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UALR hosts Arkansas Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect

Ajani Oyindamola — Tue, 09 Aug 2016 18:05:03 +0000

The keynote address of the 13th annual Arkansas Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect will be given by the mother of Morgan Nick, one of the most well-known missing person’s cases in Arkansas history.

Colleen Nick

Colleen Nick’s daughter, Morgan, was kidnapped in June 1995 from a baseball game in Alma, Arkansas, and never found. Nick’s keynote address,��“Morgan’s Hope,” will be delivered at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 30, at Embassy Suites of ��Ƶlogo. Nick will give a first-hand account of how family members cope with the pain and anguish of the search for an abducted child and their experiences with law enforcement, advocates, and prosecutors. The conference, led by , a community service unit of the University of Arkansas at ��Ƶlogo School of Social Work, will run from Aug. 30 to Sept. 1 at Embassy Suites, 11301 Financial Centre Parkway. Presenters at the conference will provide current information on prevention, investigation, casework, intervention, and support related to working with children and families affected by abuse and neglect. The keynote speaker is the founder of the Morgan Nick Foundation, which assists thousands of families in crisis by providing intervention, assistance, and reunification to children and their families. Nick is a nationally recognized spokeswoman and advocate for missing children. She was instrumental in Arkansas’ adoption of the Morgan Nick AMBER Alert system. Nick travels the nation educating law enforcement about missing and exploited children. She is a co-creator of Team H.O.P.E., a support program at the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children that serves families of the missing. Nick also is a senior team coordinator, supervising numerous volunteers and providing immediate and ongoing support to families in 12 states.

How to end child abuse

In addition to the keynote, Victor Vieth, founder and senior director of the Gundersen National Child Protection Training Center, will deliver a general session, “Unto the Third Generation: A Call to End Child Abuse in Three Generations,” at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 31. In this session, participants will learn about the five obstacles that prevent people from ending child abuse and the sweeping changes taking place in the child protection system that will significantly reduce child abuse over the course of the next three generations. Melissa Snow, child sex trafficking program specialist for the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, will present two sessions on child sex trafficking Aug. 31. These sessions will help attendees learn how to identify and respond to youth who are being commercially sexually exploited and learn about resources and support available through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. Nearly 500 professionals are expected to attend the conference, featuring 33 workshop sessions. Participants can earn up to 15 hours of continuing education credits. Session topics include the impact of addiction on families, nurturing parenting programs, corporal punishment and religious beliefs, child homicide investigations, the ethics of testifying in court, and bullying. The Arkansas Children’s Hospital, the Arkansas Commission on Child Abuse, Rape, and Domestic Violence, and the Arkansas Department of Human Services Division of Children and Family Services are contributing partners of the conference. For more information and to register, contact conference coordinator Robin Wilson at 501.296.1920 or visit.

Scholarship named for longtime UALR professor Mark Krain

Ajani Oyindamola — Mon, 08 Aug 2016 14:30:04 +0000

Anonymous donation funds endowed scholarship for UALR social work students

Mark Krain spent more than four decades as a dedicated college professor teaching students how to prepare for a successful life and career. Now the professor emeritus of social work is being recognized for his lifetime of service with an endowed scholarship named in his honor at the University of Arkansas at ��Ƶlogo. “I feel like a miracle has dropped upon my head,” Krain said. “I can’t deny that it is a very great honor to have a scholarship named after you.” The funds for the scholarship came from a $30,000 anonymous donation to the UALR School of Social Work. The scholarship will be awarded annually to an undergraduate student, with a strong academic standing, who is pursuing a Bachelor of Social Work degree at UALR. Financial need will be strongly considered. “We are pleased to have the opportunity to honor Dr. Krain’s many contributions to the School of Social Work through the establishment of the Dr. Mark Allen Krain Endowed Scholarship,” said Dr. Ann Bain, dean of the UALR College of Education and Health Professions. “Dr. Krain has touched the lives of many students, and it is fitting that he will continue to positively impact students for generations to come through this scholarship.”

