PhD Students
Our Ph.D. program offers students the opportunity to be mentored by nationally prominent faculty with expertise in diverse areas of practice, policy, and research. Established in 1946, the program is one of the oldest in the United States. Graduates of the program include internationally-recognized scholars in diverse areas of study. Read more.
Jennifer Simmelink has had her paper entitled Temporary Citizenship: US Immigration Law and Liberian Refugees in Minnesota accepted for presentation at a conference on Deportation and Development of Citizenship, sponsored by the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University. She will travel to the UK in mid-December to attend the conference and make her presentation.
Alankaar Sharma has had his history paper on the Negro Project of American Social Hygiene Association accepted for publication in Journal of African American Studies.
A paper by doctoral student Eunsu Ju has been accepted by the highly respected Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. The journal encompasses issues and practices in policy analysis and public management and lists economists, academics, public managerS, and operations researchers among its contributors. The title of Eunsu’s paper is Is Random Assignment Good Enough? Comments to the Hollister-Nathan Exchange on Random Assignment that will be printed in the Spring 2009 issue. His paper addresses the rebuttals on random assignment between Nathan and Hollister, whose papers can be found in the same journal (Vol. 27 Issue 2 & 3 ).
Congratulations to SSW doctoral student Matt Bogenschutz
who received the Future Leader Award from the Institute on Community Integration (ICI) in recognition of his "sincere commitment to improving the quality of services and supports to individuals with developmental disabilities and their families." Matt was recognized as a natural teacher and mentor whose collaboration skills are outstanding. Citing his intelligence and vision, Matt was acknowledged for merging "knowledge from his professional experiences with insight from the field of research."Congratulations to Iris Heavy Runner Pretty Paint who successfully defended her Ph.D. dissertation on Tuesday, May 6! Her dissertation is titled, Tribal College Student Retention. Professor Ron Rooney was Iris's adviser.
Valandra and Alankaar Sharma presented at the Midwest Qualitative Research Conference with Gilgun
Doctoral students Valandra and Alankaar Sharma presented several papers with Prof. Jane Gilgun at the 14th Annual Midwest Qualitative Research Conference in mid-April. The three of them are presenting Critical Race Theory and Discourse Analysis. Valandra’s solo presentation is titled “Do Numbers Count? The Experiences of Multicultural and International Students of Color at Two College Campuses.
Wells & Ruhland Begin New Child Protection Research
Ebony Ruhland, Ph.D. student
Professor Susan Wells and doctoral student Ebony Ruhland continue their evidence-based family services study that is investigating the association between child protective service delivery and child and family outcomes. The question that troubles legislators, service providers and families alike is whether child protective interventions result in a better outcome for the child. This project will use available records and follow-up interviews with service providers and families to begin to establish linkages between services and outcomes. Upon study completion, this information could be used to develop larger studies such as a comparative longitudinal study of families served by non-voluntary child protective services, voluntary community services, and those not currently engaged in the voluntary or non-voluntary social service systems. This study is currently in its first phase which includes the identification of existing models of evidence-based practice in child welfare focused family services. This study is funded by the University of Minnesota’s internal Grant-in-Aid program that helps faculty and students with seed money to start new lines of investigation. Read more information on a recent community forum on evidenced-based practice in child welfare.
Preventing Placement Disruptions in Foster Care
The PATH Wisconsin – Bremer project is a year-long research collaboration between PATH Wisconsin, Inc. and the University of Minnesota aimed at identifying ways of preventing placement disruptions in foster care. The first phase of the project consisted of a comprehensive review of the literature on preventing placement disruptions in foster care that was conducted between August 2007 and January 2008. The literature review is organized into two broad topic areas: 1) risk and protective factors for placement stability and 2) preventing disruptions in foster care.
PhD student Annette Semanchin Jones with Prof. Wells.
The final report of the literature review highlights the key findings in the two broad topic areas and discusses potential implications for practice for foster care agencies working to prevent placement disruptions for youth in foster care. Some of the key findings are in the following areas of foster parent recruitment and retention; initial assessment of foster/adoptive parents; foster parent training; foster family supportive services; caseworker training and retention and evidence-based models and promising practices. The final report also includes and annotated bibliography of pertinent research and a supplemental User’s Guide to Evidence-Based Practice in Preventing Placement Disruptions in Foster Care. This user’s guide includes an “easy-to-use” outline of the findings from the larger search that relate to evidence-based practices in preventing placement disruptions in foster care.
The second phase of the project will focus on an examination of how the research findings can apply to PATH Wisconsin’s current service delivery and outcome evaluation processes. Key lessons from this project will be presented at the National Conference of Foster Family Treatment Association in July 2008, and will also include a discussion around the value of university/provider partnerships in identifying promising practices in the field of foster care, including potential benefits of these partnerships, such as enhancing knowledge of current academic research in the area of treatment foster care; and increasing opportunities to apply research to practice.
PhD Alumni News
Dean Tan