Helen Petracchi, MSSW,’83, PhD ’92, was named a “2017 Council on Social Work Education Scholar.” Petracchi, Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Pittsburgh, has extensive experience with social work education research, and received a $5,000 award. She will work with CSWE’s Joint Research Task Force which is comprised of members of the Commissions on Research, Education and Accreditation and will focus on best practices or models in field education/internship experience across disciplines and their connection to social work accreditation standards.
Dr. Petracchi was also recently appointed as a member of the CSWE Commission on Accreditation, where she joins School of Social Work Assistant Director Bill Heiss, and other social work educators from throughout the country, in "the critically important function of maintaining and advocating for quality in social work education through its accreditation/candidacy of more than 750 social work programs in the United States."
Braunginn and Larsen Part of Wisconsin School Social Workers Association
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) reports the median annual salary for social workers is $43,700. A median salary of $55,000 is reported for social workers employed in health clinics and $60,000 for social workers in hospital settings.
After Anna Donahoe, MSW ’15, graduated and started job hunting, she found it difficult to find employment that met her goals and philosophy. Like her mother, Susan Donahoe, a retired teacher and early childhood project director, she hoped to find a way to help low income families overcome the barriers they often encountered. Together, Anna and Susan (with help from friends), purchased and rehabbed a small building in Madison that now houses four low-income single mothers and their children. They describe the Catalyst Project as “a community of parent partnership and therapeutic interventions founded on the belief that the wisdom of those not well served by society is essential to creating a society that serves all of its people.” As the project’s social worker, Anna collaborates with each family and the group as a whole to develop and implement strategies that encourages each mother to use the power she holds to her child(ren)’s best advantage. You can find more information about the program at 
