U of L established a school of social work in 1936, making it one of the oldest such schools in the country. It was named the Kent School of Social Work in 1944 in honor of former university president Raymond A. Kent.

• The Kent School offers a Master's of Science in Social Work (MSSW) and a Ph.D. in Social Work. The latter is jointly administered with the University of Kentucky.
• The doctorate offered between U of L and UK is the only collaborative Ph.D. program in social work in the country.
• The Kent School is the only graduate social work program in the country to offer Family Therapy certification as part of the social work curriculum.
• The Kent School's extensive weekend program accommodates working students and those who live a distance from the campus.
• Each year, Kent students donate more than 150,000 hours of community service during their practicum placements in social work agencies. The dollar value of this service is well over $1.2 million.

"We do the work that nobody else will take on," Singer says. "Beaten and abused kids, women who feel they are throwaways‹that's the heart of who social work serves. Over its 100-year history, social work has progressed from 'friendly visiting among the poor' to helping people find their own solutions to their problems."

In 1936, after social security and the federal welfare program were started, U of L began the graduate program in social work. Eight years later, the Raymond A. Kent School of Social Work was named in honor of the late university president who helped establish the school.

Today, the Kent School is enjoying a period of growth and renewal under Singer's leadership. Last year, during what he calls a "year of rededication," the Kent faculty developed a new curriculum and held community retreats to reconnect with social service organizations.

The Kent School strives to balance student education with a tradition of community service.

"We do service to further the education of our students," Singer says, adding that students working in the field are able to connect classroom theory with real-world situations.

Service also provides opportunities for research. With a faculty that he describes as having "some real shining stars," Singer is pushing for increased research and publication. A strong presence in academic journals will enhance the Kent School's national reputation and draw more resources to its projects, he says.

Just as social work serves diverse needs, the Kent School offers a variety of programs. The Kentucky Interdisciplinary Community Screenings, Family Therapy, a collaborative Ph.D. program with the University of Kentucky, and the Child Welfare Training Assessment are four innovative programs that are contributing to the school's rising national reputation.

CONNECTING SYMPTOMS AND SOCIAL ISSUES

Since 1993, the Kentucky Interdisciplinary Community Screening (KICS) program has sent teams of medical, nursing, dental, and social work students to medically underserved communities to conduct free health screenings.

The stories they hear of unemployment, domestic violence, rape, incest, and prejudice can point to an underlying cause of a medical problem. From that experience, many students say they will never again diagnose or treat an illness without first hearing the patient's story.

"Students begin to look at things in a different way," says Ruth Paton, project director and associate professor. "You can teach something in the classroom, and students may remember it, but when they go out on KICS, you know they're never going to forget what they've seen."

Teams are made up of one student from each discipline, accompanied by faculty from each of the schools. The teams see hundreds of patients, many with low incomes and no insurance.

Kent students help make the link between symptoms and social issues. Lisa Addington '94G, a member of the 1993 KICS, says the experience made her feel comfortable working with health care professionals. She also says that the medical, dental, and nursing students "saw the prevention aspect of social work instead of just the crisis side."

Patients are referred to other physicians or agencies for treatment. In 1997, the U.S.

Department of Health and Human Services awarded U of L a three-year, $426,000 interdisciplinary rural training grant. Some of it will be used to study whether patients follow up on the referrals.

HELPING FAMILIES IN CRISIS

Families in Transition, directed by Family Therapy professor Joseph Brown, helps parents and children cope with the pain of divorce. Jefferson Circuit Judge Steve Mershon '79L, a former family court judge, says the program "judicially shakes" parents to think about the effects of divorce on their kids.

Developed collaboratively by U of L and Jefferson Family Court with initial funding from the Norton Foundation, the program is recognized as one of the nation's best and has created international interest. In 1996, Brown and Mershon traveled to Ireland to share the program with social workers, psychiatrists, lawyers, and judges after the passage of legislation that allowed divorce.

Families in Transition is part of the Family Therapy program. Historically the fields of social work and family therapy have been at odds, but their strong relationship at U of L goes back to the 1970s. U of L offers the only nationally recognized master's program for family therapy in a school of social work.

Students can earn both a master's degree in social work and certification in family therapy. "When students combine social work skills with family therapy skills, they're able to improve mental health and relationship functioning at the same time that they improve social and economic well being," says Suzanne Hanna, Family Therapy program director.

The program recently opened a Family Support Center at U of L, also in partnership with Jefferson Family Court. The center offers a safe place where families in conflict can arrange supervised child visitation or exchange the children for visits without contact between the parents. Another program, called Turning it Around, helps fathers who are late with child support overcome discouragement, take responsibility, and reconnect with their children.

DOCUMENTING SUCCESS

In the past, social workers relied on anecdotes and personal feelings to evaluate intervention strategies. Today, computer assessments and statistical analysis are the required forms of documentation.

Ruth Huber, associate professor and doctoral program director, stresses the importance of research. "You're messing with people's lives," she tells her students, "and you shouldn't have public money to do that unless you can document the effectiveness of your work."

In the year-old collaborative Ph.D. program, administered jointly by U of L and the University of Kentucky, the emphasis on research starts from day one, when students begin projects that are expected to result in publishable papers.

Bert Irwin, program manager of HealthCare for the Homeless and a doctoral candidate, says the research focus helps social workers be accountable to funding sources. In his research, Irwin documented that homeless people are more likely to go to a clinic, if one is available, than to the emergency room for non-emergency medical care.

"It's been a good experience because I could apply what I learned to my job," he says. Without the program at U of L, he says, he would have had to leave Louisville and his job to study homelessness.

TESTING THE TRAINING

After graduation, social workers often find themselves back in the classroom for additional training. The Kent School hosts some of these courses on the Shelby Campus and has also been awarded a contract to evaluate the training.

Directed by social psychologist Anita Barbee, U of L's evaluation methods are attracting national attention.

"We are probably the second most advanced in the country in our evaluation processes," Barbee says. That's because the U of L team measures what from the training actually carries over into the workplace, a level of depth that Barbee says few other evaluation teams are able to reach.

Barbee and Pamela Yankeelov, associate research professor, work with the trainers to design tests and interpret the results.

"Whenever you're scrutinizing something and giving feedback," Barbee says, "it makes people think out of the box more and think of creative solutions."

One innovation that resulted from the evaluations is the Field Training Specialist program. Begun in 1997, the program places experienced social workers as mentors with new social workers during the first few months on the job.

Barbee and Yankeelov are also evaluating a pilot program dubbed the "Virtual Office." This program provides laptop computers, printers, cell phones, and pagers to social workers, freeing them to spend a majority of their day working in the community instead of in an office.

ALL THE ELEMENTS

Singer says he's excited about the future of the Kent School, which is working to obtain its first endowed chair and will soon welcome its first associate dean of research.

"We have in place all the elements that will move us to excellence," Singer says. "I feel confident that we will be able to support the goals of the Challenge for Excellence to develop greater research capacity and also to become a national presence in higher education."

Ruth Huber, Ph.D. program director, and Kent School of Social Work Dean Terry Singer, both standing, discuss projects with a group of doctoral students.