Research at the School of Social Welfare, University of California at Berkeley

CSSR e-NEWSLETTER VOL 3 No. 1, August-September 2004

Welcome to the first email newsletter from the School of Social Welfare, Center for Social Services Research (a continuation of previous CSSR newsletters). Approximately every 2-3 months we will be sending this communication to School faculty, staff, students, alumni, and others interested in the School’s research activities. We hope you find this useful! 

(p.s. We will archive these newsletters on the CSSR website.)

If you know anyone else who should receive this communication, let us know. Do you have any items for the next newsletter? Contact us

List of Contents, v3(1)

Click on the links below to get to the content… (Note--these links might not work on CalMail via the web, but should work on other local or web-based email programs.)

1. A Note from the CSSR Director: The purpose of CSSR in the School of Social Welfare
2. CSSR Staffing News & Accomplishments
3. Research Project Highlights
4. CSSR Website Additions
5. Notes from our Research Administrator
6. Selected Research and Student and Grant Opportunities in Social Welfare Research
7. CSSR Research Training Series, Fall 2004
8. Quote of the month...
9. Contact us / Comments, suggestions, unintended omissions, etc.

A note from the CSSR Director:        

The purpose of the Center for Social Services Research (CSSR) in the School of Social Welfare is to provide support for research conducted by the School's faculty, students and research staff. CSSR was developed by the School to (a) develop and organize shared resources, such as space, equipment and staff; (b) develop projects that encourage and enhance collaboration; (c) support the training of graduate student researchers, and (d) provide pre- and post-award support to research projects. Pre-award support includes consultation on projects and potential funders, budget development, and assistance with proposal preparation. Post-award support includes things like preparing ongoing budget reports, processing reimbursement requests, invoicing funders, maintaining office supplies and equipment, and arranging meetings, among other activities.

Our CSSR Training Series provides faculty and students the opportunity to present their work, with occasional presentations from other researchers outside the department. In the coming months I will be reporting new developments about the direction of CSSR and potential resources. In the meantime, the Center for Social Services Research Homepage provides more information about CSSR's mission and current research projects.

 Welcome back, and best wishes for a successful and productive semester!! --Edward Cohen, Ph.D.

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CSSR Staffing News & Accomplishments:           

1. Susan Katzenellenbogen, Administratve Assistant, who contributed many years of service to CSSR (hired 1988!), has transferred to the School's front desk, replacing Adriana Macias. Susan will be sorely missed at CSSR. We're very glad she continues to serve the School, and wish her well in the transition to her new position. Lynn Purcell, also no stranger to CSSR, has assumed Susan's duties upon her transfer.
2. Amy D'Andrade has completed her dissertation, and also began serving as Research Director for BASSC. Congratulations, Amy!
3. Congratulations to Teresa del Santo (CASAS) and family (Ben, Hannah) on the birth of Leah Michelle on March 31.
4. Congratulations to Karen Thomas (T.IV-E Waiver) and family (Joe) on the birth of Julia Louise on February 2.
5. Good bye...to Waiver evaluation staff Charlie Ferguson, Karen Thomas, & Yasmin Firoozabady; and Waiver GSRs Brenda Lorentzen, Stephanie Berzin, Jennifer Delmhorst, Michael Arnold & Jodie Langs. Many thanks for your valuable efforts to this important project!
6. Barbara Needell of CWRC is an invited speaker at the annual Kids Count Conference of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, in Baltimore, September 2.
7. Stephanie Berzin (T.IV-E Waiver Evaluation) presented results of the Family Group Decision Making study at the American Human Society's conference in Harrisburg PA, in June.
8. Charlie Ferguson (T.IV-E Waiver Evaluation) presented results of the Wraparound study at the Child Welfare League of America annual conference in Atlanta in May
9. Barbara Needell, Daniel Webster, Terry Shaw, Joe Magruder, and Bridgette Lery presented at the National Association for Welfare Research and Statistics in Oklahoma City in August

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Research Project Highlights   

1. Recent awards, renewals (since January 2004)                                                                           

• Neil Gilbert was awarded a grant from the Mark and Carol Hyman Fund, for the project "Gender, Retirement, and Active Aging: Implications for Social Security in Long-Life Societies"
• The Transition-Age Youth Mental Health Study Development Project (Snowden & Cohen), received funding from the Zellerbach Family Foundation and The California Wellness Foundation. The project entails the development of a longitudinal study of outcomes for older adolescents involved with the public mental health system as they progress towards adulthood.
• CASAS (Scharlach) was awarded a grant from the Archstone Foundation for the "Archstone Family Caregiver Support Project", which involves the collection of information on the utilization and impact of caregiver support services in California, and assist policymakers and program managers to utilize this information to improve services for California's caregivers.
• The Annie E. Casey Foundation renewed its support to CWRC to provide technical assistance on the Family to Family self-evaluation strategy (Needell) in California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, and St. Louis, MO
• Lonnie Snowden was awarded a three-year grant from NIMH for his project "Ethnic Minority Children in Public Mental Health: Continuity and Use of Psychiatric Emergency Services." The study seeks to document disparities for minority children in their use of outpatient and crisis-related care.

