News: Disaster relief efforts

The Columbia Population Research Center, in partnership with the Robin Hood Foundation, has released its Fall 2014 Poverty Tracker, the second in a series of reports on the state of poverty in New York City.

In this podcast, we talk to Associate Professor Louisa Gilbert, who co-directs, with Professor Nabila El-Bassel, the School of Social Work’s Global Health Research Center of Central Asia. This year marks the 10th anniversary of their efforts to assist regional NGOs in Central Asia with developing solutions to the region’s HIV/STI, hepatitis C and TB epidemics.

In the wake of the Grand Jury decisions not to indict the police officers who killed Eric Garner and Michael Brown, members of the CSSW community have issued a statement speaking out against racism and oppression in our country and its criminal justice system.

The protest marches on behalf of Ferguson are a “statement about the long overdue need to confront and eradicate racism and to fix institutions, among them the criminal justice system,” says Dean Jeanette Takamura in this statement.

Associate Professor Leopoldo J. Cabassa has been awarded an R01 grant from the NIMH to conduct a trial of a peer-led healthy lifestyle intervention for clients who have mental illness and are overweight or obese.

As reported in PLOS ONE, a study by the School of Social Work’s Social Intervention Group found that both multimedia and face-to-face interventions worked well in reducing HIV risks for formerly incarcerated women in New York City who are on parole or under some form of community supervision.

Two years after Hurricane Sandy, what socio-economic lessons have we learned from the deadly storm? Researchers from the Columbia Population Research Center, housed within our School, comb through the data from the Robin Hood Foundation-funded Poverty Tracker for answers.

How does fall semester at our School look from the perspective of our dean, Jeanette Takamura? She shares (at least!) 5 “cool things” in this podcast, and we also learn some amazing facts about her…

Craig Theisen (MS’15) appraises the messages at the heart of a new book by the Starbucks CEO, from the perspective of one who served in the Air Force for 20 years and is now enrolled in our graduate program.

Based in part on her personal evolution and in part on her study of clinical social work and years of experience as a psychotherapist, Laurie Marsden (MSW’99) has entered a new phase of her career. She has launched an online therapy program that aims to help other women evolve.