News

July 16, 2019 was declared Ari Neulight Day in the City of Berkeley in honor of Neulight's efforts to meet the needs of unhoused residents.

A study out of the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences revealed the perceived discrimination experienced by women who decline certain medical procedures during pregnancy and childbirth, such as cesarean sections, epidurals, and episiotomies. Reports of poor treatment rose significantly for women of color who advocated for their own choices regarding these procedures.

Dr. Sacks, who researches women of color and especially Black middle class women's experiences in the health care industry, was contacted by Reuters Health for commentary.

“Women have hopes, dreams and desires for the life-changing time of childbirth. Being able to have agency during that time is important, especially for racial and ethnic minorities who have experienced a lack of autonomy or power to make their own decisions.”

With the passing of Phyllis Koshland Friedman on July 2, 2019, Berkeley Social Welfare lost one of its most steadfast supporters.

Phyllis earned her BA in Social Welfare in 1944 — one of the first to graduate from our program — and came back in mid-life to earn her MSW here in 1971. She worked primarily with Russian émigrés and single teen mothers.

Professor Linda M. Burton has been named the next dean of Berkeley Social Welfare. Currently the James B. Duke Professor of Sociology, and previously dean of Social Sciences and director of the Center for Child and Family Policy at Duke University, Burton will bring extensive leadership experience and her reputation as a preeminent scholar on child welfare and poverty to the role.

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. In 2016, over 6.6 million adults were under correctional supervision, and an additional 975,000 youths under 18 had cases pass through the juvenile court system. The impacts of justice system involvement are disproportionately felt by low-income families and communities of color. The economic and human costs of this crisis have led the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare to identify smart decarceration as one of the Grand Challenges for Social Work. Berkeley Social Welfare faculty members Erin Kerrison and Jennifer Skeem examine the impact of the criminal justice system on vulnerable populations.

Meeting Greg Evans (MSW '86) in the high-rise office of the McGuireWoods law firm in downtown San Francisco, you wouldn't guess that he opened his first law office in a homeless shelter.

"I'll admit it — I had preconceived notions about Sammie when I first met her."

The Berkeley Social Welfare community is invited to participate in the Coercive Treatment – Moving Beyond “for Your Own Good" Conference. The conference is organized by the Drug Policy Alliance(DPA) and wil

Social Welfare doctoral Student Katie Savin has been the grad student rep in organizing  for a disability community center on the Cal Campus.

“A lot of people don’t consider disability as a social-cultural identity; they consider it as something unfortunate that happens to someone or a biological flaw,” Savin said. “We have unique needs, we have unique ways of being excluded and discriminated against on campus, we have lower graduation rates (and) we have lower retention rates.”

Tripodi Lecture on Research Methodology

In US News and World Report's latest rankings of the country's best universities in academic quality, Berkeley Social Welfare has placed in the top three for social work graduate programs. 

Jessica Blanche Peixotto is credited with being the founder of social welfare studies at Berkeley. Her family’s story can be traced back to the time when Christopher Columbus was setting off for the New World. On the Iberian Peninsula in the late 1400s the Inquisition was in full swing. One Jewish family set off from Portugal in 1492 in a different direction.

America’s healthcare system is considered by many the finest in the world, and the symbol of what America can achieve combining science and service. It’s also true that we spend 1/5 of our nation’s resources funding healthcare, so it’s certainly an institution that all Americans are deeply invested in. And still, the reality is that American medicine has never invested equally for black Americans and white Americans...

What are some of the current challenges to maintaining social welfare programs for the nation’s most vulnerable people in the Trump era? Assistant Professor Tina Sacks explores this issue in the latest podcast in the Berkeley Talks series. Her lecture gives an overview of the incidence and demographics of poverty in the United States, then traces the history of sometimes draconian social safety net programs before examining their evolution under the current administration.