NYU Silver School of Social Work

Regina Wu, MSW ’23, is a Los Angeles native who is in the first year of our MSW Program at Shanghai and New York. In their field placement at Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital, Regina did research in English-language journals on best practices for transgender and intersex care, which they translated into Chinese and presented to doctors and nurses from the hospital’s department of plastic and reconstructive surgery. Regina’s presentation helped spur the doctors’ and nurses’ interest in involving social workers in support for patients and their families, resulting in better collaboration between the medical team and social workers and improved gender-affirming care for patients.

As a Community Organizer at Bedford Stuyvesant Community Partnership Program, Ebonee Mears both creates strong partnerships with organizations serving the community and connects families in the community to the resources and services partner organizations provide. Said Ebonee, “I think I’ve been able to combine micro and macro in this job because of the strong clinical training I got at Silver as well as the close connections I made with some of the professors who were doing macro work and encouraged me to pursue opportunities that felt right for me.”

While earning his degree at Silver, Michael Sanders (front row center), MSW ’19—father, army veteran, and entrepreneur—was the vice president of the NYU Military Alliance, an NYU Social Sector Leadership Diversity Fellow, a Silver Student Leadership Council Fellow, a member of the Students of Color Collective, and one of two students on the School’s Social Justice Praxis Committee. Michael, who is now a Social Service Advocate at the Committee for Public Counsel Services in Boston, observed, “Being a social worker means fighting for social justice and never forgetting our responsibility to our clients, to ourselves, and to society as a whole.”

The communities that have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19 are the same ones disproportionately involved with the child welfare system. Associate Professor Darcey Merritt is studying the challenges and barriers the pandemic has posed for these vulnerable families as well the caseworkers who deliver services to them.

McSilver Associate Professor in Poverty Studies and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Robert L. Hawkins has considerable expertise in domestic and international poverty and welfare, social capital use and development, community participatory research, and race and social policy. He was selected to participate in a working group funded by the European Commission that is comprised of 30 senior American and European policymakers, academics, trade union representatives, and civil society leaders to exchange views and best practices on the future of work, with a focus on labor market change and social protection policies.