Finding a new path

After becoming dissatisfied, Krain left his position as a claims representative for the Social Security Administration office in Queens, New York, to attend graduate school in the Midwest. “My days working in the Social Security office, where I worked hard but it was a daily grind, was a lesson to me. How can you live a life going to work every day where you don’t like what you are doing?” Krain said. He earned a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Michigan and a doctorate of sociology from the University of Minnesota. Krain also completed a National Institute on Aging post-doctoral fellowship in adult development aging at the Midwest Council for Social Research on Aging. In 1971, Krain began his teaching career as an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Iowa. After leaving Iowa in 1977, Krain joined UALR’s Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Gerontology to be a faculty member in the newly created master’s program in gerontology. The department merged with the School of Social Work in 1994, where Krain continued to work until he retired in 2015, having spent 38 years as a professor at the university. “I thought teaching was God’s gift to the world, making something very complicated understandable to students who would be using that knowledge when they got out to work,” he said. “I never could be a physician, because I couldn’t deal with sick people and blood, but I can teach people things.” Krain and his wife, Doris, live in ��Ƶlogo and have two sons, Ben Krain, a photographer at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, and Lewis Krain, a psychiatrist at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in North ��Ƶlogo. Now that he is retired, Krain spends his days working out at the ��Ƶlogo Athletic Club, hanging out with his five grandchildren, and volunteering at the as a consultant on issues concerning the elderly. As for the first person who will receive a scholarship in his name, Krain hopes he or she is a very bright student who wants to help people, a creative thinker, and a problem solver. “I think that it is very important in social work that the person be a high achiever,” he said. “Social workers solve all kinds of problems. I like social workers who get involved. I hope they find someone who will dive into problems and find ways to solve them.”

UALR social work grad program ranked 10th in nation

Ajani Oyindamola — Tue, 12 Jul 2016 15:35:21 +0000

The graduate program in social work at the University of Arkansas at ��Ƶlogo has been ranked 10th in the nation by an educational research group. SR Education Group highlighted UALR’s Master of Social Work program for its student recommendation ratings, high graduation rate, regional accreditation, and online program. The mission of the UALR program is to prepare graduates for leadership roles in clinical practice and in management and community practice within the social welfare system in Arkansas. The are based on internal recommendation data, which is calculated from thousands of student reviews submitted to SR Education Group. Information used in the school listings was gathered in 2015-16 from the . About SR Education Group: Headquartered in Kirkland, Washington, SR Education Group was founded in 2004 by CEO Sung Rhee. The company’s mission is to create authoritative online resources for students seeking an online education program that best suits their budget and career aspirations. SR Education Group is passionate about making quality education attainable for everyone and believes objective information about education, careers, and educational financing should be free and easily accessible.

UALR hosts MidSOUTH conference for Integrated Behavioral Health Studies

Ajani Oyindamola — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 14:09:46 +0000

The University of Arkansas at ��Ƶlogo School of Social Work will host the 44th annual MidSOUTH Summer Conference for Integrated Behavioral Health Studies Wednesday June 8-10 in the Donaghey Student Center. The conference offers three days of training in integrated behavioral health studies, including those involving substance abuse, mental health, and child welfare. Counseling and mental health professionals can earn up to 23.5 hours of continuing education. is the community service unit of the UALR School of Social Work, which provides leadership, training, and product support in the areas of addiction, child welfare, technology, distance learning, and organizational development. The conference’s keynote speaker is Kevin Hines, a suicide prevention expert, mental health advocate, and peer counselor. He will speak at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, June 9, in Donaghey Student Center Meeting Rooms A-C. In his speech, “Cracked Not Broken…Surviving and Thriving After a Suicide Attempt,” Hines discusses his suicide attempt in 2000 to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and his path to recovery. Hines appeared in Eric Steel’s 2006 British-American documentary film, “The Bridge,” which filmed 365 days at the Golden Gate Bridge and captured numerous suicides. Hines will lead a discussion after the movie’s presentation at 4:30 p.m. June 9. To see a full schedule of events, visit the. For more information, please contact Conference Coordinator Charlotte Besch at 501-569-8459 or at cabesch@midsouth.ualr.edu. In the upper right photo, Kevin Hines, the conference’s keynote speaker, is shown. Contributed photo.��

Social work, nursing degree programs garner accolades

Shanna Fitzgerald — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 13:49:30 +0000

The University of Arkansas at ��Ƶlogo earned recognition in a couple recent national top 50 lists for affordable and competitive university programs.

