What inspired you to join the social work profession?
Meeting and talking with another social work professor, Dr. Edith Rosenberg, when I was a sophomore in college. I was a recent U.S. refugee/immigrant (of 4 years), when I entered college, and I was still acclimating and acculturating to the new life in the U.S., and the whole concept of college life as well, and trying to figure out what I wanted to be. She not only gave much of her time to me, but also much care in helping me to envision my possible future, and opened my eyes about the different types of social work practices and job roles that existed. Because of her, I gained hope and courage to forge my own path into the profession of social work. Later, in my last two years of college, I participated in two different internships: one at a Spaulding child welfare adoption agency, and the other one, at a residential facility for children with disabilities, all of these experiences inspired me and convinced me to subsequently become a graduate, licensed, clinical social worker, and eventually, even a social work professor as well.
Were you a social worker before teaching at NCSSS? What was your career?
After I graduated from college with a double major in social work and psychology, I went directly into a graduate school in social work at NCSSS. Then, after getting my graduate MSW degree, I worked in the community as a social worker in the role of psychiatric mental health counselor at the Providence Hospital in DC with adolescents and adults struggling with mental health and substance abuse. Later, I also worked as a clinical social worker at the John F. Kennedy Institute (now Kennedy Krieger) in Baltimore, MD, with families of children and adolescents with disabilities; and also as a clinical social worker and a Director of Case Management Services at the Maryland State Department of Crippled Children’s Services, which provided support service to families of children and adolescents with disabilities living in Baltimore County rural areas. Then, along the way, I was fortunate to meet my husband, married, and we have two wonderful, now adult kids. But as time passed I also became interested in gaining more education and social work training, and I came back to CUA to get my doctoral degree upon talking with another CUA social work professor at NCSSS, Dr. Elizabeth Timberlake, who inspired me to get my PhD degree, and later, made it possible for me to become involved in community research, join her on various research projects, and encouraged me to consider becoming faculty. I will be forever grateful to Dr. Timberlake for inviting me to collaborate with her, and also with another social work professor, Dr. Christine Sabatino, as the three of us joined in the development and execution of the longitudinal evaluation of Early Head Start, a federal grant-based national research project, led by the Dr. Shavaun Wall at the Dept. of Ed, School of Arts and Sciences, at CUA. Then, along the way, I also did private practice consultations with agencies addressing adolescent mental health in the Metro areas of the District, and with individual families trying to figure out optimal ways to parent children with different disabilities. And, as time progressed, I also started to teach part-time on campus, in the MSW program, at NCSSS. And, finally, in 2003, I started to teach full-time as an Assistant professor at NCSSS, and the rest, to my own amazement, is over twenty years of history in teaching at the university.
What was it about Catholic University and NCSSS specifically that made you want to teach here?
You could say that I fell in love with the campus and its location, its history, and the people, students, and faculty. I really liked being on campus where you experience beauty in its environment and the power of history, the proximity to the seat of government that strives to create human freedom not only for its nation but for others as well, and also because at the Catholic University, you have the opportunity to meet people from all over the U.S. as well as from all over the world. Before I came to the U.S., I grew up in Czechoslovakia (now Czech Republic, or Czechia), and later, I also lived with my family in the Far East, India, for a number of years, and I also saw other parts of the world. When I first came to the CUA campus, during my senior year of college, I immediately knew I wanted to be here, at CUA, for graduate school at NCSSS, to learn and to contemplate life as well. Therefore, much later, when I was presented with an opportunity to work at NCSSS, I was thrilled at the turn of events. I also liked, and to this day value, the spiritual aspects of faith in learning and human interaction that take place at CUA. So, overall, I joined NCSSS because of its location, faculty, students, and the opportunity to contribute to the learning of others. Being at CUA has been a gift to my life. Both NCSSS and CUA have been, and continue to be an amazing place to learn, grow, and thrive.
How long have you been teaching at NCSSS?
I started teaching part-time at NCSSS somewhere around 1993, but I joined as a full-time faculty on the tenure track in 2003, eventually received tenure, and became a full professor. And, although I am now finally retiring after twenty years, I am still very much looking forward to continuing working with my doctoral students on finishing up their dissertations.
