Wellness Wednesday from the School of Social Work

Muammer Cetingok, PhD, MSW '72

Muammer came to the University of Maryland School of Social Work as a Fulbright student from Turkey upon graduating from the SSA in 1970. He thoroughly enjoyed his education and training with some of the best professors and classmates of the time. Upon earning his Masters Degree in 1972, he was awarded a scholarship and got accepted into the PhD Social Work program at the Brown School. After four years of advanced scholarship, he earned his PhD degree in the Summer of 1976. Muammer applied to the University of Tennessee-Knoxville College of Social Work Memphis Branch (as was its name at that time; now closed) for a teaching position, and was hired and employed as an assistant professor, during 1976-77. Muammer took a break for military service and “guest teaching” in Turkey until August 1979. Then returned to Memphis to resume his teaching career.

He earned tenure and associate professorship status in 1983, and a full professorship in 1991 at the UTK- CSW - what he describes as being the most enriching and rewarding experience of his years in teaching and scholarship. Muammer retired in September of 2010, with most outstanding memories of collegial and student-professor relationships, both in the United States and abroad. He now lives with his wife Ayten Cetingok, in Germantown/Memphis, with plans soon to move to Dallas to be with their son.

"I had been an American Field Service exchange student at the La Plata High School, in La Plata, Maryland, during the 1964-65 academic year. This most exciting fact of mine contributed to my love and affection to my foster family and the people of Maryland, which led to my selection of the University of Maryland, later in my academic development decision as a Fulbright student. Altogether, it was a most pleasant and enriching journey."
---Muammer Cetingok

Richman Lecture: How Does Head Start Recruit and Retain Families Experiencing Adversities?

Location: Hybrid; Virtual or SSW Auditorium
Date: Wednesday, April 26
Time: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Speaker: Nikki Aikens, PhD, Richman Scholar In-Residence

This lecture will focus on outreach and engagement needs in early care and education settings and specifically within Head Start. It will highlight learnings from a recent literature synthesis conducted on the factors that shape recruitment, selection, enrollment, and retention for Head Start eligible families and for families experiencing adversities, and also the practices that might be most promising in those same areas. Adversities of focus will include families experiencing poverty, those experiencing homelessness, those in the foster care or child welfare system, and those affected by substance use. The lecture will emphasize the practice, policy, and research implications of the findings.

CEs Available

Doctor of Social Work (DSW) Program
The School of Social Work is working to develop a new clinical Doctor of Social Work (DSW) degree focused on advanced practice skills, supervision, teaching, leadership and health equity. If approved, this three-year program will begin in the fall of 2024. The clinical DSW is a new and exciting degree for social workers looking to obtain a doctorate that focuses on practice skills rather than research.

We want your input in shaping the curriculum. If you have any interest in this type of program, or ideas about how we should implement this curriculum, please take a few minutes and fill out the following survey. Just click on the link below.

If you have already filled out this survey, thank you! We appreciate your time and ideas. If not please do so as we want to build an educational program that considers your needs.

Utilizing Student Loan Coaching to Help Clients Reduce Financial Burdens

Location: Virtual
Dates: May 4- 5, 2023
Time: 1:00 PM - 4:30 PM
Instructor: Tisa Silver Canady, EdD, MBA

Student loans are one of the largest lifetime debts incurred by individuals and families, thus making loan repayment a central factor in household financial wellbeing. This virtual 2-part course provides intensive training on all aspects of student loan debt, including how to work with students and graduates on strategies to budget and plan for loan repayment, access loan consolidation and forgiveness programs, and prevent student loan defaults. Participants will become familiar with the complex and ever-changing student loan repayment and forgiveness issues and landscape and learn how to incorporate financial coaching techniques and student loan resources into their practice specifically to address student debt burdens with clients.

CEs Available

A SHARPened Approach to Building the Therapeutic Alliance

Location: Virtual
Dates: May 16, 2023
Time: 9:00 AM - 12:15 PM
Instructors: Christopher Beegle, PhD, LCSW-C | LaShonda Godwin, LCSW-C | Erika Ford, LCSW-C

Are you ready to take a deeper dive into the SHARP Framework and explore how when paired with narrative therapy techniques, service providers can enhance their therapeutic alliance with individuals and families? The SHARP Framework provides a racial justice lens that supports service providers with viewing structural oppression and racism as socially engineered trauma that severely impacts black and brown communities. When layered with narrative therapy techniques, service providers can deepen the exploration of the humanity of individuals, families, and their communities, while shifting and externalizing the shame and blame of historical and current social injustices. Together, both frameworks in reflective nature, can support the building of the therapeutic alliance.

CEs Available

The School of Social Work is undergoing the construction of a new website which will enhance our ability to share social work jobs within our student and alumni communities.

In the meantime, we are gathering available jobs via the following form: Post Your Social Work Job.

Jobs will be gathered into one email and sent to current students, recent graduates, and members of the alumni association on a bi-weekly basis until the new site is live.

Thank you for your ongoing interest in hiring our MSW graduates!