Over the last decade, Laura A. Voith has worked to address violence against women and youth through counseling, agency- and community-based coordination efforts, and research.
Her research focuses on the prevention and intervention of violence against women by working with boys and men to uncover the etiology of violence though the lens of trauma and health disparities. It shows that exposure to adversity and violence in family- and community-settings in childhood and adolescence are significant factors that, if gone unaddressed, can lead men to perpetrate violence in adulthood. Voith’s research aims to inform the development and evaluation of violence prevention programs with at-risk youth and improve batterer intervention programming with men.
Learn more about her research team, current projects and dissemination on the Healing, Empowerment, Antiviolence Research Team (HEART) page.
Voith has received national awards for her teaching, including the Donna Harrington Faculty Award for Excellence in Mentoring of Social Work Doctoral Students and the Scholarship in Teaching Award, and was nominated for the Outstanding Faculty/Staff Advocate Award by the Disabilities Resource Center at CWRU.
Biosketch | Curriculum Vitae | Google Scholar | @lavoith
Why I Teach
Teaching provides an opportunity for me to create learning communities where all participants—students and instructor alike—can explore and question the origins of their points of view, apply critical thinking skills, and engage as active producers of knowledge, rather than passive consumers in the classroom and field. Drawing on trauma-informed, social justice, and intersectional feminist frameworks and active learning principles, I aim to create learning environments that have high expectations, while scaffolding opportunities for each student to find their own "edge."
Why I Chose This Profession
I chose social work because it embraces the complexity of the human condition and recognizes the influence of larger systems on social welfare. I can't imagine a better lens to use when trying to make a meaningful impact in our world.