Areas of research
Children, Women & Family Well-Being
SP2’s Centers and Faculty, working through an interdisciplinary approach with other Penn Schools, focus on critical reform to the child welfare system, improving the lives of children and women who are victims of abuse, and advocate for policy and practice reform at the local, state, and national levels.
Featured Centers
Ortner Center on Violence and Abuse
The Field Center Children’s Policy, Practice & Research
FEATURED FACULTY
Desmond Upton Patton, PhD, MSW
Professor; PhD, University of Chicago, 2012. Activism & social justice; qualitative methods; youth; gun violence; big data; digital culture; public health; race & ethnicity; social media.
FEATURED FACULTY
Jennifer J. Prah, PhD, MSL, MSc, MA
Professor; PhD, Harvard, 1998. Health and social policy; health equity and policy; global health justice and government; health and social justice; health financing; economic evaluation; political economy of health; cost analyses.
FEATURED FACULTY
Johanna K.P. Greeson, PhD, MSS, MLSP
Associate Professor; PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2009. The transition to adulthood among youth who age out of foster care; natural mentoring and other supportive adult relationships for youth who age out of foster care; child traumatic stress; applied community-based intervention research and translation of research to practice; resiliency, risk and protective factors; neurobiological mechanisms of resiliency-focused interventions; life course theory; domestic minor sex trafficking
FEATURED FACULTY
Abigail (Abby) M. Ross, LICSW, MPH, PhD
Associate Professor; PhD, Boston University. Intervention research, implementation science, mental health, interprofessional practice, public health social work, youth suicide prevention, social care integration, evidence-based practice.
FEATURED FACULTY
Millan AbiNader, MSW, PhD
Assistant Professor; PhD, Boston University. Gender-based violence; intimate partner violence; intimate partner homicide; rural communities; community-level risk; vicarious trauma.
FEATURED FACULTY
DeMarcus A. Jenkins, PhD
Assistant Professor; PhD, University of California, Los Angeles. Education policy, housing policy, criminal/juvenile justice, school safety & discipline, gentrification, anti-Black racism, Critical Race Theory, social movements.
Related News
Faculty & Research
11/04
A road map to reduce firearm harms by 2040
Three Penn faculty members, including SP2's Dr. Desmond Patton, are among more than 40 experts to author a report addressing the persistent challenge of gun violence and proposing solutions stemming from a JAMA Summit convened last spring.
Faculty & Research
03/27
Storytelling and social work intersect in book edited by SP2’s Dr. Jacqueline Corcoran
Seeking a fresh approach to prepare social work students for their careers, SP2 Professor Jacqueline Corcoran came up with a concept at the intersection of storytelling and social work for her recent edited collection, “What Do Social Workers Do All Day? Real-Life Cases for Generalist Practice.”
Faculty & Research
02/12
Health capability profile offers public health tool for clinicians, health care professionals, social workers, policy makers, and individuals
With the goal of helping individuals, communities, and professionals identify how to promote people’s ability to be healthy and flourish, a new article coauthored by Dr. Jennifer Prah of SP2 and Perelman School of Medicine presents a methodology applied to major causes of death in the United States and other pressing public health issues.