The number of registered users on AlumniConnect is growing larger every day!   Since launching the site early this year we have grown to 1,405 registered users.  Having a community of colleagues literally at your fingertips is almost essential in this tech savvy world.  Becoming a registered user allows you to search for alumni in any field or method of practice, through prior caucus participation, in a specific city and/or state, graduation year, and more!  You can be as specific or as general as you like in your search.  Also, as a registered user, you can edit your profile, which in turn helps alumni and the School with outreach efforts.  I encourage you to go online and register today!  If you need any assistance in obtaining UNI’s and PIN numbers, please do not hesitate to contact the alumni office. They are more than happy to walk you through the entire process, step by step.  

The Association and its committees will be organizing many events during the academic year, including the annual Alumni Conference.  This year the conference will be held on Friday, April 18th and Saturday, April 19th, 2008.  Included in the annual affair are the Golden and Silver Anniversary Class Reunions, as well as reunions for all graduation years ending in ‘3’ or ‘8’.  ALL ALUMNI ARE WELCOME TO ATTEND, so please save the date!  Details on the annual event will follow in the coming months, and check your email for invitations to upcoming lectures, networking opportunities, workshops, and more. 

The Office of Development and Alumni Relations is also planning receptions across the United States as well as in the NYC tri-state area.  The University has many clubs in regional areas which offer numerous academic, social, and recreational opportunities to connect with alumni from all Schools in the University.  Check the CUSSW Alumni Calendar of Events frequently for upcoming social work activities, and the University website for upcoming club events.

Read about more opportunities to stay connected in Association Highlights and Announcements.  We are so very proud to have you as alumni and we are committed to strengthening our relationship with you.  If you have any suggestions, questions, or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me. 

Many thanks for all that you do for the School and I look forward to seeing you soon.

Sincerely,

Penny Schwartz '78
President

The first research center on global health established by a university in Central Asia, the center will serve Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan.  It will develop effective solutions to pressing health problems and help reduce health disparities in Central Asia, which is experiencing one of the fastest-growing HIV epidemics in the world.

“The Global Health Center will play a vital role in combating some of the most serious health issues facing Central Asia,” says Lee C. Bollinger, president of Columbia University. “The center affirms Columbia’s mission to create international academic partnerships that energize research on – and solutions to – global challenges at home and abroad. We are so excited by the dynamic educational opportunities this center will provide.”

“In some regions, the number of people affected with HIV has doubled annually since 2000. The sharp rise in health epidemics in Central Asia demands innovative and scientifically-based approaches to prevention and social policies,” says Nabila El-Bassel, Columbia professor of social work and director of Social Intervention Group. “These epidemics are linked with psychological distress, trauma, poverty, domestic violence, and other problems that need to be addressed.”

Research has proven that the exponential growth of HIV/AIDS in Central Asia is largely due to the sharp increase in heroin injection drug use. Occurring along with the rapid diffusion of drug use in the region is the growth of informal economies including drug trafficking, population migration, and prostitution, which have created risk environments conducive to the spread of HIV, tuberculosis (TB), Hepatitis C and other sexually transmitted diseases. At the heart of this epidemic are young people: 80 percent of HIV cases affect people under 30.

The center’s work is based on nearly 20 years of experience of Columbia researchers addressing the needs of those affected by HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, and trauma.  It will bring leading multidisciplinary global health experts together to conduct behavioral and social science research that will inform best practices for effective prevention, treatment, and care of HIV/AIDS, infectious diseases, TB, and other global health problems. By working in collaboration with a regional advisory network of academics, research scholars, and leading representatives from government and NGOs, the center aims to build the social service infrastructure and strengthen the capacity of local institutions to bring effective interventions to community-based settings. The Center for New Media Teaching and Learning is also a partner in this endeavor.

“Our program activities are focused on strengthening academic research capacity in the region and building a bridge between institutions and communities,” says Peter Bearman, director of the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy. “The center’s three core program areas will help determine community needs, develop intervention programs, and advance regional health policies to improve treatment for those who need them most.”

By Jeannie Hii and Melanie Farmer

Investing in Our Children: The U.S. Can Learn From the U.K.

