Pay It Forward Fund available to assist students with emergency financial needs
As the calendar turns to November, stress can mount for students. The end of year holidays are approaching. Finals are less than six weeks away. And daylight savings time – and that extra hour of evening sunlight – ends this weekend. The last thing anyone needs is an unexpected financial situation to add to their […]
2 VCU alumni added to state Board of Social Work
Two VCU School of Social Work alumni have recently been appointed to the state Board of Social Work under the Virginia Department of Health Professions. Denise Purgold (M.S.W.’97/SW), LCSW, and Sherwood Randolph Jr. (B.S.W.’08/SW; M.S.W.’10/SW), LCSW, M.Div., BC-TMH, join the nine-person board, which has regulatory responsibilities for the profession, including licensure and licensure supervision. They […]
Ph.D. student Matt Morgan earns national fellowship that provides dissertation support
Matt Morgan has laid the foundations of what likely will become his Ph.D. dissertation at the VCU School of Social Work. He now has a leg up on that process, having been named to a nationwide cohort of 10 pre-dissertation fellows by the Association for Gerontology Education in Social Work (AGE-SW). “I am incredibly honored,” […]
Rebecca Gomez, Ph.D., LCSW, to serve as interim social work dean
Rebecca Gomez, Ph.D., LCSW, comes by her passion for the transformative power of higher education naturally – it’s in her genes. Gomez assumes leadership as interim dean of the VCU School of Social Work on May 16, 2022, after serving for nearly two years as associate dean of academic and student affairs. Dr. Gomez succeeds […]
It takes two: Summer Jones is the name to know for social work Commencement
Spring Commencement for the VCU School of Social Work had a distinctly Summer feel to it in 2022. Among the nearly 300 graduates who received degrees on May 13 at the Siegel Center, two stood out in the list of graduates: Summer Jones and … Summer Jones. That was not a typo. Summer Caroline Jones […]
Ph.D. alumni award winner Bricout reinvents while maintaining value-driven purpose
John C. Bricout (Ph.D.’98/SW) has embraced the disruptive nature of innovation, reinvention and, as he calls it, working outside the box. All the more reason to find grounding in several key tenets developed as a doctoral student at the Virginia Commonwealth School of Social Work. Twenty-four years after earning his Ph.D., Dr. Bricout has been […]
Alum Forte earns NASW-Maryland Lifetime Achievement Award for ‘exemplary’ career
VCU School of Social Work alum James Forte (M.S.W.’78/SW; Ph.D.’90/SW), whose “contributions in teaching, scholarship and the social work profession are exemplary,” has received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Social Workers’ Maryland chapter. Dr. Forte is a professor of social work at Salisbury University, and he has published more than 40 […]
Opioid learning collaborative continues to pay big dividends from $60,000 grant
From expanded field placements to better prepared students – and ultimately graduates – to a digital resource repository, Karen Chartier, Ph.D., can check off a number of outcomes that will extend the life of a modest one-year grant of $60,000. The VCU School of Social Work associate professor was a co-principal investigator for the Social […]
Social work alum participates in White House child care roundtable
VCU School of Social Work alum Allison Gilbreath (B.S.’11/GPA; M.S.W.’16/SW) participated in a White House roundtable on Feb. 22, representing Virginia parents and discussing child care and the Biden administration’s Build Back Better plan. Gilbreath, whose then 3-year-old son, Perry, joined her, is the policy and programs director at Voices for Virginia’s Children. Also participating […]
Social work’s Chartier to lead behavioral health research institute and its signature survey
As an associate professor of social work and researcher, Karen Chartier, Ph.D., has been a regular user of data from VCU’s Spit for Science, an annual student survey. Now she will have a chance to lead the university’s signature survey project and its parent organization, the Institute for Research on Behavioral and Emotional Health (IRBEH). […]