The University of British Columbia

Welcome to the UBC School of Social Work! 

 

 Director's Greeting

As we enter our ninth decade of preparing students for professional social work practice, the School continues to emphasize critical, transformative knowledge. We invite you to build your knowledge and skills on our foundational values of social justice and a caring society. Founded in 1929, we are the oldest social work education program in British Columbia and the third oldest in Canada...More

 

 

 

Research Night 2013 is now over and we thank everyone who participated.  Please review the Vaughanies Skit here...

 

 

In conjunction with a number of academic and community partners, the UBC School of Social Work is pleased to host the Youth Transitions Summer Institute July 8 – 12, 2013. The goal of the institute is to bring together academics, students, policy makers and practitioners from a number of countries, disciplines and service systems to promote discussion on how to best serve young people with special considerations as they make the often difficult transition into independence and adulthood.  More information and registration details available here.

 

 

The School would like to congratulate  Ricardo Chaparro-Pacheco who has been awarded the prestigious Vanier Scholarship  to support his doctoral research.  The Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship (Vanier CGS) was created to attract and retain world-class doctoral students and to establish Canada as a global centre of excellence in research and higher learning. It is worth $50,000 per year for three years and is available to both Canadian and international PhD students studying at Canadian universities.

 

 

 

The School would like to congratulate Dr. Edward Kruk, Associate Professor who has been awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee medal, in recognition of his research and service contributions, carried out with distinction, on the best interests of children. More here...  

 

 

 

The School would like to congratulate Dr. Shelly Johnson, who joined the School as an Assistant professor this past year, on being named a Peter Wall Early Career Scholar ( Link ) for 2013-14.  This prestigious award will provide mentoring and support for Dr. Johnson in establishing her research programme at UBC.

 

 

The School would like to congratulate Professor Frank Tester and his colleagues who were among the recipients of the

 first Artic Inspiration Award for their project INUIT QUJIMAJATUQANGIT.

 

 

Please see more here

 

The sixth annual Splane lecture featured Ken Battle, President of the Caledon Institute of Social Policy who delivered a stimulating lecture entitled Ottawa and Poverty.
More here...

 

The School is saddened to announce the passing of Mary HILL, September 21, 1920 - September 13, 2012, Professor Emeritus at the School and long time activist for Seniors. More here...
 

New Bridge Newsletter Spring 2012 - Download here

 

 

 

The School would like to congratulate Professor Frank Tester and his colleagues who were among the recipients of the first Artic Inspiration Award for their project INUIT QUJIMAJATUQANGIT.

Inuit Qujimajatuqangit received $240,000 for its book project –What Inuit Have Always Known to be True – which will describe Inuit culture and traditional knowledge and will serve as a resource for academics, researchers, educators and the next generation of Inuit.

 

The Arctic Inspiration Prize recognizes and promotes the extraordinary contribution made by teams in the gathering of Arctic knowledge and their plans to implement this knowledge to real world applications for the benefit of the Canadian Arctic, Arctic Peoples and therefore Canada as a whole.

 

The $1 million CAD Arctic Inspiration Prize is awarded annually and is made possible through the generous endowment of the S. and A. Inspiration Foundation, the commitment of ArcticNet to voluntarily manage the Prize, as well as the contribution of numerous volunteers and partners.

 

For more information on the award and the INUIT QUJIMAJATUQANGIT project go to: http://www.arcticinspirationprize.ca/laureates/laureates.php

 

 

The Wall Hour, Thursday, January 17, 2013 at the UBC’s Liu Institute for Global Issues (6476 NW Marine Drive).

 

The talk, “Living Through Violence: Transitional Justice and the Everyday”, will be given by Professor Erin Baines and Professor Pilar Riaño-Alcalá from the Liu Institute for Global Issues and the School of Social Work.

A light lunch is available at no charge, but participants are asked to register at: http://events.pwias.ubc.ca/wall-hour

 

 

November 22, 2012. Richard Splane Lecture Series Presents:

 

 

Ken Battle

"Ottawa and Poverty" Abstract:  Poverty is a complex problem that requires a broad range of solutions by all three orders of government as well as the non-governmental sector (the voluntary sector, employers, unions and communities).  But the key player is the federal government, specifically through its income programs.  Income security programs have done a lot in reducing poverty but Ottawa could do more.

