SSWSW Spring/Summer 2026 Newsletter Sociology, Social Work and Social Welfare Division of the Society for the Study of Social Problems HAPPY SUMMER! We hope that your spring semesters concluded well and that you will get a chance to unwind a little over the summer, and to join us at the SSSP’s annual meeting in New York City this August. < : As a group, we have had much to celebrate, as you will see below. Thank you for being a member of our division! There is no us without u!   Erica & Miriam Co-chairs and Newsletter Editors NEWSLETTER OUTLINE * SSWSW Time Sensitive Items o Awards & Position Updates o SSWSW @ SSSP Meeting, 2026 o Welcome New Members! o Opportunities o Member Publications TIME-SENSITIVE MEETING ITEMS 1. Tuesday, June 30th is the deadline for accepted paper authors to send their papers to their session presider and/or discussant. 2. Reduced hotel rate deadline for annual meeting is July 14, 2026 AWARDS & POSITION UPDATES Grace Sementilli has been awarded our Division’s Graduate Student Paper Award for her paper entitled, “Symbolic Violence in the Privatization of U.S. Public Housing”. Help celebrate her at the Awards Ceremony at the annual meeting! Denae Cook successfully presented her dissertation proposal and is now officially ABD (All But Dissertation).  Dr. William Cabin has been reappointed as the Prisoner Advocate Representative for the IRB of the Columbia University Medical Center in NYC. Dr. Erica Jablonski has been elected to serve on the SSSP Nominations Committee for the 2026-2029 term.  Incoming SSWSW Division Co-Chairs! Co-Chair-Elect: Padmore Amoah, from (August) 2026 - (August) 2028. Co-Chair Elect: Momna Rani, from (August) 2026 - (August) 2028. 76th Annual Meeting  SSWSW Paper Sessions * Anticolonial Social Movements * Caregivers, Care Recipients, and Health * Rural Spaces and Services * Weaponization of Child Welfare Division Schedule and Session Descriptions Friday, August 7th, 12:30pm, Ambassador III Sociology, Social Work, and Social Welfare Divisional Meeting Friday, August 7th, 2:30pm, Minskoff Room Caregivers, Care Recipients, and Health The session focuses on research examining the nature of, or alternatives to current policies and practices governing formal and informal caregiving for individuals with health concerns. Presentations may address any jurisdictional level (international, regional, national, state, or local) and may either analyze the impact of existing policies or practices on health outcomes or evaluate alternative approaches aimed at improving caregiving and health. Friday, August 7th, 4:30pm, Ambassador II Weaponization of Child Welfare This session examines how child welfare systems often operate as tools of control and surveillance to regulate lifeworlds. Within contemporary child welfare systems, marginalized families, and BIPOC communities are disproportionately surveilled, investigated, and separated. Under the guise of “protection”, policies and practices dismantle kinship networks, impose white, middle- class family norms and punish families for systemic inequities beyond their control. Panelists demonstrate how these patterns reflect colonial practice and dominant carceral systems while overlooking community-driven solutions. Discussants explore ways to resist harmful colonialist practices and imagine new approaches to child and family well-being rooted in dignity, solidarity, and collective care. Saturday, August 8th, 10:30am, Manhattan Room Anticolonial Social Movements Anticolonial social movements have been a significant force in struggles for freedom and self-determination. Emerging from diverse regions around the world, these movements have been driven by demands for cultural sovereignty, political independence, and the dismantling of oppressive systems. They have employed a range of strategies--from non-violent resistance to armed struggle--to challenge colonial rule and promote the rights of colonized peoples. Colonization, in its many forms, relies on processes such as objectification, commodification, corporatization, financialization, criminalization, militarization, and bureaucratization. Papers in this session examine how anticolonial movements have resisted the colonization of lifeworlds historically and how they continue to shape struggles in the present. Sunday, August 10th 10:30am and 12:30pm Broadway III Rural Spaces and Services I and II This thematic session examines the challenges and opportunities shaping rural communities. Rural areas face persistent inequalities, limited resources, and structural barriers across health, education, housing, and social services. At the same time, they foster resilience, care, and solidarity that warrant sociological attention. Presentations explore structural constraints and opportunities within rural environments, analyze how policies and