NYU Silver School of Social Work

As the Executive Director of the HOPE Center Harlem and the Founder and Executive Director of the Akira Center, a social service program focused on fatherhood, healthy relationships, mental health, and promoting open dialogue around the destigmatization of father absence and mental health in men, Dr. Lena Green has had a tremendous impact on countless New Yorkers, particularly on fathers and families, and Black and Brown communities.

As a Clinical Supervisor at Win, the largest provider of shelter and supportive housing for New York City’s homeless families, Caitlin Krenn leads a team in meeting the mental health and substance use needs of approximately 600 children and adults each day. Above and beyond her job responsibilities, she organized a “Civic Engagement Day” in Fall 2020 across all Win’s shelters that resulted in hundreds of shelter residents registering to vote and completing the Census, and she was awarded a NSWM Policy Fellowship to focus on the intersection of civic engagement and housing insecurity.

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.

An expert in HIV prevention and care, Professor and Center for Latino Adolescent and Family Health Director Vincent Guilamo-Ramos is a leading voice in drawing attention to the largely overlooked HIV crisis among Latinx in the U.S. As an appointed member of the U.S. Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, he provides direct guidance to the Department of Health and Human Services on the country’s response to the epidemic.