BUSSW Receives Additional Grant from MA DPH
–Farha Sandhu (COM’09)
Boston University School of Social Work is pleased to announce that it has received an additional grant of $30,000 from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Office of Suicide Prevention to continue its programming on suicide education.
“Part Two of the Suicide Education Enhancement Project (SEEP)” is led by Associate Clinical Professor Betty Ruth and Assistant Professor Jordana Muroff, who serve as the Principal Investigator and Co-Principal Investigator respectively. The State originally funded SEEP in 2007, and again in 2008.
This new funding for Part Two of the project, continues the School’s work in enhancing the capacity to educate MSW students in suicide prevention and intervention (SPI). These include new initiatives, such as the development of a BUSSW Faculty SPI Training Corps, a national survey of MSW faculty to better understand the challenges associated with integration of SPI into curricula, and the development of a cross-school collaborative to facilitate sharing of intellectual resources between Massachusetts’ MSW programs.
“I am thrilled that we have been refunded for a third time and at such an important moment in our society,” Ruth says. “Social workers must respond emerging issues and we know from epidemiological studies that suicide increases during times of economic downturn. We are becoming increasingly aware of the devastating jump in military personnel suicides during the protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. These trends are significant and are going to be with us for quite awhile. We need to do a better job of training social workers in how to prevent and intervene.”
“I believe the faculty corps model we have developed, which involves training our own trainers, will be sustainable over the long haul and provide suicide education resources to the entire BU community. The ongoing research is also an important part of what BUSSW has contributed to this statewide effort to increase our understanding of what social work professionals need to know about suicide. Furthermore,” she adds, “working with other schools of social work will increase our impact on the profession.”
Learn more about Professor Ruth’s work in public health and suicide prevention.
About BUSSW:
Distinguished by its urban mission and clinical and macro practice focus, the Boston University School of Social Work is committed to educating masters’ and doctoral level students who will become leaders in a multicultural environment. The School offers the MSW and PhD degrees, as well as continuing professional education, and its nationally recognized faculty has been ranked 8th among schools of social work with doctoral programs. Located in a diverse and academically rich community, the School offers almost unlimited opportunities for urban social work practice and research. Visit bu.edu/ssw for more information.
About Boston University:
Founded in 1839, Boston University is an internationally recognized institution of higher education and research. With more than 30,000 students, it is the fourth largest independent university in the United States. BU consists of 17 colleges and schools along with a number of multi-disciplinary centers and institutes which are central to the school’s research and teaching mission.