Two years into his first term, in March 1999, Blair stunned observers by committing his government to an initiative to end child poverty in the next generation, which Brown—then the Chancellor of the Exchequer—eagerly carried forward. Together, the two leaders dramatically increased investments in children and families.

By 2004, they had boosted the share of the United Kingdom’s gross domestic product being spent on public support for children by close to one percentage point, the equivalent of over $20 billion per year extra today. If Washington budgeted an additional 1 percent of our GDP to eliminate child poverty, we would have about $130 billion to work with.

Blair and Brown used these resources strategically, making a host of investments designed to improve educational, social, and economic outcomes for all children and to narrow the gaps between rich and poor children. Seen from an American vantage point, the scope and depth of the investments are truly staggering

In drawing up its program of investments in children, however, the United Kingdom often drew on U.S. research and borrowed several elements from U.S. programs. As in the United States, programs to encourage parents to work were emphasized, but unlike in the U.S. such programs were offered to single mothers on a voluntary basis. Also as in the United States, measures to make work pay have been implemented—in particular, a Working Families Tax Credit, which closely resembles our Earned Income Tax Credit, as well as a national minimum wage.

But the United Kingdom went well beyond the U.S. welfare reforms by making a series of investments in children, from birth onwards. The rationale for doing so is compelling. For families with infants, acting on solid evidence about the health and developmental benefits of parental leave, the British government extended paid maternity leave to nine months with a commitment to extend it to 12 months before the next election. Paid paternity leave is to be extended too.

Although it is too soon to know the long-term effects of these changes, prior research documents that when mothers have longer periods of paid leave, infant mortality rates are lower. Research also shows that children benefit when mothers are home longer on leave. The children are more likely to be breast-fed, taken to the doctor, and immunized. Research also shows that fathers who are home longer on leave are more involved with their children afterward.

For parents of older preschoolers, the United Kingdom has rolled out free and universal part-time nursery school places for three- and four-year-olds. As a result, in just a few years, the United Kingdom has moved from having one of the lowest preschool enrollment rates among industrialized countries to now being part of the club of nations that offers free, publicly-funded preschool to all children in the year or two prior to school entry. This helps to ensure that children start school on a more even footing and more ready to learn.

Subsidies for other forms of child care have also been greatly expanded, providing more support for low-income families who need more hours of care if parents are to work. And the United Kingdom has made a commitment to make all schools extended schools so that all children have a safe and productive place to go before and after school as well as during school holidays. Again, the children benefit from having safe, productive supervision when parents just can’t be at home.

In addition, working parents with a child under the age of six benefit from a law enacted in 2003 that gives them the right to request part-time or flexible hours. Parents cite increased control over work hours as one of their highest priorities, and indeed in the first year of the policy one million parents made such requests—the vast majority of which employers granted with little or no disruption in operations at their workplaces. Although it is too soon to tell what the benefits have been for the kids, prior research suggests the benefits for the employees and their families are likely to be manifold.

The United Kingdom has also taken a hard look at its system of financial assistance for families with children. One finding was that its universal child benefit program did not provide enough financial support for families with young children. Accordingly, benefit rates were raised quite substantially for families with a child under the age of six. A similar problem existed in the means-tested welfare system. There, too, benefits were raised the most for families with the youngest children, with particularly large increases for families with infants.

As a result of the increased incentives to work alongside the tax and benefit changes, the lowest-income families—in particular those with young children—have seen the largest percentage increases in income. How are they using the money? Research shows that low-income families are spending the additional money on items for their children such as shoes, clothing, books, and toys, as well as on purchasing cars and telephones. At the same time, they are spending less money on alcohol and tobacco.

Is the U.K. program complete? Hardly. Its 10-year Child Care Strategy places the burden on each local community to provide adequate support to children in order to help all children achieve their potential and help close gaps between disadvantaged children and their more advantaged peers. This is an ambitious agenda and much work remains to be done, particularly with regard to raising program quality both in preschool care and after-school care.