What classes do you teach? What is your focus?
Over the years, I’ve taught many different social work practice courses, both theoretical and clinical, as well as research methods and statistics. Most of my work has focused on addressing the needs of families with children or adolescents with or without disabilities; those struggling with consequences of trauma, acculturation, or lack of instrumental and emotional support, or struggling with various mental health needs. Along the way, I also became involved in the science of research and the importance of evaluating services or treatments, so that “we” learn to know what works, for whom, and why, and under what conditions. Besides teaching social work practice courses, I have come to love teaching research and evaluation, as well as providing research support to various human health service agencies in the District’s Metro community.
My other focus has also been to incorporate and align my own research with community needs. This direction required that I seek funding for my collaborative community research projects from various sources, or funders, both federal and private. Some of these projects turned into professional publications, some into professional national and international presentations, and most of these projects came to be discussed, in some form or other, in my various classes on research. For example, in one of my community projects, I partnered with an MSW student at NCSSS, who brought to my attention the needs of refugees who experienced torture, prior to seeking asylum in the U.S., and together, we developed and implemented a core assessment instrument in the community agencies, which provide social services to various refugees in the U.S. Through this experience, this student subsequently became a CEO in a nonprofit agency that provides job training services to refugee/immigrants in the U.S. In another project, I gained funding support for NCSSS and CUA masters’ level students, to participate and gain community research and clinical experience, in addressing the mental health needs of multicultural families, parenting very young children, while living in high-risk environmental conditions, compromised by poverty and substance abuse. Because of these experiences, some of the students went on to seek further doctoral degrees, and later, became professors at other universities as well. In another federally funded community partnership project in the District with Children’s National Hospital, on which I am currently serving in its 3rd iteration, and which provides a year-long professional training to graduate level students on parenting children and adolescents with disabilities, I mentor masters’ and doctoral students in social work, and many of these students have gone on building their careers in the field of disabilities as social workers, both as direct practitioners, or program directors or as CEO of the organization. I’ve continually been in awe at the accomplishments of our students at NCSSS and at CUA.
I’ve taught students at NCSSS across both undergraduate and graduate levels, in both master and doctoral social work programs, on campus and online. I was also very fortunate to have the opportunity to teach a research and statistics course to undergraduates from other disciplines in the Honors program at CUA; together, the students and I forged a class research project, which students then presented as a research poster at a University Research Day. It was very gratifying to see that students learned that research and statistics could be fun, and not as scary as before. In my social work doctoral course sequence on research and multivariate statistics, I’ve had students also from other disciplines, including psychology, sociology, educational chemistry, nursing, and even doctoral students from Howard U., GWU, and from abroad, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, and India. I am humbled by our students’ drive to learn and grateful for their course participation.
What makes NCSSS students special?
NCSSS students are very engaged in social justice and caring for the future of the social work profession, while they are also becoming educated citizens, who are forging the quality of their own and our collective futures. They are dedicated to the learning of their profession as well as learning to balance their life needs against the professional demands of their future possible social work roles. They are very committed to making the world a better place, not just for themselves, but also for others as well.
What makes being a faculty member at NCSSS special?
NCSSS faculty members are committed to their professional craft; they care deeply for the well-being of not only NCSSS students but all students at the University, and they are dedicated to the mission of the University.
Do you have any advice for any future NCSSS students who might be anxious about what may lie ahead after graduation?
Trust in yourself that you chose well in coming to be educated at the NCSSS, at The Catholic University of America. You have made it to graduation, no small feat! None of us know what may lie ahead. Yet, now you know more than when you started. Really!
Trust in yourself and keep going wherever life takes you, or where you wish to go. You may make mistakes along the way of life. Apologize, and do the right thing; you always know what that is!
Trust in yourself and reach out for others; share what you know, and what you do not. Take good care of yourself; and be kind to others. Trust in yourself, and laugh a lot and often!
You are prepared! Really! You’ll know what to do, or you’ll figure it out. Go and build your future!