News Archive
Practice
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In 2013, Robert Hernandez, assistant teaching professor at the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, hosted a youth extravaganza working with community-based organizations to bring 125 youth to the USC campus, all of whom were on probation within the criminal justice system. While talking with them, he learned that most had grown up within a block or two of the campus but had never stepped foot on it.
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Los Angeles has more veterans experiencing homelessness than any other city in the United States. Nearly 3,500 individuals were identified as having served in a branch of the U.S. Armed Forces in the 2023 Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count report, approximately 10% of the total national population of veterans.
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On October 21, 2023, the California Social Work Hall of Distinction hosts its 21st annual induction ceremony, honoring individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the social work profession and social welfare throughout California. Inductees to the Hall of Distinction are visionaries who have made transformational contributions to practice, policy and research for the betterment of our communities.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.