2. Just in....Child Welfare Reform Study (Berrick)--new Promising Practice Reports and results of Implementation and Outcomes of Concurrent Planning now available on line at http://cssr.berkeley.edu/childwelfare/researchdetails.asp?name=promising. This series of brief publications and presentations provides information pertaining to the Child Welfare Permanency Reforms study. This study examines the implementation of concurrent planning and reunification bypass in six California counties.
    
3. The seven-year long Title IV-E Child Welfare Waiver Demonstration Project Evaluation (Cohen) ended in June this year. Final results were presented in Washington, D.C. on May 21. The Final Report has been submitted to the State for review and submission to the federal Children's Bureau. California has applied for a new Title IV-E Waiver involving capped IV-E allocations. The application is still under review.
    
4. News from CASAS: On June 9, 2004, Center faculty met with John A. Hartford Foundation Trustees, MSW students from the School of Social Welfare, and several academic partners and aging personnel for an extensive meeting involving various projects funded by the Hartford Foundation. The focus of the visit was a comprehensive discussion with the Trustees about the challenges and opportunities of geriatric social work, service delivery system needs and outcomes, student outcomes and evaluations, and future directions of the Consortium for Social Work Training in Aging.
    
5. News from CWRC:

• The team of the Child Welfare Services Performance Indicators Project (Needell) is now collaborating with the Department of Social Services to produce quarterly reports for all California counties to support their System Improvement Plans, as required by California's new Child Welfare Outcomes and Acountability System (AB636)
• Barbara Needell recently completed her participation in a workgroup for the federal Children's Bureau.  This workgroup was asked to make recommendations about the national Child and Family Services Reviews

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CSSR Website Additions           

• The CSSR website has a page devoted to Research Resources--information about CSSR policies and procedures; links to UC research-related websites, and other state and national links of interest. The Research Resources can be found at http://cssr.berkeley.edu/research/

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A Few Words from Our Research Administrator (Mia Reiser):

Greetings!!!  For those who do not know me, please let me introduce myself.  My name is Mia Reiser and I am the Research Administrator for the Center for Social Services Research.

The role of the Center’s Research Administrator is to provide pre-award support for proposal submissions, and post award management for all research funded activities conducted at the School of Social Welfare.   I am housed in Room K of CSSR, and the support I provide includes:  assisting faculty with proposal budget development and other pre-award processes, managing post award activities including expense/budget projections, award amendments, financial report analysis, consultation for award guidelines and UC policies, and processing of award invoices and closeouts.

The Research Administrator is also the first point of contact with UC Berkeley’s Sponsored Projects Office and Extramural Funds Accounting Offices, as well as for fiscal matters with funding agencies.

An Accounting Assistant III (currently vacant) and Assistant II (Katherine Strahorn) also support post-award activities.  Support includes generating, distributing, and reconciling monthly financial reports, processing travel, entertainment, out-of-pocket expenses, and generating CSSR central cost recharges.

In other news, I have recently received a new handbook from the Office of Research Administration and Compliance entitled “A Faculty Handbook on Research Compliance: Getting through the Maze.”  The handbook can be viewed at http://rac.berkeley.edu/ .

That’s it for now.   Keep those proposals coming!!!!  ---Mia

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Selected Research Grant & Student Opportunities

1. National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant for reentry into research (geared towards researchers who took time off for family reasons, etc.) The participating Institutes and Centers of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) along with the Office of Research on Women’s Health announces a continuing program for administrative supplements to research grants to support individuals with high potential to reenter an active research career after taking time off to care for children or attend to other family responsibilities. The aim of these supplements is to encourage such individuals to reenter research careers within the missions of all the program areas of NIH. For the full announcement go tohttp://grants1.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-04-126.html
2. National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) Program Announcement: "Design, Measurement and Statistics in Community Mental Health Research." The purpose of this PA is to encourage research grant appications for work on the design, measurement, and statistical challenges inherent in conducting mental health services research in community settings.  The goal of this initiative is to build and diversify the methodological infrastructure of community-based mental health services prevention and intervention research. The PA is designed to encourage methodologists from diverse academic backgrounds, including mathematical and educational statistics, biostatistics, software engineering, behavioral and social science, and business, to focus on the
   challenges inherent in this type of research. For the full announcement go to http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-04-150.html .

