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Posted 9-1-00
CLEVELAND -- David Biegel, the Henry L. Zucker Professor of Social Work Practice at the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, is the new president of the Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research (IASWR). Five national professional organizations representing social work practice and education founded the institute in 1993.
IASWR's mission is "to advance the scientific knowledge base of social work practice by building the research capacity of the profession," according to the IASWR Web site at http://www.sc.edu/swan/iaswr/index.html.
The institute's goals include enhancing opportunities for social work research and for education and training in social work research. It also seeks to increase the number of minority social work researchers and to link social work researchers with each other.
While IASWR does not fund research directly, it provides information on funding resources, technical assistance and career development in social work research.
The five organizations that founded the institute are the National Association of Social Workers, the National Association of Deans and Directors of Schools of Social Work, the Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors, the Council on Social Work Education, and the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education.
"I am particularly pleased to accept the presidency of IASWR at this juncture as IASWR is currently involved in an important strategic planning process that will help guide its work in coming years as it re-doubles its efforts in several key areas," Biegel said. "These are enhancing the research capacity of the profession, research dissemination, research agenda setting, and ensuring that social work is adequately represented within the national scientific community."
Social work research is important on many levels, notes Biegel. "It informs social work practice by assessing the needs of people and by evaluating the effectiveness of social work services in meeting those needs."
Along with assuming the IASWR presidency, Biegel is chairing the search committee for a new director to administer the institute.
A member of the MSASS faculty since 1987, Biegel chairs the school's Ph.D. Program and serves as co-director of the Cuyahoga County Community Mental Health Research Institute, a partnership of MSASS and the Cuyahoga County Community Mental Health Board.
The CCCMHRI was established in 1994 to implement a well-defined program of research that will help area mental health agencies improve the delivery of services to people with mental disorders.
Biegel has served as a consultant to a variety of organizations in the development of mental health service-delivery research and in the development of services for hard-to-reach populations. He has been principal investigator of several research projects, including three studies of family caregivers of persons with severe mental disability.
He was co-editor of a seven-volume Family Caregiving Applications Series published by Sage Publications in cooperation with MSASS. Currently, he is co-editing a series on Innovations in Practice and Service Delivery across the Lifespan. Oxford University Press published the first volume in the series early last year.