UALR made the cut for Social Work Degree Guide’s in recognition of the university’s social work bachelor’s degree program. The website ranked UALR No. 22 on its ��most-affordable list. Two other Arkansas public universities also made the list.
The list recognizes UALR’s online registered nurse to Bachelor of Science in nursing degree program. The list compiled by the Best Master of Science in Nursing website puts UALR at No. 29. Two other Arkansas public universities were also named to the list.

Pilot crowdfunding project targets travel funds for national social work conference

UA ��Ƶlogo — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 21:48:10 +0000

Two students from the UALR School of Social Work Organization (SSWO) will attend a national conference next July if the UALR Office of Alumni and Development first crowdfunding project is a success. Clayton Andrews, annual giving and alumni membership associate at UALR, said the Office of Alumni and Development recently approached the school about becoming its pilot crowdfunding project. The $5,000-goal, if reached, will help cover travel expenses and conference fees for the two students. “The members are hitting social media very hard and soliciting their family, friends, faculty, former School of Social Work alumni and any others who may help them reach their goal,” he said. Two students will attend the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) conference in Washington, D.C., next summer through a random drawing from 30 current members of the organization. “Students attending a national conference serve as ambassadors, demonstrating to the rest of the nation’s social workers that Arkansas and its workers are highly valued members of the national social work community,” said Jonathan Howland, a graduate of UALR’s Master of Social Work program. “As a former student member of NASW and a current professional member, I can say that the opportunity to attend the national NASW conference would have been valuable to me as in individual and for Arkansas social workers.” The NASW is the largest membership organization of professional social workers in the world with 132,000 members. Attendees have access to cutting-edge research, practice-specific resources, national networking opportunities, career services, and an opportunity to become a member of both the local chapter and national organization. Andrews said he hopes this will be the first of many crowdfunding projects overseen by the Office of Development on UALR’s Marketplace. For more information on the project or the SSWO, contact Amber Brossett at ambrossett@ualr.edu. Donations may be made��here��and will be accepted through June 1, 2015.

Miller named inaugural Faculty Fellow at UALR

UA ��Ƶlogo — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 17:23:42 +0000

Dr. John Miller, an associate professor at the UALR School of Social Work, has been named UALR’s inaugural Faculty Fellow. UALR Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Zulma Toro announced that Miller, a licensed Master Social Worker for Arkansas, will be focused on two major initiatives: faculty mentoring and student success programs. “The overarching goal of both initiatives is to increase student and faculty success” said Toro. Miller’s focus, she added, will also be to facilitate dialogue and develop working relationships among UALR faculty. He will lead the development and implementation of a faculty mentoring program in which senior faculty will provide guidance to junior faculty who are on the path toward promotion and tenure. Miller has authored a number of scholarly publications related to diversity and social justice and has lectured at conferences and events across the nation. He has extensive teaching experience and an ability to integrate real-world issues into his classroom, according to Toro. “His efforts at UALR exemplify the leadership characteristics desired of a UALR Faculty Fellow,” she said. These efforts include Miller’s service as co-chair of the UALR Diversity Council and his 2010 assessment and evaluation of the African American Male Initiative (AAMI) student success program. In a report last year to UALR Chancellor Joel E. Anderson, Toro emphasized the importance and impact of developing a student-centered culture at UALR. The plan included creating a Faculty Fellows program where a faculty member, selected through a competitive process, would be charged with creating and coordinating initiatives to develop a student-centered culture, while enhancing the sense of community among UALR students, faculty, and staff.

