CFWB Fellowship
About The Fellowship
The CFWB Junior Fellowship is designed to explore the integration of practice, research, and policy as a way of deepening students’ capacity to work effectively with children and families across the life cycle. The CFWB integrative seminar meets five times during the academic year. Each of the integrative seminars is two hours and is held online on Saturdays. The integrative seminar is an activity offered by the CFWB and not a course offered for credit as part of the MSS curriculum.
CWEL students are required to participate in the CFWB Junior Fellowship. Students who complete two years as a Junior Fellow will have this milestone noted on their academic transcript. Advanced Standing students who participate for one year must complete a special integrative paper. Click here to complete the Junior Fellow application.
2023-2024 Fellowship Topic
The topic this year will be "Children and Family Wellbeing: Critical Perspectives on Risk and Resilience". This seminar series will focus on the impact of a variety of adverse life experiences on children's and family well-being. It is estimated that anywhere from 10-20 percent of people will experience an adverse life experience at some point in their life (Adverse Life Events, n.d.). Traumatic events sometimes overwhelm the ordinary systems of care intended to give people a sense of control, connection, and meaning (Herman, 2015). Yet, with the support of family and friends, most people can recover.
This year we take as our theme a critical perspective on risk and resilience, to understand adverse life experiences through the lenses of anti-oppressive, BIPOC frameworks, honoring not only the intersections of historical trauma with more recent events, but also historical and collective resilience, recovery, and resistance.
During the seminar series, students will focus on the impacts of, and recovery from, adverse life experiences at the macro and micro levels. Seminar participants will discuss the role of social workers and examine various policy and social justice implications, both domestically and globally. Each seminar session will focus on a variety of topics, including violence; natural and man-made disasters; refugee and displacement experiences; war and military family-related stressors; and human trafficking. Each topic will be led by a faculty member with specific professional expertise in those topics. During the first part of the class, content will be presented followed by a Q&A session. Students will be encouraged to discuss case material from their own practice experiences and the second part of each seminar session will address a micro perspective. At the end of the class, students will practice self-care and grounding techniques.
Dates for AY 23/24
5 Saturdays, 3pm – 5pm, online
- September 23, 2023
- October 21, 2023
- December 2, 2023
- February 24, 2024
- March 23, 2024
- April 13, 2024 (Make Up Class if needed)
**Special event on October 11, 2023, 3pm to 7pm**
Past Fellowship Topics
2022-2023:The Impact of War and Political Violence on Children and Families with Special Focus on Factors Associated with Risk and Resilience.
2021-2022: An Exploration of Child/Adolescent Trauma Across Service Systems (e.g. Education, Mental Health, Health, Parental Health and Mental Health)
2020-2021: The Intersection of Child and Family Wellbeing, COVID-19 and Social/Health Disparities Associated with Structural Inequity and Racism
2019-2020: The Intersection of Trauma, Education, and Juvenile Justice
2018-2019: Trauma Informed Social Work and Child Wellbeing: Global Perspectives
2017-2018: ACES (Adverse Childhood Experiences Studies)
2016-2017: Trauma Informed Practice with children, adolescents, and families
2015-2016: Juvenile Justice
Child and Family Wellbeing
300 Airdale Rd
Bryn Mawr
Pennsylvania, 19010
610-520-2607
Fax: 610-520-2655
childandfamily@brynmawr.edu