News Archive
Practice
-
Margarita Artavia, professor of practicum education at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, has four primary tenets for life in which she strongly believes and have never failed her: respect, openness, curiosity and individual accountability. Since 2016, Artavia has held a joint appointment with the Herman Ostrow School of Dentistry at USC.
-
In 2022, approximately 2.9 million Californians had a substance use disorder (SUD), yet only about 10% received treatment, driven in part by a statewide shortage of SUD counselors.
-
A 20-person delegation of administrators, clinical supervisors and licensed social workers from the Taiwan Fund for Children and Families (TFCF), the private charitable organization that delivers child and family services for the government of Taiwan, joined faculty at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work for a three-week intensive training and cross-cultural exchange on the USC campus.
-
USC has been steadily building a world-class program in the education of school social workers for decades. Social work in schools and educational settings is woven into the DNA of the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, with roots stretching back to the school’s first dean, Arlien Johnson, who led the school from 1939 to 1959 and authored one of the first books on social work in school settings, School Social Work: Its Contribution to Professional Education, in 1962.
-
As part of a continuing expansion of lifelong learning opportunities, the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work launched a university-approved graduate certificate program in fall 2022, the first comprehensive certificate program within the university.
-
Two years ago, Michelle Zappas, director of the Department of Nursing at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, noticed developmental delays and language regression in her two-year-old daughter Margot. Her little girl had even stopped responding to her own name.
-
Before he even walks the stage on May 12 to receive his Doctorate of Social Work (DSW) from the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, Jonathan Spikes is already well underway on the pilot of his capstone project. Spikes launched the Affirming Youth Family Neighborhood School Partnership (AYFNSP) in January 2023 through a $1 million federal grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention at the U.S. Department of Justice.
-
Social work and police work have more overlap than is commonly thought. Approximately 80% of calls to police are social service related. Police are also frontline responders addressing situations involving people experiencing homelessness, substance use or youth-involved crime and often find themselves striving to deescalate a disturbance or connect people with social services.
-
Homelessness has become more than a serious issue affecting society. It is also a public health epidemic nationwide. In Los Angeles, the crisis is particularly acute, with more than 69,000 people experiencing homelessness in 2022. For most, the problem appears unsolvable and the best we can hope for is to mitigate it.
-
The USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work was honored with a visit from Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon who met faculty and staff of our Trauma Recovery Center (TRC@USC), the first comprehensive victim recovery behavioral health clinic at USC. TRC@USC clients are referred by a variety of public safety agencies and community organization partners, including the District Attorney's Office.