politics shape service delivery, and consider how residents navigate and resist systems of support. Drawing on sociology, social work, and social welfare, the session highlights rural life as essential for understanding broader issues of justice, equity, and social well-being, emphasizing both constraint and creativity in these communities. Stay Posted! Upcoming email to provide presentation and presenter details. We’re growing! Thirty-four new members have joined the SSWSW Division since the publication of our last newsletter! Thirty-three people have joined our division’s Facebook page! If you are interested in joining our webpage, please email Erica at: efjablonski@unh.edu JOB ANNOUNCEMENT Program Director of Research Development and Scholarly Publishing, Franklin Humanities Institute Job Details | Duke Careers Work Arrangement:  Hybrid (On-Site and Remote mix) Regular or Temporary:  Regular Location:  Durham, North Carolina As the Program Director of Research Development and Scholarly Publishing, you’ll play a critical role in advancing humanities research at Duke University. Housed within the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute (FHI), this role supports research, teaching, and public engagement in the humanities, broadly defined to include the arts, interpretive social sciences, and emerging interdisciplinary formations. You’ll support faculty scholars at key stages of the humanities research life cycle, including book and publication development, fellowship applications, and foundation- or federally funded grant proposals. Training Opportunities Apply by June 8! Free workshop on chronic pain and opioid use ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods Comparing the Effectiveness of Behavioral Interventions for Chronic Pain and Opioid Use July 15 – July 16, 2026 In-person only (University of Michigan)10AM-4PM EDT This two-day workshop will provide an overview of the design, implementation, and data available from the PCORI-funded pragmatic trial INtegrated Services for Pain: Interventions to Reduce Pain Effectively (INSPIRE). INSPIRE was a large pragmatic trial that compared two behavioral interventions for people experiencing chronic pain who are prescribed opioids. This workshop will cover the study goals and design, interventions, study results, and analytic approaches used in INSPIRE to support reuse of the data. Participants will learn how a mixed methods approach--that includes quantitative and qualitative data analyses--is valuable for clinical trials and health-related research. The workshop will include hands-on activities, guided exercises, and group discussions to foster exploration of individual research interests using the INSPIRE data available from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Data Repository (PCODR). For more information about this workshop, please review the syllabus here: https://custom.cvent.com/20B21B22E235478DB8E401FD67B8AAC7/files/event/4ea180c81f2543148da9145297b14113/e1de271b68cb43bfa0b4e38c38481ee9.pdf Prerequisites:  Substantive interest in health services or clinical or public health research, particularly about chronic pain or opioid use. Familiarity with quantitative and/or qualitative research methods. Experience with statistical methods is helpful, but in-depth knowledge is not needed. Application: Admission to this workshop is competitive and enrollment is limited to 25 participants. To apply for this workshop, you must fill out this Google form, in which you will be asked to submit the following application materials: * Cover letter explaining your interest in this workshop * CV Application Deadline: June 8, 2026 Apply for this workshop: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeOmc65fKzYoWkgQe1gXl2Obm8Gk8Ef9qhRpKYEhvepzhz3lQ/viewform?pli=1 NCFDD 14-Day Writing Challenge For faculty, postdocs, and graduate students to develop consistent writing habits, stay accountable, and make progress —in a two-week period. * Session: July 6 — July 19 * Register by June 26 30 minutes a day | FREE web.ncfdd.org/e3t/Ctc/Q+113/cdBnZ04/VVvKVp4sbZzkW4SvXHM28m5TNV1-ywc5PQfrSN24tzwd3qgz0W7lCdLW6lZ3pBW9fnC6r6C673HW5rQHgz4s06FdW17_NYr2ZcfzNW3MxQNn46Bv-cW40FQQ42kWzpSW7kplP38n0T9BW2BVcrp988sTjW8bGpTX2sKxVgN1w_cfGYDJWdW15RdjL6698hcW6_M0Bl7XrbswW3DBrCP25SJ07V98ry88jZkwZW7121RF54090lW1dRN1h9k4NBgW5LX2Kw61VvLvW7QL6Bd84kKF3W600bD87WrNMCW5rV4v55Df-LCW82JVtY2ls8z4VNDqpN96BnlZW3pLT6n2N77YDW1FQBG02_VDNcW52Km1k4GYMk8f23rZD604 Apply by June 29 for free online workshops on tobacco and health outcomes! ICPSR Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study workshop applications open The course is designed for academic faculty, research professionals, and graduate students interested in tobacco regulatory science and/or prevention/translation research. Participants should be comfortable with data analysis software and quantitative research methods. This workshop will be most useful to analysts who do not have previous experience using PATH Study data for longitudinal analyses, though all are welcome. All exercises will include example code for SAS, Stata, and R statistical software. The workshop will include two days of instruction and exercises. The content and exercises from this workshop are similar to those from previous summer workshops that used the PATH Study data. For Full Details go to: 77c0524f9dc94d69a1580005599d9f25.pdf Apply here: https://umich.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2ahGnXseQQgNIkm Other Opportunities Qualitative Health Reports  Calls for paper submissions This publication provides research on healthcare and works to further the development and understanding of qualitative research in healthcare settings. Each issue combines critical research, current theory, and reliable methods in the description and analysis of the illness experience, the clinical experience of caregivers, health, and health-seeking behaviors, the sociocultural organization of health care, health care policy, and related topics. Review the journal's aims and scope: https://journals.sagepub.com/overview-metric/QHR?tabActivePane=view-aims-scope&utm_source=selligent&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=jrnl_dec_subdr_multi_liebert-dynamic-cfp-q2-batch-2&utm_content=26j2670397_a&utm_term=&m_i=ql0roLIurwCazNjun1FqVHnB1EcklbaMHZ7y7oNYuSw7tikvr3wK8KLsvdIvcS17ReFhFOtvMrABf5xbEN7OryBEFdxUimazI%2BINq_&nbd=47451839&nbd_source=slgnt&M_BT=1125845843562282 and recently published articles https://journals.sagepub.com/articles/QHR?utm_source=selligent&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=jrnl_dec_subdr_multi_liebert-dynamic-cfp-q2-batch-2&utm_content=26j2670397_a&utm_term=&m_i=pAsP57Mo3EH_HqZhIjUXh7rygaIWS62eCJI5G5m7c8J1MFrvn%2B1sFzIa0SzKzdlViyhLQ6xQa9i2e1lr1Lg1gG671IxJvOMI1zT6p6&nbd=47451839&nbd_source=slgnt&M_BT=1125845843562282 to discover more about the content it publishes. Member Publications: Two recent publications from SSWSW member Sara Terrana, PhD, MA, MSW Assistant Professor Adelphi University School of Social Work 1) Strategies of Resistance: How Black Women Founders Challenge Racialized Norms in the Nonprofit Sector Terrana, S. (2026). Strategies of resistance: How Black women founders challenge racialized norms in the nonprofit sector. Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance, 1–20.  https://doi.org/10.1080/23303131.2026.2635102 Black women play a critical, yet often overlooked, role in founding and leading human service organizations. Additionally, they do so within a nonprofit sector often characterized as a White masculine space. How do Black women HSO founders navigate racialized organizational norms within the sector? This article investigates this question through a qualitative cross-case study, analyzing the accounts of five Black women who founded HSOs in a single neighborhood of concentrated disadvantage over four decades (1970s–2010s). Guided by critical institutional theory and intersectionality, and using the methodological approach of counter-storytelling, I identify three key strategies they employed to navigate and resist dominant norms. The founders (1) mobilized their biographical and intersectional experiences as resistance, (2) rejected isomorphic pressures, and (3) challenged sector gatekeeping. The findings advance understanding of how marginalized leaders reframe dominant institutional logics and offer insights for funders, practitioners, and policymakers committed to advancing equity in the nonprofit sector. https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/HAV2FZ36TACYSVCTUYKH/full?target=10.1080/23303131.2026.2635102 2) Exploring the intersection of social identities, environmental justice, and advocacy among social work students Abu-Ras, W., Terrana, S., Kaplan, D. B., Pizzo, M., & Smith, K. (2026). Exploring the intersection of social identities, environmental justice, and advocacy among social work students. Social Work Education, 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/02615479.2025.2608169 This study, guided by an intersectional environmental justice theoretical framework, examines how social identities affect social work students’ involvement in and preferences for environmental justice (EJ) advocacy. Pre- and post-program surveys were used to collect data from 146 BSW and MSW students from Adelphi University. Results show Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) students tended to prioritize EJ topics that address systemic inequities, bringing attention to issues of social justice and equality in their advocacy efforts. White students demonstrated significant gains in their exposure to EJ concepts (M?=?0.34, p?