3. NIH: Health Disparities Among Minority And Underserved Women

   This initiative seeks applications for: (1) research related to health promotion or risk reduction among minority and underserved women age 21 and older; and, (2) intervention studies that show promise for improving the health profile of minority and underserved women. Investigators responding to this announcement should focus on enhancing the body of knowledge of a variety of factors (e.g., social, economic, demographic, community, societal, personal, cultural) influencing the health promoting and health compromising behaviors of racial and ethnic minority women and underserved women and their subpopulations.  The focus of this program announcement is on women age 21 and older, but investigators may also focus on the childhood antecedents of adult health disparities. For the full announcement go to http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-04-153.html

4. The Vinapa Foundation for Cross-Cultural Studies (Portland, OR) seeks an MSW student (preferably 2nd year) to conduct a lit review of domestic violence programs and research, and write web site content accessible to the public. Stipend available (not a University GSR position). For more information, email a resume and letter of interest to Nina Egert.
5. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars Program is accepting proposals from eligible doctoral graduates (social work graduates are eligible). This Program is designed to build the field of population health, which takes a broad approach to understanding why some groups of people are healthy and others are not. The goal of this interdisciplinary program is to improve health by training scholars to investigate rigorously the connections among biological, behavioral, environmental, economic and social determinants of health; and, to develop, evaluate and disseminate knowledge and interventions based upon integration of these determinants. (U.C. Berkeley's School of Public Health is one of the six research sites.) For more information see the The Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholars Web site.
6. Note to students: interested in a Graduate Student Researcher position? Forward a copy of your resume to Lia Germain germain@berkeley.edu . Also--talk to the School faculty as you learn about their interests and current projects.
7. Ed Cohen has a a publication from the Foundation Center entitled: "Grants for Children and Youth", listing foundation grants by grantor, state, and subject. Contact us if you'd like to review it.
8. Foundation Profile--in future newsletters, brief profiles of foundations that support research in social welfare.
9. Volunteer opportunity: Eden I& R in Hayward, a nonprofit linking people and social/health resources, is looking for volunteers to sit on its Board, volunteers to assist with professional activities, assist with information systems, and phone line volunteers. If interested, contact Cece at 510-537-2710 or email volunteer@edenir.org.
10. Workshop on "Proposal Writing for Success: National Institutes of Health Funding Opportunities, Peer Review and Grant Writing," by Dr. Anthony Coelho, the Review Policy Officer for the National Institutes of Health. The date is Sept 9; the cost is $50. Learn more and register at http://www.lbl.gov/msd/proposal_workshop/
11. To track federal grant opportunities, go to the website http://www.grants.gov/ and register to receive email notices from federal agencies.

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CSSR Research Training Series

Final scheduling of the Fall CSSR Research Training Series is underway. Look for a posted announcement coming soon (at Haviland and on the CSSR website at http://cssr.berkeley.edu/). Invited presenters and topics are:

• Amy D'Andrade on Concurrent Planning: Measurement, Implementation, and Outcomes
• Robert Ayasse on Improving Educational Services for Youth in Group Homes
• Writers' Workshops: Support for Writing and Publishing, facilitated by Ed Cohen (coming up Monday September 20 at noon!)
• Joan Bloom (Public Health) on Evaluation of Cancer Interventions for Low Income & Minority Women
• Mike Austin on Low Income Families in Poverty Neighborhoods
• Lorraine Midanik on Biomedicalization and Alcohol Research

All School students, faculty and staff are invited as well as community guests.

Training ideas? Contact Ed Cohen with your suggestions.

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Quote of the month...

"My mother drew a distinction between achievement and success. She said that achievement is the knowledge that you have studied and worked hard and done the best that is in you. Success is being praised by others, and that's nice too, but not as important or satisfying. Always aim for achievement and forget about the success." --Helen Hayes

(Dear Readers: send us your suggestions!)

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Contact Us

We apologize for unintended omissions or inaccuracies. Please let us know of any!

Ed Cohen, Director  ecohen@berkeley.edu

Lynn Purcell, Administrative Assistant  lpurcell@berkeley.edu

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