News Archive
Research
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Nearly 900,000: That’s how many infants, toddlers and preschoolers are in Los Angeles County right now.
Disturbingly little is known about the circumstances of these most vulnerable members of the community. Many are at home, but others are in child care centers and preschools that run the gamut from high quality to abysmally low quality.
Troubled by so much uncertainty, Jacquelyn McCroskey wanted to help.
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The tragedy in Sandy Hook has become a watershed moment that's changing the way we perceive our society. How could innocent young children be killed so senselessly in a seemingly safe school and quiet community?
This atrocity, along with the dozens of highly publicized mass homicides—such as Columbine—seen in the past decades worldwide have raised questions about the schools our children attend. Are they safe from inside and outside threats? What can be done to make schools safer?
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The Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans & Military Families (CIR) at the USC School of Social Work has received a grant from Prudential to build on its community engagement efforts to strengthen veterans’ reintegration into the civilian community.
The $300,000 award will allow CIR to continue its mission to train behavioral health practitioners on the best practices that will help returning veterans develop meaningful careers—the biggest challenge to a successful transition home.
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A young couple raising an infant in Los Angeles County may rely on dozens of social service agencies and public departments, from assistance with child care and food costs to preventive health examinations and parenting classes. But that continuum of support can be disjointed, overwhelming, and even ineffective.
Limited data are available to policy makers or agencies to help determine how young children and their families move from one public system to another.
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To bolster innovative, impactful research at the USC School of Social Work, Professors Bruce Jansson and Kathleen Ell have dedicated some of their own resources, providing monetary support to two important areas of social work study.
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The French countryside seemed a fitting setting for international colleagues of different backgrounds to discuss managing a multicultural and diverse global workforce. It was one of two think tanks led by Michálle Mor Barak, director of the PhD program at the USC School of Social Work and the Lenore Stein-Wood and William S. Wood Professor in Social Work and Business in a Global Society, to consider how other disciplines might be approaching similar challenges and how these practices might be applicable to the social work profession.
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Nonprofit and volunteer veterans groups, along with the Department of Defense, rightly focus on the mental health needs of the warriors who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Their children deserve attention as well. After more than a decade of living with the separations and uncertainties endemic to military life, many children from military families are paying the emotional and psychological costs.
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When veterans come home, they may face multiple health challenges—physical, mental and psychological.
To be better prepared to serve them, about 40 students from the University of Southern California and Mount St. Mary’s College participated in an interprofessional workshop aimed at creating collaborative care strategies for veterans and military families.
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Adolescents with a parent or sibling who has been deployed are more likely than their nonmilitary peers to feel depressed, contemplate suicide and report poorer overall well-being, according to a USC study of 14,299 adolescents in California. More than 13 percent of those in the study had parents or siblings in the military.
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USC School of Social Work post-doctoral fellow, Erin Kelly, has received a two-year $100,000 award from the highly competitive Friends of The Semel Institute Scholar Program at the University of California, Los Angeles. The award is granted to fellows and junior faculty to support their research efforts in advancing treatment interventions for mental illness. Kelly was one of three scholars out of 44 applicants to receive the award.