Meeting the ambitious poverty reduction targets is also proving challenging. In 1999, the government pledged to reduce child poverty by 50 percent by 2010 and to eliminate child poverty altogether by 2020. In determining whether these goals are met, most attention is focused on the reduction of relative poverty—the share of children with family incomes less than 60 percent of median income. Using this relative measure makes accomplishing these goals even more difficult, since it means that just increasing income among the poor is not enough as the incomes of low-income families must grow relative to the median.

In 1999, 3.4 million children were in poverty in Britain. By 2006, seven years into the anti-poverty initiative, the government had managed to reduce poverty substantially—moving some 600,000 children out of poverty defined in relative terms before housing costs. But the United Kingdom will probably still fall short of its 10-year target of moving 1.7 million children out of poverty.

Although most of the focus in the United Kingdom is on relative poverty, the government also tracks its progress using an absolute poverty line, similar to the one the United States uses. On this measure, the United Kingdom has reduced poverty by a stunning 50 percent since the start of its anti-poverty campaign—reducing the numbers of children in absolute poverty before housing costs from 3.4 million in 1999 to 1.6 million in 2006. From a U.S. vantage point, this is a remarkable achievement.

But Britain’s anti-poverty campaign is not just about reducing poverty for this generation. It is also about improving the life chances of the next generation. And this requires not just reducing poverty today, but also making investments in children that will lessen the likelihood that they and their children will be poor in the future. That’s the rationale for the U.K. strategy of investments in children, and it’s one the United States would be wise to emulate.

Jane Waldfogel is Professor of Social Work and Public Affairs at Columbia University and Research Associate at the Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the London School of Economics. She is the author of What Children Need (Harvard University Press, 2006).

This article first appeared on www.americanprogress.org, the website of the Center for American Progress.

Career Resources for Alumni

John Heimerdinger '56 will be Chair of the Board for The Westchester Medical Center, a public Benefit Corporation, as of January 1, 2008.

70's and 80's

Marnie Winston-Macauley '71 recently published Yiddishe Mamas: The Truth About the Jewish Mother available on www.amazon.com and through fine booksellers.  Marnie Winston-Macauley is also the author of A Little Joy, A Little Oy in book and calendar form. The 2008 A Little Joy, A Little Oy calendar can be also be ordered on Amazon or bought in bookstores.  Marnie was nominated for an Emmy and Writers Guild award for her scripts for As the World Turns and authored more than 20 books and calendars. Her advice column, “Ask Sadie,” has been read in newspapers across the country.  She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada and can be reached by email at asksadie@aol.com

Joan F. Pollak ’77 has been elected president of the Pennsylvania Society of Clinical Social Work (PSCSW).  PSCSW promotes clinical education, legislative advocacy, new professional services, resources exchange and support for Pennsylvania social workers.  Joan maintains a private practice in Wynnewood, PA.

90's and Beyond

Zeinab Chahine ’90 has been hired by The Casey Family Programs to serve as its managing director of strategic consulting. Chahine will lead the foundation’s newly established New York City office and be responsible for assessing and supporting system-wide improvements in organizations and agencies that provide child welfare services throughout the US, and specifically in the eastern part of the country. The purpose of this position is to create system change, to resolve issues related to reducing the number of children in foster care, and to ensure the safety and long-term self-sufficiency of youth in foster care.  Chahine most recently served as executive deputy commissioner, child welfare programs for the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), where she was responsible for all child welfare-related services and programs, including child protection, family support and foster care and adoption.

Cezarina Coma ’91 has worked at Columbia University’s Double Discovery Center (DDC) since 1997 and now has a partner in her mission to bring affordable mental health services to the DDC community.  Through a program sponsored by the Partnership for After School Education (PASE), Double Discovery Center and 15 other community based after school programs have benefited from training sessions on mental health issues and the assistance of a social work intern.

Lindsay Stricke ’05 is currently working at Weill Cornell Medical College for the Center for Complementary and Integrative Medicine. The Center conducts research studies, evaluating patients from a comprehensive perspective, integrating Western and Eastern medicine practices and focusing on behavior modification to improve health outcomes for patients with chronic disease and illness.