NYU Silver School of Social Work

A disappointing experience with a civilian VA social worker when he was just out of the U.S. Marine Corps motivated Mohamed Hassan to pursue his MSW and serve fellow veterans himself. Now he’s a social worker at one of the country’s largest VA medical centers where he helps homeless and housing insecure veterans find and keep permanent housing.

Cristina Favaro always had a passion for working with children, especially during their early years, but her path to doing so was anything but linear. Fortunately, she found her calling in social work. Now, as an NYU Silver MSW graduate, she is in the inaugural cohort of The Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services’ Social Work Residency, where she works with babies, toddlers, and young children with behavioral, developmental, and emotional difficulties.

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.”

Researchers at NYU Silver were among the first to identify an alarming rise in suicide deaths, attempts and thoughts among Black and Brown young people. Now they are partnering with colleagues across NYU and beyond to unravel the mystery of why suicide is rising among youth of color and to develop effective, culturally specific interventions.

Being trauma-informed helps child welfare service providers to better address the consequences of child maltreatment, and with a 5-year, $2.6 million federal grant, NYU Silver Assistant Professor Kathrine Sullivan is spearheading a partnership with the New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services and NYU Grossman School of Medicine that will expand this expertise in NYC. In addition to funding the training of existing child welfare providers, the grant will also enable the establishment of the CHAMP Institute at NYU Silver to provide specialized training to 10 MSW students each year in trauma-informed care in order to prevent child maltreatment.

With a grant from our Constance and Martin Silver Center on Data Science and Social Equity, Drs. Nicholas Lanzieri and Anne Dempsey are partnering with colleagues from NYU Tandon School of Engineering and NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development to develop and test an AI-powered, virtual reality simulation template that is designed specifically to enable students to gain and apply social work skills.