UIC SparkTalks Features JACSW Researchers
Two Jane Addams College of Social Work researchers presented their work at SparkTalks, University of Illinois Chicago’s take on lightning talks that provides an opportunity for faculty, leaders, and others across campus to learn about the exciting activity happening throughout the college.
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Terry Solomon (L) and Andrew Foell
Assistant Professor Andrew Foell, PhD, presented “Expanding Choice and Opportunity: Advancing Housing and Community Development in Public Housing,” where he discussed how mixed income housing and community development can play a transformative role in promoting health equity and public housing.
Public housing offers a critical safety net to more than 1.6 million low-income residents in the United States by providing safe, affordable, and stable housing. However, recent estimates indicate that a sizable proportion of public housing units – 8% of all public housing or about 93,000 units – received failing housing quality scores and required significant repair to maintain health-supportive benefits for residents. The public housing program, Foell said, faces a substantial backlog for necessary repairs, with estimates suggesting a roughly $70 billion shortage in necessary funding to address housing quality issues. These housing quality concerns disproportionately impact people of color, who comprise the majority of public housing residents, along with other marginalized and vulnerable groups including older adults, people with disabilities and children.
In response, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has invested billions of dollars in redeveloping public housing through mixed-income initiatives through programs like the Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere Program and the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative. These comprehensive interventions target distressed public housing for redevelopment while providing people-based programs and services, including case management and support services and neighborhood-based investments to support resident self-sufficiency and health. In his SparkTalk, Foell discussed his collaborative and interdisciplinary research on the dynamics of mixed-income initiatives, with an emphasis on current projects that examine intersections between housing, neighborhoods and resident health.
Watch Foell’s presentation here.
Terry Solomon, PhD, senior research specialist and director of training at the Jane Addams Center for Social Policy and Research, presented “The Role of Culturally Responsive Trainers in Developing and Implementing Training Plans for Crisis Responders.” Historically, discussions regarding culturally responsive teaching and training focus on honoring students’ cultural values, beliefs and traditions. This approach aims to create educational experiences that are inclusive of diverse cultures and promote educational equity. During her presentation, Solomon broadened this definition to emphasize that educators and trainers also contribute their values, lived experiences and professional ethics when developing course and training content. The discussion provided an overview of the Community Emergency Services and Support Act statewide training requirements and how familial values, bias, cultural beliefs and social work ethics shaped the process for developing training plans for 9-1-1 telecommunicators, 988 Suicide and Crisis Counselors, and mobile crisis response teams to improve mental health services for individuals with and experiencing a mental health or substance use crisis.
Watch Solomon’s presentation here.