News

Shortly before her graduation, Berkeley Social Welfare sat down with Monica De La Cruz—now a PhD graduate and recipient of the prestigious James and Khadija Midgley Dissertation Award—to talk...Read more about Monica De La Cruz (PhD '25) - Building a Better Future Through Community-Centered Research

Avni  Panchal (MSW ’11) has been selected as a keynote speaker for the 2025 West Coast Child Welfare Trainer’s Conference which takes place September 8–10, 2025 in Sacramento, CA.

Her...Read more about Avni Panchal (MSW '11) to Deliver Keynote at 2025 West Coast Child Welfare Trainer’s Conference

Professor of Social Welfare and Public Policy Jennifer L. Skeem was recently featured on The Latest from KQED, offering expert perspectives on the role of law enforcement in mental health emergencies...Read more about KQED Highlights Jennifer Skeem on Role of Police in Mental Health Response

UC Berkeley Social Welfare began implementing a renewed Master of Social Welfare (MSW) Curriculum in the 2024-2025 academic year. For students admitted before Fall 2024, prospective students were admitted into one of three specializations.

After collecting feedback from...Read more about Updates on UC Berkeley Social Welfare’s MSW Program Renewal

This summer, we are pleased to celebrate the recent promotions of Adrian Aguilera, Anu Manchikanti Gómez and...Read more about Recent Promotions: Adrian Aguilera, Yu-Ling Chang, Emmeline Chuang, Anu Manchikanti Gómez

SHIFT Research Group is celebrating a new publication in Evidence & Policy, a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to comprehensive and critical assessment of the relationship between...Read more about SHIFT Research Publication: “I would add”: Educational Leaders’ Understanding of SEL During a Statewide Community of Practice"

Because we work together — that’s the definition of engaged research — there’s more impact.

— Susan Stone, Dean, UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare, quoted in UC Berkeley News,...Read more about With high schoolers’ help, UC Berkeley researchers investigate why so many students are chronically absent

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Good afternoon, everyone....Read more about "You are the difference": Dorel Baca (MSW '24)'s Commencement Keynote

Professor Jamie Chang co-authored a San Jose Mercury...Read more about Jamie Chang and Jillian de la Torre on the myth of voluntary homelessness

This May, leaders of Berkeley Social Welfare student groups celebrated a year of building community and advocating for change....Read more about Celebrating Student Excellence

Ambassador Ruth A. Davis, a Berkeley Social Welfare MSW alum whose remarkable foreign service career spanned decades and continents, passed away on May 3, 2025.

"...Diplomats must employ in their work many of the same skills that make...Read more about In Memoriam: Ambassador Ruth A. Davis (MSW '68)

[Soccer is] such a friendly way that immigrants can connect to one another, and for an hour and a half on the field, let go of the mental stress that is burdening their day.

— Kristina Lovato, Assistant Professor and Director of the Center on Immigration and Child Welfare Initiative...Read more about As safe spaces shrink, immigrant youth find solace in “the beautiful game”; Kristina Lovato in El Timpano

Without proper guardrails, artificial intelligence runs the risk of replicating human bias and limiting broad benefits. As the healthcare industry increasingly integrates AI, researchers have the opportunity to curb bias by ensuring their studies include often-overlooked...Read more about Can artificial intelligence make healthcare more accessible?

Approximately 9% of sexual and gender minorities globally are exposed to “conversion therapy,” or organized...Read more about How Canada made it a crime to perpetrate “conversion therapy” with Dr. Travis Salway

"Community members see researchers come and go, and they disappear after data collection, leaving nothing meaningful."

Their work exemplifies a growing brand of research known as community-...Read more about The complex story of how the pandemic impacted the Asian American diaspora; Julian Chun-Chung Chow in UC Berkeley News

Restricting access to education would also deepen social divisions and negatively affect the entire American economy by exacerbating marginalization and impoverishment...

— Kristina Lovato, Assistant Professor and director of the Center on Immigration and Child Welfare...Read more about How hardline anti-immigrant policies are threatening the right to education; Kristina Lovato in the The Guardian

The mental health needs of unaccompanied minors are severely impacted upon resettlement in the U.S.... They’ve dreamed of being in the U.S. for the ability to go to college, the ability to send money back home, but once they arrive here, there’s a different reality and they realize that...Read more about Soaring Housing Costs Make Life Even More Challenging for Oakland’s Unaccompanied Minors; Kristina Lovato in KQED

It’s not the inability to get a ticket to go home that’s the issue. For most people who are homeless, it’s actually having a safe place to go home to begin with, as well as having the adequate services to treat trauma, and mental health, and access to quality substance use treatment.

...Read more about San José Adopts Controversial Plan to Bus Homeless People Out of the City; Jamie Chang in KQED article

It’s “really important” for every family who could be affected by immigration enforcement to have what agencies and organizations call “a family preparedness plan” in case of an emergency.

— Kristina Lovato, Assistant Professor and Director of the Center on Immigration...Read more about ICE, Schools and Children: What Families Should Know; Kristina Lovato in KQED