Aug. 30, 2022
Brittney Stevenson: New faculty Q&A
Assistant Clinical Professor, Occupational Therapy What classes are you teaching this semester? I am teaching OC THR 4140 (OTA Practice for School Aged Children & Adolescents, OC THR 3020 (OTA Theory & Practice) and OC THR 5120 (Principles of Assessment). I am also supervising OTD students in their pediatric practicum experience in OC THR 5450. What do you love about teaching? What are you most looking forward to this semester? The best part about teaching is seeing those lightbulb moments when students make connections between real-life experiences and class content. I love seeing the growth and connections students make! Tell…
Aug. 30, 2022
Andy Frey: New faculty Q&A
Professor, School of Social Work Through MizzouForward, you were hired as a “research leader with a passion for collaboration and the grit to address our world’s more pressing research challenges.” How will those qualities affect your work at Mizzou? I will use my first year in the MizzouForward program to get my research that is underway in Louisville, Kentucky, finished and make progress on some lines of research that I am very optimistic about, given my new colleagues at Mizzou. This will also give me time to understand the social work curriculum and assess how I can have the…
Aug. 30, 2022
Faculty celebrate milestone years of service
Congratulations to Health Professions faculty celebrating milestone years of service to MU! View a list of all MU faculty celebrating milestone years of service. 10 years Botswana Blackburn, Health SciencesKristin Flynn Peters, Health Sciences 20 years Stephen Ball, Physical TherapyKimberly Keller, Health SciencesEvan Prost, Physical Therapy…
Aug. 25, 2022
Emphasizing empathy: strengthening the bond between incarcerated mothers and their children
Ashley Givens first got into social work because she wanted to help underserved youth. During her years of study and research, her focus turned to working with mental health and the adult criminal legal system. Now an assistant professor of social work at Mizzou, Givens’ interests have come full circle: She recently received a Richard Wallace Faculty Incentive Grant to study using structured journaling to strengthen the bond between incarcerated mothers and their children. “It’s a way for these women to reconnect with their kids and maintain the mother-child bond in a directed, meaningful way,” Givens says. Givens’…
Aug. 25, 2022
Surprising snapshot of trafficking survivors
Contrary to common belief, the portrait of a human-trafficking survivor in Missouri is not that of a young, white teenager who is abducted and forced into the sex trade. Instead, Kathleen Preble’s survey of the state’s social service providers found that survivors usually are Black or brown (46%) and Asian (10%). The assistant professor of social work also found that 18- to 35-year-olds make up the bulk of the survivors (56%). The vast majority were not immigrants but rather poor or working-class U.S. citizens trafficked for sex (83%), labor (5%) or both (13%). In considering survivors’ prospects for…
Aug. 25, 2022
Stepping In2Action for former inmates
Dan Hanneken photo by Rob Hill Dan Hanneken knows all too well that releasing a person from prison doesn’t free him from the problems, habits and environment that led to incarceration. Before learning that lesson, the assistant teaching professor in the School of Social Work served three sentences as a violent offender. Today, Hanneken, BSW ’06, MSW ’08, not only turns life experiences into teachable moments for social work students but also helps newly released inmates get back on their feet. In2Action, the residential transition program he founded and directs, provides drug-free housing for up to 50 former offenders…
Aug. 25, 2022
Location matters: Neighborhood shapes youth exposure to firearm violence and substance use
Illustration by Blake Dinsdale A youngster’s neighborhood often shapes their exposure to firearm violence or substance use — situations that raise their risk of becoming homeless, says Hsun-Ta Hsu, associate professor of social work. For earlier studies on suicide and HIV prevention among people experiencing homelessness, Hsu walked block by block identifying signs of blight — broken windows, sidewalks in disrepair, piles of garbage — because neighborhood-level data are difficult to find. The scarcity of information prevented him from conducting research on a larger scale. To help remedy the problem, Hsu and Jianlin Cheng of the College of Engineering developed…
Aug. 24, 2022
Bill Janes awarded $760,000 grant to advance ALS research and intervention
The Department of Defense awarded Bill Janes, assistant professor in the Department of Occupational Therapy, a two-year $760,000 grant, alongside his collaborators at the University of Missouri, to advance ALS prevention and early intervention. This interdisciplinary project will combine an in-home sensor system, wearable smartwatch and electronic medical records to predict health outcomes for people living with ALS. “We are hopeful that this project can close a critical gap in ALS care. If we are successful, this system could help interdisciplinary ALS care teams to identify changes in health status before someone with ALS winds up sick, hospitalized or…
Aug. 24, 2022
An innovative model of social work
At the Integrative Behavioral Health Clinic, graduate students get real-world experience working with clients.
Aug. 24, 2022
Mizzou Social Work: Now and looking ahead
The School of Social Work plans reach out to ever broader bases of students and clients.