Linda Burton begins her term as dean of Berkeley Social Welfare on September 1. She brings a wealth of experience to the role, having served as 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. She also brings a multi-decade reputation as a preeminent scholar on child welfare and poverty. We sat down to talk with her about her prior roles, her scholarship, and her plans for the School of Social Welfare at Berkeley.
August 29, 2019
July 31, 2019
Berkeley Social Welfare's Outreach Coordinator Ari Neulight, the first social worker hired by UC Berkeley to work directly in People's Park, connects people with services and resources ranging from housing to cell phone chargers to interview clothes.
July 17, 2019
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.
July 10, 2019
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.”
July 8, 2019
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.
June 24, 2019
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.
June 3, 2019
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.
May 31, 2019
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.
May 24, 2019
The journey to success is rarely a smooth and linear path. For UC Berkeley School of Social Welfare undergraduate Begonia Herbert-Ramirez, the path to becoming a University Medal nominee with a 4.0 GPA was particularly trying. Through the ups and downs, however, were two things that kept her going.
Ella Callow, this year's commencement speaker for Berkeley Social Welfare, has spent her career tackling one of the central questions of inclusion. "How do barriers impact the well-being of individuals with disabilities?
May 23, 2019
"I'll admit it — I had preconceived notions about Sammie when I first met her."
May 3, 2019
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
April 15, 2019
We were saddened to learn of the passing of Tumanako Wereta, the long-time Chair of the Tuaropaki Trust, a pioneering Maori trust in the North Island of New Zealand. In recent years, Berkeley Social Welfare and the Goldman School of Public Policy have developed a close relationship with the Tuaropaki Trust.
"The Gender Division of Labor: Cultural Influences on Cross-National Differences"
Dr. Pfau-Effinger will discuss the limitations of approaches that explain cross-national differences in women’s and men’s employment and childcare behavior by the “de-familializing” or “familializing” nature of welfare state policies. She will then introduce her own theoretical approach to the explanation of these differences that emphasizes the role of culture and the interrelations acting between cultural, political and socio-economic factors...
April 10, 2019
Daily Cal
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.”
March 29, 2019
Tripodi Lecture on Research MethodologyMarch 12, 2019
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.
March 8, 2019
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.
February 24, 2019
Oxford University Press blog
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...
February 1, 2019
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.