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MidSOUTH faculty to present at national conference in Galveston

UA ��Ƶlogo — Thu, 15 May 2014 20:05:31 +0000

Carol Griffin, a licensed social worker and faculty member with MidSOUTH, the community service unit of the UALR School of Social Work, will make a presentation at the Title IV-E National Roundtable conference May 21-23, in Galveston, Texas. Her presentation, “Navigating the S.E.A.s of Child Welfare Supervision,” will describe the collaborative efforts of the Division of Children and Family Services and IV-E Partnership universities, including UALR. Title IV-E authorizes federal matching funds to states for directly administering foster care and adoption programs. Participants of the conference learn skills that can be employed in teaching, designing and administering IV-E. The conference is hosted by the Center for Service and Family Strengths at the University of Houston’s Graduate College of Social Work. Griffin will share with conference participants how the state and university collaboration is looking at an innovative approach to training new child welfare supervisors by enhancing three specific supervisory functions; namely, S.E.A., which stands for Supportive, Educational and Administrative functions. By enhancing those particular functions, supervisors may better assure best practice approaches to meeting federal quality indicators for children in the child welfare system, according to Griffin. MidSOUTH provides leadership, training, and product support in the areas of addiction, child welfare, technology, distance learning, and organizational development.

Social work interns provide advocacy and education support for disabled

UA ��Ƶlogo — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 14:48:28 +0000

UALR graduate students Meredith Lane and Laura Bauer are completing internships with Partners for Inclusive Communities. The North ��Ƶlogo-based agency provides support to individuals and families of children with disabilities. Lane and Bauer are students on the Management & Community Practice Track in UALR’s School of Social Work. Lane said she wanted to start an advocacy program for people with disabilities, while Bauer realized during her first year that she was interested in education, awareness, and prevention. Despite the difference in goals, both are excited about their work, which is helping fulfill Partners’ mission to fully and meaningfully help those with disabilities participate in community life, effect systems change, prevent disabilities, and promote healthy lifestyles. Partners is a member of the nationwide Association of University Centers on Disabilities. One of Bauer’s projects involves teaching healthy lifestyles to individuals with developmental delays. She and her field instructor quickly realized their material would need to be modified for those who could not read. “It required a lot of on-the-spot thinking, one-on-one training, and creative thinking,” Bauer said, adding that she was allowed the freedom to develop those skills in her current position. Lane is working with the Housing Trust Fund of Arkansas, a program that provides funds for lower income families. She joined others in a series of listening tours and outreach meetings to recruit advocates, gather input, and provide education about the program. Both agree that being allowed to work from home has brought needed flexibility, while challenging them to manage time and workload efficiently. David Deere and Vanessa Smith serve as the field instructors for the��students at Partners. Both Deere and Smith started as interns at Partners while still in college, and became full staff members when they graduated from UALR’s Master of Social Work program. Deere said that intern work varies at Partners, but he tries to encourage each student to identify areas of interests and develop skills accordingly. Smith said that beyond the basic skills and values needed to be a social worker, she hopes that interns at Partners learn to empower others and respect self-determination for all people.

Monster Dash 5k to help working poor

UA ��Ƶlogo — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 21:12:49 +0000

Halloween enthusiasts, runners, and walkers should mark their calendars for the Barnabas House Monster 5,000-meters Dash, set to begin at 8 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 12, in Parking Lot 13, by the UALR Jack Stephens Center. All proceeds from the 5K will support the Barnabas House’s efforts to serve as a social work and counseling center. Participants of all ages are encouraged to get into the Halloween spirit by dressing up in their favorite costume. The is an outreach program of Oak Forest United Methodist Church. It’s located at 2423 S. Tyler St., in the Oak Forest neighborhood and near UALR. University students and other volunteers join social workers and medical professionals to advocate for the uninsured and working poor. Clients receive help with housing, job placement, educational opportunities, disability determination and nutritional assistance, and other quality-of-life services. UALR’s Bachelor of Social Work Student Organization, advised by Dr. Mark Krain, has endorsed the Monster Dash 5K. Entry fees are $15 for UALR participants and $25 for all other individuals through Oct. 4. A family of three may participate for $50, with $10 for each additional family member. The fee is $35 per participant on the day of the event. To register for the event, go to . For additional information about the Barnabas House or to provide an in-kind donation, call 501.663.3136.

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