{"id":20466,"date":"2013-04-08T10:50:20","date_gmt":"2013-04-08T14:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=20466"},"modified":"2013-10-09T15:10:19","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T19:10:19","slug":"social-circles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2013\/04\/08\/social-circles\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Circles"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Carl Brun, chair of Wright State\u2019s Department of Social Work, is the first director of the new MASW program and is helping teach some of the master\u2019s courses.<\/p><\/div>\n

Leo Fugate has a soft spot in his heart for children of single parents. So the former U.S. Army Airborne Ranger has a plan to help them.<\/p>\n

The plan involves taking advantage of a brand new master\u2019s degree program in social work being offered jointly by Wright State University and Miami University.<\/p>\n

Fugate wants to use the knowledge he gains to develop after-school programs for these children of single parents, helping\u00a0 the kids with schoolwork and trying to keep them off the streets and away from a life of crime.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo watch children struggle through no fault of their own is really disturbing to me,\u201d Fugate said.<\/p>\n

The Greater Miami Valley Masters of Arts in Social Work Program began last fall. Twenty-six students\u2014half at Wright State and half at Miami\u2014enrolled in the inaugural Fall 2012 semester, bringing bachelor\u2019s degrees in social work, nursing, psychology or other social sciences with them.<\/p>\n

The professors who teach in the new program shuttle back and forth between the campuses in order to have face-to-face contact with all of the students. Students at the two campuses have group discussions with each other via video.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt means working with a fine institution like Wright State University and delivering a much-needed master\u2019s in social work program to the Miami Valley,\u201d said William Newsome, director of the Social Work Program at Miami. \u201cWe\u2019re thrilled to be working with Wright State.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the students in the master\u2019s program is Ginger Goubeaux, who got her bachelor\u2019s degree in social work from Wright State and currently works as a social worker at Daybreak, an emergency shelter for runaway and homeless teens and young adults in the Dayton area.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love working with the teens and young adults,\u201d she said. \u201cA lot of people are intimidated by that population. But the kids are very open and receptive. You can really get down to earth with them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goubeaux believes getting her master\u2019s degree will enable her to advance her already-solid skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt will make me a more effective social worker, both with my clients and my families,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I\u2019m hoping it might open more opportunities in the community to advocate on behalf of our clients.\u201d<\/p>\n

Courses in the program include \u201cHuman Behavior and Social Environment,\u201d in which students learn about life-span development, personality theory from infancy to death and the influence of groups and societal values on people. A policy sequence of courses looks at the history of social welfare and has students analyze a policy such as job creation or health care.<\/p>\n

Students must also complete 900 hours of field education over three semesters working with a master\u2019s-level social worker. They are given opportunities to do direct practice with children, families, groups and communities.<\/p>\n

The closest other social work master\u2019s programs are at The Ohio State University, the University of Cincinnati and the University of Toledo.<\/p>\n

For the past six years, students could get a master\u2019s degree in social work from Ohio State by taking the classes at Wright State. The program was overseen by Michel Coconis, Ph.D., assistant professor of social work at Wright State; Tom Gregoire, Ph.D., dean of Ohio State\u2019s College of Social Work; and Denise Bronson, Ph.D., director of the master\u2019s social work program at Ohio State.<\/p>\n

The Ohio State program at Wright State was only part-time by design. The new Wright State-Miami program will expand to include a full-time, part-time, and accelerated program for students who have a bachelor\u2019s in social work from an accredited program. These changes will significantly increase the number of students who can receive an master\u2019s in social work in this region.<\/p>\n

Carl Brun, chair of Wright State\u2019s Department of Social Work, is the first director of the new MASW program and is helping teach some of the master\u2019s courses.<\/p>\n

Brun said many local agencies haven\u2019t been able to fill openings for master\u2019s-degree social workers because there hasn\u2019t been a program specifically for the area up until now. The Dayton VA Medical Center, for example, only hires social workers with master\u2019s degrees.<\/p>\n

Kay Kelbley, clinical supervisor for St. Vincent de Paul Dayton, has her master\u2019s in social work. She\u00a0 oversees 15 social workers who help people get out of homeless shelters, into housing, and then counseling, education and job training.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been pushing for a master\u2019s in social work program in our area since the \u201870s,\u201d Kelbley said.<\/p>\n

A bachelor\u2019s degree in social work creates graduates who work at a variety of agencies, usually serving as case managers in which they steer clients to the appropriate services such as counseling or financial assistance.<\/p>\n

A master\u2019s degree enables social workers to specialize at a particular agency or in a specific area\u2014such as substance-abuse counseling\u2014as well as take on additional management and supervisory responsibilities. They also plan and evaluate programs.<\/p>\n

In addition, master\u2019s-degree social work graduates can apply to become Licensed Independent Social Workers in Ohio.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe professional training provided by an M.S.W. program allows for a more professional level of services, both counseling and case management,\u201d Kelbley said. \u201cThat level of training is needed in quite a few fields.\u201d<\/p>\n

Newsome said the program will prepare social workers to be better general practitioners, but also to be administrators and agency directors. He said the universities first investigated where the jobs for graduates would be before launching the master\u2019s program.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt made perfect sense based on that endeavor to ensure that there is a concentration area in gerontology\u2014older adults\u2014as well as children and families,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Brun said social workers are badly needed these days to help older adults stay in their homes and live independently as long as possible. Social workers go into the home and help do such things as assessments and document the need for health care services and arrange respite for family caregivers.<\/p>\n

Brun, who specializes in reducing family violence in our communities, has also written a book about program evaluation and serves as a consultant to help agencies measure the impact of their work.<\/p>\n

Newsome, who obtained his Ph.D. from Ohio State, taught at the University of Illinois-Chicago before arriving at Miami in 2005.<\/p>\n

Initially, Brun was in an undergraduate program that did not have social work. He transferred to the University of Dayton where he switched majors and received his B.A. in social work.<\/p>\n

\u201cFocusing just on psychology to me was ignoring the social implications of why we have problems,\u201d he recalled. \u201cAnd the social-problems courses I was taking ignored the capacity of people. Social work combined those two for me, and I never stopped.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brun went on to get his master\u2019s in social work from the University of Chicago and worked for a private child welfare agency in the city. He later returned to Ohio, obtained his Ph.D. from Ohio State and began teaching at Wright State in 1993.<\/p>\n

Social work has its pre-professional roots in helping families and communities through casework and social advocacy for the poor.<\/p>\n

The 1935 Social Security Act, which created a government bureaucracy to deliver Social Security, Aid to Families with Dependent Children and other services employed many social workers to assess potential recipients. The 1950s and beyond created private and public agencies to help groups oppressed by discrimination, violence, and inequality as well as persons suffering from health and mental health issues.<\/p>\n

In today\u2019s environment, the focus is on helping families through the current tough economic times.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that we all need assistance at some time,\u201d Brun said. \u201cMost people I\u2019ve worked with were reluctant to receive the help for lots of reasons. And after they\u2019ve gotten the help, they\u2019ve seen the value of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Greater Miami Valley Masters of Arts in Social Work Program began last fall. Twenty-six students\u2014half at Wright State and half at Miami\u2014enrolled in the inaugural Fall 2012 semester… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":20468,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,2060,744,725,747,715,2089,719],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20466","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-graduate","category-education-human-services","category-home-news-sidebar","category-liberal-arts","category-news","category-social-work","category-special-categories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20466"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20466\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24689,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20466\/revisions\/24689"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}