student, received the Third Place - Student Paper Award at the 29th Annual Meeting of The Southern Gerontological Society for her paper "Effective treatments for the management of late life depression in long term care facilities."

COSW MSW Student and 2005 Alum win National Children's Mental Health Awareness Week Poster Design Award

Jeremy McCleery, MSW 2006, featured in The State Newspaper for his work with the homeless population.

Dr. Bob Weinbach has new editions of two books published this year:
R. W. Weinbach. The Social Worker as Manager (5th Edition), New York: Allyn & Bacon. and

B. L. Yegidis & R. W. Weinbach, Research Methods for Social Workers (6th Edition). New York: Allyn & Bacon.

Dr. Jinseok Kim received a grant award from the HRSA. The study entitled as "Long-term effect of social environments on activity patterns and overweight among U.S. adolescents," is to conduct a series of analyses using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) to determine how social environmenal factors (such as neighborhood cohesion, safety, and social network) predict physical activity/inactivity patterns and overweight status at adolescence and 6 years later in their early adulthood. This study is responding to R40: Maternal and Child Health Research Program (MCHR) and funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of US DHHS. Jihong Liu (Public Health) is the PI, and Jinseok Kim (Social Work), Natalie Colabianchi (Public Health) and Russ Pate (Public Health) are co-PIs.

The Social Work Leadership Institute at the New York Academy of Medicine, together with the John A. Hartford Foundation, has announced that Dr. Terry Wolfer of the College of Social Work has been selected from a competitive group of submissions to receive a Practicum Partnership Program (PPP) Grant. Dr. Wolfer's project will focuses on geriatric social work in congregations. Geriatric Social Work in Congregations Press Release (In Adobe Acrobat)

Arlene Bowers Andrews, Professor in the USC College of Social Work, has been selected as a Fahs-Beck Fellow by the Fahs-Beck Fund for Research and Experimentation at The New York Community Trust. She has received a grant for $15,000 for pilot work on the project, "Effects of Shared Leadership on Service Providers and Parents for Vulnerable Families." Dr. Andrews is collaborating with the National Center for Shared Leadership, an affiliate of Parents Anonymous®, an international organization that helps vulnerable parents prevent child abuse through parental mutual support and parent-professional partnerships. Using community-based participative research, the project will lay the foundation for developing a team of academicians, parent leaders, and community service providers who will examine the effects of Shared Leadership in Action, a skills development program that prepares parents and staff to work together for change in child and family services systems.

The College of Social Work won the "spirit" award at the CROP walk 2007 and got to lead the walkers, carrying our banner. Media coverage link: WLTX Columbia

Dr. Miriam Freeman recently had an article, "A Re-Membering Conversation with Howard Goldstein," published in Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services, Volume 28, No. 4, pp. 543-549.

Dr. Maryah Fram is the lead author of an article published in the October 2007 issue of Social Work, entitled "Poverty, Race, and the Contexts of Achievement: Examining Educational Experiences of Children in the U.S. South."

Dr. Rita Chou's first-author manuscript on "Workplace Support, Role Overload, and Job Satisfaction of Direct Care Workers in Assisted Living," has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

Drs. Maryah Fram and Jinseok Kim pilot research proposal entitled "Observational Study on Influences of Child Care Context" has been selected for funding throug the Research Consortium on Children and Families. They will use this pilot study to strengthen an R01 proposal they plan to resubmit to NICHD.

Drs. Jinseok Kim and Karen Gray's manuscript "Leave or stay? Battered women's decision after intimate partner violence," has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence. It will appear in print in volume 23 no. 10, October 2008.

Dr. Johnny Jones and Jennifer Reid Webb, M.A. in the Center for Child and Family Studies' paper, "Collaboration for the Provision of Services: A Review of the Literature," has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Community Practice.

The Center for Child and Family Studies has been awarded a three-year, $216,000 contract to evaluate Project SAFE. This youth suicide prevention and early intervention project will be administered by Mental Health America- South Carolina and is funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. Research Assistant Professor Michael Rodi, Ph.D. will serve as the Principal Investigator for the evaluation.

Dr. Michael Rodi, a Research Assistant Professor in the Center for Child and Family Studies, College of Social Work, is partnering with the USC College of Engineering, Department of Anthropology, and the School of Science, Engineering, Technology, and Math at Benedict College in a proposal to the National Science Foundation for a transdisciplinary undergraduate research project on Societal and Ethical Interactions with Nanotechnology. If the funds are awarded, The Dr. Rodi and the Center will lead the evaluation componet of the project.

Congratulations to Dr. Rodi and the Center for Child and Family Studies on this award and submission!

Congratulations to Dr. Jinseok Kim, who has been accepted to the ICPSR Summer Program: Social and Economic Contexts of Child Care and Early Education. Dr. Kim also was awarded a travel stipend to defray the costs of attending the workshop, which will be held in early August at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Dr. Maryah Fram recently submitted a proposal to the Spencer Foundation titled, “Social Capital and Academic Achievement Among Middle School Youth.” Dr. Fram’s research aims examine how youth develop and use social capital, and how this relates to academic success during their transition into middle school.

Dr. Nancy Brown has been selected to receive a Teaching Excellence Grant for Tablet PCs in Teaching. She will receive use of a Gateway Tablet PC for one year, beginning Summer 2007, as part of the grant.

The J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board has selected Dr. Miriam Freeman as a Fulbright scholar grantee to Azerbaijan. As a Fulbrighter, Dr. Freeman will join the ranks of some 279,500 alumni in the program.

Dr. Jinseok Kim was selected for an internal award of $17,000.00 from the Office of Research and Health Sciences for his research productivity proposal on childhood victimization, sexual behavior development, and neighborhood context . The competition was very strong this year: only 9 of 70 proposals throughout the university were chosen by an independent scientific review panel for this particular award.

COSW IN THE NEWS