Katherine Tyson McCrea, PhD
Full Professor
PI, Empowering Counseling Program
Mission in Action
Social workers for the future need to be prepared for contexts that are increasingly global, meaning enriched with cross-cultural communication, interacting with people crossing borders, and facing obstacles and opportunities that are global in scope. Unfortunately, the exciting aspects of globalization are accompanied by increasing inequality, meaning social workers’ roles as partners and advocates become ever more important. Social work education can be transformative as we enable students to move past obstacles of ethnocentrism and other ‘isms’ and form partnerships globally and locally to advance social justice. It is a great pleasure to help this to happen through the international courses I teach and through direct practice and research about practice. We partner with clients in a participatory research process that advances their human capital and enables them to develop scientific knowledge about themselves and their social services. We also enable students to tackle the complexities of working with people facing profound poverty and, through their compassion and skill, to offer hope grounded in advancing clients’ choices and self-determination.
Research Interests
-
Improving clinical social work models for traumatized, disadvantaged children and youth,
-
The development of compassion in disadvantaged youth through processes such as cross-age mentoring,
-
Global social work with a focus on child welfare, and
-
Participatory action research.
Courses Taught
-
Global Social Work: Practice to Advance Peace and Social Justice
-
Participatory Action and Qualitative Research to Advance Social Justice
-
Clinical Social Work Practice with Children
-
Social Work Practice with Individuals and Families
-
The Nature of Clinical Knowledge (Doctoral Program)