DSW Multimedia Projects Make Social Work Research Accessible to a Global Audience

For years, the Rutgers School of Social Work Doctorate of Social Work (DSW) program has transformed legions of experienced clinical social workers into leaders who promote individual, family, and community well-being. Students are trained to develop and disseminate clinical knowledge through peer reviewed journal articles, national and international conference presentations, teaching, supervision, and innovative multimedia projects. 

The multimedia project is a required component of a portfolio that students must complete in their final year of study. With guidance and support from Teaching Instructor Carol Cassidy, an educator and award-winning documentarian, students are taught to use video, audio, data visualizations, and other digital tools to advance human understanding while connecting with and serving their chosen audiences. By producing a dynamic, interactive multimedia project that synthesizes their scholarship, students make their work accessible and useful to a global audience.

“The multimedia project offers an innovative way to widely disseminate scholarly information to various audiences. Through these digital means, knowledge doesn’t remain hidden in academic journals but instead becomes accessible to other clinical professionals, policy makers, and the lay public,” said Michael LaSala, Professor and Director of the DSW Program.

From the onset, multimedia projects are designed for the screen and for a readership that assumes any important contemporary document is digital. DSW graduates are literate in the culture’s most powerful means of communication and conversant with the challenges that digital technology poses for young and old alike.

Students who graduated from the DSW Program in May completed the following multimedia projects, demonstrating the breadth of the cohort’s work:

• “Helping Teachers Recognize Children’s Trauma Symptoms and Manage Dysregulation” by Jennifer Agostino
• “Foodways, Social Identity, and Health for African Americans” by Allison Bates
• “Self-care and Elder Care: How to Help a Caregiver Care for Themself while they Care for an Elderly Person” by Melissa Campbell
• “Thinking About Getting Your Doctor of Social Work Degree (DSW)?” by Micaela Costa
• “Best Practices in Responding to Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting in the United States” by Mariama Diallo
• “Treating Veterans Who Have Committed Sex Offenses: Approaches for General Outpatient Settings” by Alexandra Greenberg
• “The Wounded Healer” by Taji S. Karim-Reisch
• “Emerging Adults, Emerging Activists: A College Activism Retrospective and Practitioners Guide” by Kira O'Brien
• “Advocating for Gender Diverse Clients with Eating Disorders as Cisgender Providers” by Kayti Protos
• “Unlocking Homelessness in the Classroom” by Tara Ryan-DeDominicis
• “Working Autism, Visualizing Employment” by Sherri Wilson

To learn more, and for links to recent graduates’ multimedia projects, visit dsw.rutgers.edu.