School of Social Work

The School of Social Work was founded in 1961 and has grown to become one of the largest and most respected schools of social work in the United States. In a short period of time, the school has emerged as the leader in social work education in Maryland and become known to national and international audiences.

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Richard P. Barth, PhD, MSW

Social Work Education

Adoption

Foster Care

The author of 12 books and more than 200 scholarly articles, Dr. Barth is recognized as a leading expert on several social topics including social work education, adoption, foster care, and child welfare. Dr. Barth, who is the former dean of the School of Social Work and past president of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, speaks across the globe on important social work topics and ways social work helps improve communities and the human condition.

Sarah Dababnah, PhD, MPH, MSW

Autism

Developmental Disabilities

Parenting

Sarah Dababnah, PhD, MPH, MSW is an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland Baltimore School of Social Work (United States), a Faculty Affiliate at Yonsei University School of Social Welfare (South Korea), and a recent US Fulbright Scholar at the American University in Cairo (Egypt). She specializes in practice, policy and research related to the health and well-being of families of individuals with intellectual and developmental differences. Dr. Dababnah’s research focuses on family-centered, community-engaged and culturally relevant strategies to address racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in autism services. Dr. Dababnah received specialized training in early childhood and disability practice, research, and policy at the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities (Chapel Hill, NC), the Kennedy Krieger Institute (Baltimore, MD), the Columbia University National Center for Children in Poverty (New York, NY), and the Jacobs Institute of Women's Health (Washington, DC). She earned advanced degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Johns Hopkins University.

Jodi J. Frey, PhD, LCSW-C, CEAP

workplace

behavioral health

suicide prevention

Dr. Jodi J. Frey, PhD, LCSW-C, CEAP is a full Professor with tenure at University of Maryland, School of Social Work. She serves as Associate Dean for Research and chairs the Social Work in the Workplace & Employee Assistance Sub-specialization. She is the Founder and Faculty Executive Director of the Behavioral Health and Well-Being Lab (BHWell Lab). For 10 years (until 2022), she chaired the Financial Social Work Initiative. Dr. Frey’s research focuses on adult and emerging adult behavioral health and well-being with an emphasis on suicide prevention, mental health, substance use and the workplace. She has published over 100 articles, books and book chapters, in addition to presenting research at international conferences and receiving numerous awards for her research and teaching. Dr. Frey co-chairs the Workplace Suicide Prevention and Postvention Committee where she is working to disseminate the National Guidelines for Workplace Suicide Prevention.

Karen Hopkins

Leadership development in the human services

Performance management in nonprofit human service organizations

Organizational capacity development and evaluation in nonprofit human services

Dr. Karen Hopkins is Professor and Co-Director of the Human Services Leadership Certificate at the School of Social Work, University of Maryland. She is the Academic Coordinator for the Graduate MSW/MBA dual degree and teaches courses in human service management and leadership and performance management. Her research with nonprofit and public agencies is related to supervision, management, and leadership practices and outcomes, performance management, workforce development, and organizational learning and capacity building. She is a national peer reviewer for the Standards of Excellence Institute certification for nonprofits. She has served on the Boards of the Network for Social Work Management, Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR), and the Association of Community Organization and Social Administration (ACOSA). She is Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Human Services Organizations: Management, Leadership, and Governance journal. She received a PhD from the University of Chicago, MSW from the University of Pittsburgh, and a BS from the Pennsylvania State University.

Nancy Kusmaul, PhD, MSW

nursing homes

aging policy

trauma-informed care

Nancy Kusmaul, Ph.D., MSW is an Associate Professor in the Baccalaureate Social Work program at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She received her PhD from the University at Buffalo and her Master’s in Social Work from the University of Michigan. She was a nursing home social worker for more than a decade. Her research focuses on quality of life and quality of care in nursing homes, organizational culture, trauma informed care, and the impact of trauma experiences on workers and care recipients. She is co-chair of the NASW-Maryland Committee on Aging and is a fellow of the Gerontological Society of America. Dr. Kusmaul was a 2019-2020 Health and Aging Policy Fellow. She has done several podcasts on aging, trauma, and nursing homes on various platforms.

Megan Meyer, PhD, MSW

Social Work Practice

Sociology

Political Science

Dr. Meyer has taught community organization and macro social work practice at the School of Social Work for 17 years. Dr. Meyer’s research and publications have been interdisciplinary, spanning the fields of social work, sociology, and political science. She has sought to examine the practices and challenges of building social capital and organizing for social change in economically distressed urban environments, barriers to and practices in facilitating collaboration among community-based organizations and associations, and effective practices for community-university partnerships. She received her PhD and MSW degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Judy L. Postmus, PhD, ACSW

Domestic Violence

Intimate Partner Violence

Dating Violence

Dean Postmus’ research has focused on the physical, sexual, and economic victimization of women. She was the founder and director (2007-2018) of the Rutgers University Center on Violence Against Women and Children, which works to eliminate physical, sexual, and other forms of violence against women and children — and the power imbalances that permit them — through multidisciplinary research, education, and community engagement. In 2016, Dean Postmus received a grant from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), within the U.S. Department of Justice, to create the Rutgers Violence Against Women Research Consortium. The consortium works collaboratively with interdisciplinary researchers and NIJ scientists to identify, implement, and disseminate research and evaluation projects that fill the gaps in our current knowledge of intimate partner violence, sexual violence, stalking, and teen dating violence.

