Research Areas and Funding

Learn more about the variety and depth of the research and training conducted at the Mandel School.

GCSW Sustaining Sponsor Logo

The school is also proud to be a Sustaining Sponsor of the Grand Challenges for Social Work. 

Research

Social work areas of expertise 

  • Adoption
  • Aging and health
  • Alcohol & other drug abuse
  • Behavioral health
  • Child welfare 
  • Community-based research and practice
  • Criminal justice
  • Disparities in health care
  • Family violence
  • Geriatrics
  • Global social welfare
  • Health care
  • Housing inequities
  • Implicit bias
  • Intimate partner violence
  • Juvenile justice
  • Neighborhoods
  • Nonprofit management
  • Opioids
  • Poverty
  • Prevention
  • Racial and social justice
  • Sexual and gender minority youth
  • Social work education
  • Training in, and use of, evidence-based research and practice
  • Trauma
  • Violence against women

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Mandel School researchers have continued to conduct research aimed at understanding the impact of the pandemic on the communities they work with and serve.

External sponsors

FY2024

chart showing various research areas and funding

Research and training awards

FY 2014 - 2024

Bar graph showing rise of funding sources from 20014- 2024

Characterization of research strengths at the Mandel School

  • Applied Social Science research that has a direct impact on lives
  • Examined through a racial justice lens
  • Diverse portfolio of areas covered
  • Interdisciplinary research teams that support and enhance social work

Expertise within the Mandel School

  • Anthropology
  • Economics
  • Neuroscience
  • Psychology
  • Public policy
  • 'Sociology

Collaborations between Mandel School and other CWRU schools or centers

  • Department of Psychology
  • School of Engineering
  • School of Law
  • School of Medicine
  • School of Nursing
  • Department of Sociology
  • Case Comprehensive Cancer Center
  • Schubert Center for Child Studies
  • University Center on Aging and Health

View the Mandel School's many research strengths


Training

Social work areas of expertise

The Center on Trauma and Adversity works with local and national helping professionals to enhance the relational health of trauma-informed helping professionals and to address indirect trauma and job-stress related syndromes like vicarious trauma, secondary traumatic stress, and compassion fatigue. 

Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics (NMT) training and certification, including Trauma and the Brain Training, trains professionals on the impact of trauma, with a focus on resilience.

CoHealing, offered by Dr. King, is a professional peer support program that provides a social support system and coping tools, techniques, and resources to promote a more resilient, interdisciplinary network of trauma-informed helping professionals. 

Center for Evidence Based Practices offers expertise in evidence-based interventions and treatment to clinicians in 30 States and 5 countries, including:

  • Assertive Community Treatment (ACT)
  • Dual Disorder Capability (DDC)
  • Motivational Interviewing (MI)
  • Integrated Dual Disorder Treatment (IDDT)
  • Supported Employment (SE)

Center for Innovative Practice offers training, fidelity reviews, workforce development, with a focus on best practices and policy supports: