News Archive
Alumni
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Two graduates of the USC School of Social Work, who dedicated their careers to advancing the values and profession of social work, have been inducted into the California Social Work Hall of Distinction.
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Philanthropists Paul Blavin and Dwight Tate have joined the USC School of Social Work’s Board of Councilors.
Blavin, who has a background in investment banking, is a passionate proponent of social change. His interest in helping foster youth and those who have aged out of the system drew him to the School of Social Work.
“I felt like I needed to reach out and learn more about the school that was training people to help serve underserved youth,” he said.
“We need to help people who need it most.”
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Twelve years ago, Jillian Barba lost her brother to suicide. It was unexpected, and the news sent her into a tailspin.
“He was a good student, the popular guy on campus … but he had a drug problem. He finally got into a treatment program, but after he left he ended up taking his own life,” she recalled. “My brother’s death taught me that even though you think you have so much under control, your life can really change in an instant.”
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Judith Wolfe, MSW '87, made a gift to the USC Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans & Military Families (CIR) because she is passionate about what happens to veterans when they return home.
“I am aware of what they have gone through because I was a social worker,” she said. “So my focus is to make sure that they are not isolated because [in the military] they were in a group with a support system and then they come back and no one really understands.”
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Johnnie-Renée Simon was two years in to her undergraduate studies in pre-med when she took a job at a foster family adoption agency to help with college expenses. The experience led her in a different direction.
“I guess what I had previously gone through during my life just pushed me to go towards social work,” she said.
From the ages of 12 to 18, she was in foster care herself. -
When Barbara Solomon joined the faculty of the USC School of Social Work in 1961, the times…they were a-changing.
The next two decades would find social workers on the front lines of the war on poverty, assisting veterans returning from Vietnam and, of course, fighting for the civil rights of African Americans.
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Steven Kim, MSW ’06, knows intimately what rock bottom looks like. Growing up an at-risk youth with little to no family support, he got involved with the wrong crowd and found refuge in substance abuse.
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Crystal Anthony, MSW ’12, grew up under the hands of an abusive father. She and her mother were the frequent targets of his displaced anger.
“I can remember a vivid image of [my biological father] putting a gun to my mom’s head and asking me, ‘Who do you love more?’” she recalled. “I was only 4 or 5, but I knew what I needed to say for him to stop.”
The beatings were severe and the fear palpable, but she still considers herself one of the lucky ones. She survived and has learned to channel those memories of violence into a career helping other victims.
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Figuring out how to run a business doesn’t always come naturally to some, and many fail to invest time and effort into one of the most important aspects of it all – good communication.
Dorene Lehavi, PhD ’95, wants to change that.
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At the age of three, Lynne Okon Scholnick, MSW ’72, and her older sister, Elsa, were taken to a foster care agency by their father. Her mother became institutionalized for what was then called melancholia, now known as depression, and never returned home. Until Scholnick graduated from high school, she would remain in foster care.
She lived in three different homes throughout her childhood. The first home was kind; the second, where she and her sister lived for 13 years, was not.