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Social Welfare Research at Berkeley Continued...


When it comes to the sheer quantity of publications, Berkeley's social welfare professors, for quite some time now, have been the nation's most productive. Several studies conducted during the 1990s showed this dramatically. On a per faculty member basis, indeed, Berkeley faculty contribute almost twice as much to the body of professional knowledge and understanding as their counterparts at any other social work program. Through empirical research and commentary on key social welfare and social work issues, through journals, texts, edited volumes, books, monographs, and reports, Berkeley's faculty has had an influence far beyond its numbers in developing knowledge about social problems and social interventions, in transmitting that knowledge to other scholars, professionals, and the general public, and in influencing the nature of social work education and social work practice.

Research activity, of course, is the sine qua non of recognition and promotion in academic settings like Berkeley. To get tenure, to become a full professor, to be accepted as a worthwhile academic colleague, and to achieve prestige in one's field, one must be a productive social scientist. Yet the value of social welfare research goes far beyond the parochial interests of faculty (and departments) for stature and pay. For in professional schools in general, the ultimate value of scholarly work lies in the creation and application of techniques for resolving human problems. In the social work field, the real test of research and publications is their ability to facilitate the understanding and amelioration of the kinds of problems faced day by day by social workers in their work with clients, agencies, and communities. Social work investigators, as the phrase goes, help create the "knowledge base" for social work practice providing the field a foundation of knowledge and skill for establishing effective interventions.

The fact that professional education for social work developed in university settings certainly provided a powerful impetus for the impulse toward research. Professional schools, especially those in universities that emphasize doctoral education, recruit, support, and promote faculty with strong publication records. From the earliest years of Berkeley's social work program, the School relied on faculty with strong credentials in the social sciences. Early faculty included Milton Chernin, with a PhD in Political Science, Davis McEntire, from Agricultural Economics, Ernest Greenwood, a sociologist, anthropologist George DeVos, and historian James Leiby. About half of Berkeley's current social work faculty hold doctorates in the basic social science disciplines. Four, William McKinley Runyan, Yu-Wen Ying, Lonnie Snowden, and Kurt Organista, are psychologists. Len Miller is an economist. Lorraine Midanik has her doctoral degree in Public Health, Mary Ann Mason in American Studies and Law, and both Eileen Gambrill and Bart Grossman in Psychology and Social Work. And, as social work schools around the country have strengthened their own doctoral programs, Berkeley hired a good number of social work Ph.D.s, including current faculty members Andrew Scharlach, Julian Chow, Mike Austin, Neil Gilbert, Jill Duerr Berrick, Jim Midgley, Paul Terrell, and Steve Segal.

While many of our academic faculty teach practice courses in the MSW program, the Berkeley tradition has been to complement its research faculty with colleagues who bring to the university extensive practice experience. These faculty members not only supervise the MSW field program but also teach practice courses. They also frequently contribute to the professional literature.

A relatively new development in the School has been the creation of research units organized around the interests of faculty members in specific program fields. The Center for Social Services Research, established in 1994, conducts research, policy analysis and program planning, and evaluation directed toward improving the public social services. Collaborating with public social service officials, elected policy-makers, community professionals, and consumers of service, it engages in research activities that are directly and immediately practice and policy relevant. At the present time, CSSR oversees four separate research and training units; the Family Welfare Research Group, the Center for the Advanced Study of Aging Services, the Health Research Group, and the Bay Area Social Services Consortium's Research Response Team.

The Family Welfare Research Group, the largest of these, carries out research, training, and community service on behalf of children, youth, and families, studying social policies and programs as they relate to the formation, maintenance, and support of family life. Coordinated by Professor Jill Duerr Berrick, FWRG's research agenda is organized around the prevention and treatment of family violence and disruption, economic supports for family maintenance, social services for dependent family members, and social, health and educational services for children and families. FWRG also provides an umbrella for the Child Welfare Research Center (led by Berrick), the Center for Comparative Family Welfare and Poverty Research (led by Professor Neil Gilbert), and the National Abandoned Infants Assistance Resource Center (also led by Gilbert). Among CSSR's most recent projects have been investigations of the impact of welfare reform on grandparent caregivers, children's experiences living in foster care, and an ongoing study of California's foster care system, including an analysis of caseload dynamics.

A second unit within the Center for Social Services Research is the Research Response Team. Affiliated with the Bay Area Social Services Consortium, an alliance of Bay Area County Social Service agencies, two Bay Area foundations (the Zellerbach Family Fund and the van Loben Sells Foundation), and the four Bay Area graduate social work programs (Berkeley, CSU Sacramento, San Jose State, and San Francisco State), the Response Team was established in 1995 to address the needs of county agencies for rapid research about their changing environment. Coordinated by Professor Mike Austin, this university-agency collaboration has produced studies on foster children in the schools, concurrent planning in child welfare, foster family recruitment and retention, and emergency receiving centers for maltreated children.

A separate research unit at the School, the Mental Health and Social Welfare Research Group, directed by Professor Steve Segal, focuses on mental health policy and the delivery of mental health services. The group's mission is to promote a better fit between policy and service design and individual needs and outcomes. For twenty-five years, with the support of NIMH, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the San Francisco Foundation, and the Zellerbach Family Fund, this group has contributed knowledge for linking policy and practice to improved individual outcomes. Major research areas include a twenty year investigation of residential care, a seventeen year study of general hospital psychiatric emergency room care, and studies of psychoactive medication prescription practices, services to the homeless, and self-help mental health services.