Paul Sacco, PhD

substance use

gambling

aging

Paul Sacco received his MSW from Arizona State University in 1995 and practiced for 10 years as a psychiatric social worker. In 2005, he returned to complete his PhD in Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis and joined the faculty of the School of Social Work in 2009. His research focuses primarily on behavioral health and addictions with a focus on life course development, alcohol use disorders, problem gambling, tobacco use, and behavioral health integration. Sacco combines his behavioral health research with an interest in the training of social work students in evidence-supported behavioral health interventions. He served as the Project Director of a SAMHSA-funded Screening and Brief Intervention and Referral for Treatment (SBIRT) Training program (2014-2017) and continues to provide training in this public health approach. He also directs the BHWISE-Lifespan Fellows Program, a HRSA-funded workforce development project focused on integrated behavioral health training. Sacco teaches in the foundation and clinical practice areas. He also teaches structural equation modeling in the PhD program. As an educator, he endeavors to support students in learning the latest from research while helping them to recognize the core elements of effective social work practice.

Lauren A. Schuyler, PhD

Income support programs (e.g., TANF, SNAP)

Public sector outcomes measurement

Equity considerations in social policy

Dr. Schuyler (she/her) currently serves as the Assistant Research Director of the Family Welfare Research and Training Group at the University of Maryland School of Social Work (SSW). She has 15 years of experience supporting evidence-based policy- and decision-making through research, and translating data into accessible deliverables. Broadly, her experience is in the social policy and higher education policy spaces, with specific expertise related to TANF, SNAP, access to higher education, measuring outcomes across diverse populations, public sector performance management, and equity considerations in performance management. In her role at SSW, she provides the Maryland Department of Human Services with research and analytic support related to the state’s TANF and SNAP caseloads. She is currently the principal investigator for a mixed methods, comprehensive evaluation of Maryland’s TANF program, evaluating program design, policies, and processes, with a focus on equity and best practices. Lauren completed her graduate training at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), receiving an MA in Sociology and a PhD in Public Policy with an Evaluation and Analytical Methods concentration.

Wendy Shaia, MSW, EdD

Positive School Climate

Community Outreach

Wendy Shaia, Clinical Associate Professor and Executive Director of the Center for Restorative Change, is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Social Work. Wendy obtained her Doctor of Education in Human and Organizational Learning from The George Washington University. She has more than 20 years of experience developing, implementing, and leading organizations and programs. In New York, she developed and operated a shelter for homeless pregnant and parenting young women in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and built transitional and affordable housing in East New York, Brooklyn. She provided technical assistance to community organizations for the Enterprise Foundation, and conducted the summative evaluation of the Red Cross’ long-term recovery effort after hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma. Most recently, Wendy worked as a strategic planner for the Department of Defense, where she led change management efforts, and developed strategies around Equal Employment Opportunity and Diversity. Wendy is also the co-founder of the Positive Schools Center at the University of Maryland School of Social Work. Her work focuses on creating positive school climate and reducing the disproportionate suspensions and expulsions of children of color and children with disabilities from Maryland schools, particularly where children, families and school staff have experienced, complex, secondary and vicarious trauma. Wendy has been trained in restorative practices by the International Institute for Restorative Practices and in mindfulness by the Center for Mindful Awareness. She is passionate about issues related to poverty, social justice and oppression. Wendy is on the Board of Directors of the Community Law Center.

Terry V. Shaw, PhD, MSW, MPH

Child Welfare

Foster Care

Administrative Data

My background and interests focuses on leveraging existing administrative data systems to improve state policy and practice related to child and family health. I am particularly interested in examining the pathways into and through child serving systems focusing on opportunities for state systems to collaborate, understand service overlaps, improve overall service delivery and address the multiple needs of the children and families involved with these systems (including child, youth and family physical and mental health; surveillance of psychotropic medication use; pathways to permanency; educational access; interactions between the court and child welfare services, and child maltreatment prevention). I have over two decades of experience and expertise in developing the infrastructure, relationships and programming structure to successfully implement multi-agency data linking systems (having instituted data linking projects in South Carolina, California, and Maryland). I have expertise in advanced statistical methods and extensive experience utilizing longitudinal data systems to answer questions related to service outcomes to inform policy and practice.

Corey Shdaimah, PhD, LLM, LLB

Sex Work

Foster Care

Child Care Policy

Dr. Shdaimah, who has degrees in law and social work, examines the impact of policy as it evolves through implementation, with a focus on child welfare, prostitution policy, and child care. She is an expert on alternative criminal justice responses to prostitution and street-based sex work and has consulted with jurisdictions across the country and internationally on development, implementation, and evaluation of such programs. In the field of child welfare, Dr. Shdaimah studies case processing. She advises the Maryland judiciary and has worked with the state’s Foster Care Improvement Program as well as a number of local jurisdictions on dependency court reforms and the involvement of stakeholders in the court process. She also is a leading voice on U.S. child care policy, speaking in academic venues and to the news media about the struggles faced by families and providers and the range of early education and child care policy responses to address them.