Empowerment Series : Direct Social Work Practice

Highly respected social work educators, Dean H. Hepworth and Jo Ann Larsen originally defined how direct practice should be taught.

Pa Der Vang, Ph.D., MSW, LICSW, is an associate professor at St. Catherine University in the Department of Social Work. She teaches social work methods with individuals, groups and communities; human behavior in the social environment; group work; and communication and interviewing skills. Dr. Vang’s publications center on Hmong immigration and culture change. She co-founded the Minnesota Hmong Social Workers’ Coalition and serves on the Minnesota Board of Social Work. She is also editor of Staring Down the Tiger: Stories of Hmong American Women (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2020).

Joan Marie Blakey, PhD, LMSW, is an associate professor in the School of Social Work at Tulane University. Before her administrative role as the associate dean of academic affairs, Dr. Blakey taught generalist micro practice and direct practice and children and families at the Master of Social Work (MSW) level. She also has developed several courses related to trauma, substance abuse and co-occurring disorders, and she teaches doctoral-level courses. Dr. Blakey’s scholarly research interests and practice experiences primarily involve trauma and substance abuse among African American women involved with the child protection and criminal justice system. More recently, her research and consulting work has focused on organizational and structural assessments and evaluations related to racial equity. Dr. Blakey also serves on the Council on Social Work Education and the Black Administrators, Researchers and Scholars’ Board of Directors.

Craig Schwalbe, Ph.D., MSW, is a professor in the Columbia University School of Social Work. Prior to joining the School of Social Work, he was in direct practice in child welfare, child mental health and adult mental health settings in rural communities. Dr. Schwalbe’s current scholarship focuses on the development of evidence-based strategies for probation-involved adolescents. He was the recipient of the WT Grant Foundation Scholars award in 2009, which funded a study of success and failure on probation, and he led a UNICEF-funded international development effort to design and implement juvenile diversion programs for delinquent youths in Jordan. Most recently, he is a co-principal investigator of the COVID-19 Community Supervision Survey, which seeks to explore how probation and parole have adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Caroline Evans is currently the lead evaluator for the Substance Use Prevention, Education and Research (SUPER) project, an adolescent substance use prevention program in North Carolina. Dr. Evans' research focuses on adolescent development, youth violence, bullying and victimization, adolescent substance use prevention and anti-racism and social justice. Her clinical experience includes working with Latinx clients in both community mental health and hospital settings.