NYU Silver Announces the 2nd Dr. Gladys Gonzalez-Ramos Memorial Lecture
The NYU Silver School of Social Work invites you to the 2nd Dr. Gladys González-Ramos Memorial Lecture
Wednesday, October 2, 2013, 6:00 pm
Hemmerdinger Hall, Silver Center
100 Washington Square East
Speaker: Vincent Guilamo-Ramos, PhD, MPH, LCSW, Director, NYU Silver School of Social Work PhD Program; Co-Director, Center for Latino Adolescent and Family Health
Topic: The State of Latino Children and Families in New York City and the Broader United States
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With this second memorial lecture, the NYU Silver School of Social Work continues to celebrate the life of Associate Professor Gladys González-Ramos, MSW ’77, PhD ’85. She was widely known for her work related to Parkinson’s disease. Within the Silver School, she was appreciated and loved for her devotion to teaching and mentoring.
A leader in the Parkinson’s community, González-Ramos examined the role of social work, interdisciplinary team training, and the delivery of care to patients and their caregivers. She became a member of the Silver School faculty in 1985; she was also an adjunct associate professor of neurology at the NYU School of Medicine.
Born in Cuba, González-Ramos was inspired by her parents – her mother suffered from Parkinson’s disease with her father as caregiver. She struggled to find Spanish language services for her parents and understood Parkinson’s toll on caregivers.
González-Ramos developed a holistic view of the disease. She co-founded and was assistant director of the National Parkinson Foundation’s (NPF) Allied Team Training for Parkinson’s, a national interdisciplinary training program for physicians, nurses, social workers, and other allied health professionals. She was also co-director of NPF’s national outreach program and trained NPF Centers of Excellence coordinators nationwide in cultural competency and community partnerships. Cultural competence and effective outreach to diverse communities remained a lifelong interest for Gonzalez-Ramos.
In 2007, she co-founded with Dr. Alessandro DiRocco the NYU Langone Parkinson and Movement Disorders Center, which provides a continuum of programs and services for patients and caregivers. Incisive and logical in approaching problems, she managed program development for social work, educational, and community-based programs. This included a collaboration with the Jewish Community Center, to offer a variety of integrated and therapeutic classes.
Interdisciplinary care was, to González-Ramos, an important direction for student learning. In an effort to train Silver School students, she developed and implemented the intensive summer course, Health and Mental Health Through the Life Cycle, a focused field learning opportunity on health, illness, and caregiving.
Besides González-Ramos’ work on Parkinson’s disease – her main focus in the last decade of her life – she conducted research in other areas as well: mental health, delivery of care to Hispanic children and families, and mothers’ cultural child-rearing values. She received awards from NASW-NYC/Latino Social Work Task Force, the Florida Movement Disorder Society, and the Puerto Rican Family Institute. In 2009, the Silver School honored her with the Distinguished Alumna Award.
Donations for the Gladys González-Ramos Memorial Scholarship and Lecture Fund can be made to:
The Gladys González-Ramos Memorial Scholarship and Lecture Fund
c/o Dean’s Office
NYU Silver School of Social Work
1 Washington Square North
New York, NY 10003