Ken Battle is President of the Caledon Institute of Social Policy.  Before founding Caledon in 1992, he was Director of the National Council of Welfare, a citizens’ advisory body to the Minister of National Health and Welfare.

Educated at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario and Oxford University in the UK, Ken is one of Canada’s leading social policy thinkers.  He has played a key role both inside and outside government in the reform of social policy, including the development of the new National Child Benefit and the proposed Seniors Benefit.  He served as a member of the Ministerial Task Force on Social Security Reform in 1994 and as policy advisor on child benefit reform to the Minister of Human Resources Development in 1996 and 1997...More

 

I don't Cross borders - the borders come to me and I dance with them

 

 

A poet, playwrite and refugee reflection on the borders of transition and justice

An inviation to YOU to learn about and join the wide range of networks and groups at the Liu Institue, including: Transitional Justice Network (TJN), Migration Network, Gloabl Queer Research Group (GQRG) and the Research Group on Gender and Sexuality in Latin America.

Thursday September 20, 2012 at the Liu Institute for Global Issues at UBC , 5-7pm

 

Congratulations to Ricardo Chaparro-Pacheco.

 

 

(UBC School of Social Work) for receiving the Graduate Global Leadership Fellowship (GGLF)

through the inaugural 2011-2012 competition supporting PhD Students at UBC.

Ricardo Chaparro-Pacheco is a PhD Student in the School of Social Work and a Liu Scholar at UBC. His research interests are related to human rights, psychosocial dimensions of armed conflicts, and community strategies for social reconstruction. His current research explores the  historical memory work and transitional justice mechanisms with victims of socio-political violence in Colombia from a psychosocial approach. He has conducted qualitative participatory research with internally displaced population, as well as with Afro-Colombian and indigenous/aboriginal people.

Ricardo holds a MA on Psychoanalysis, Subjectivity and Culture, and a BA Honour Graduate in Social Work from the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. In this same University he has been a lecturer in the graduate diploma on Peacebuilding Strategies and Do No Harm Approach Approaches; and since 2006 he has been a Senior Researcher of the Program University Initiatives for Peace and Coexistence -PIUPC-. Betweeen 2009 and 2010 he worked with the Colombian Commission of Historical Memory documenting the massacre of Bojaya (Choco, Colombia). Between 2006 and 2008, Ricardo did an internship on child protection and family services at Leake and Watts Services, Inc., in New York state.

PhD Supervisor: Dr. Pilar Riaño-Alcalá, School of Social Work - Liu Institute for Global Issues. 

 

 

 

 

 

Louise Arbour: Truth to Power A Dialogue with Stephen Toope.

April 19th, 2012. 3:30-5:00pm Frederic Wood Theatre. UBC.

 

  

 

 

UBC Prof leads new eight-month program to empower people with intellectual disabilites...more

  

  

 

Nanisiniq: Arviat History Project. Dr. Frank Tester's latest Research Project involving Arviat. Fourth year sociology student April Dutheil presented on the Nanisiniq Arviat History Project at the URC held at Fudan University in Shanghai. Latest News Here with Link to Tyee Article.

 

 

Neskonlith Indian Band Administrator. Senior Social Work Officer for Air Command. Senior Advisor on Aboriginal Affairs to University of British Columbia President. Researcher. Teacher. Social Worker. These are only some of the incarnations of Richard Vedan. < Full Article Here >

 

 

 Congratulations to our first PhD graduate Janet Douglas! Her Thesis was “An Evaluation of the Safety and Well-Being of Children Living in Marijuana Grow Operations”. The UBC School of Social Work wishes her all the best in her future career.

 

 

 Inuit youth travel to UBC in search of their history

Six young Inuit from Nunavut Territory have travelled some 2,400 km to the University of British Columbia to re-examine the history of their communities.
Many of their Elders were subjects of Farley Mowat’s well-known books, People of the Deer and The Desperate People, which documented famines that devastated many Inuit communities in the 1940s and 1950s.
From Aug. 13-23, the students will be exploring UBC’s more than 11,000 historical documents related to the eastern Arctic. Led by Frank Tester, a professor at UBC’s School of Social Work and an Arctic historian, the collection is the largest of its kind in the world.