Faculty of Social Work News Archive

May 15, 2024 — 
The federal government established the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions, led by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, in September 2023.

May 14, 2024 — 
Dr. Christine Mayor, Assistant Professor in the Inner City Social Work Program, has been recognized as a top global leader in drama therapy research. Her work delves into the transformative power of drama therapy, an action-based holistic approach to psychotherapy that utilizes embodiment, storytelling, metaphor, play, role-play, and theater to foster individual and collective healing. 

May 6, 2024 — 
Manitoba’s Domestic Violence Death Review Committee was established by the province in 2010 and is made up of officials from the justice system, the medical examiner’s office and researchers, among others, and was tasked to identify trends, risk factors and systemic concerns in certain domestic killings and to recommend changes. The committee, however, has sat idle for half a decade; its last annual report issued for the 2018-19 fiscal year.  The death review committee’s inaction doesn’t sit well with Prof. Kendra Nixon, who has been studying gender-based violence for over 25 years. “I don’t know if there isn’t the political will, or there isn’t the interest, or there’s been a shuffling of people and it just got dropped — I don’t know,” she said. To read the full article, please visit the Winnipeg Free Press.

April 29, 2024 — 
Kristen Letkeman, a Master of Social Work student graduating at Spring Convocation on June 4, has been awarded the 2023-24 Francine Lansdown and Gerison Lansdown Graduate Student Essay Award by The Landon Pearson Centre for the Study of Childhood and Children’s Rights at Carleton University. This award, emphasizing critical thinking and exploration of children's rights issues, recognizes Letkeman's essay on the intersection of climate change, neoliberalism, and social work in safeguarding child rights. Her research sheds light on pressing issues facing today's children, offering valuable insights for policymakers and practitioners.

March 21, 2024 — 
Globe and Mail: On their own

March 1, 2024 — 
CBC Saskatchewan: Organization calling governments to declare intimate partner violence an epidemic in the Prairies

February 28, 2024 — 
The deaths of five people this week in southern Manitoba are a clear example of domestic violence and come in the midst of an epidemic of intimate partner violence in the province and beyond, experts say. "When anything ends in a fatality, when a life is taken, that's the most severe form of violence that someone can endure," said Tracie Afifi, a University of Manitoba professor in the department of community health sciences. "Here we have the death of an intimate partner … [and] we have the deaths of three children that were part of that relationship and a fourth family member as well, who was also a child," she said. "Without a doubt this is intimate partner violence."  Kendra Nixon, a professor in the Faculty of Social Work and the Director of RESOLVE at the University of Manitoba, says it's troubling to see the issue rising.

February 9, 2024 — 
The Master of Human Rights program’s annual Symposium took place on Wednesday, January 25, 2024 at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights. The symposium gives students enrolled in both the interdisciplinary graduate degree’s practicum and thesis streams an opportunity to present their research and share field experience gained from their respective placement sites.

January 15, 2024 — 
The inaugural Emerging Researcher Spotlight symposium on February 1 offers a compelling look into new and developing areas of research at UM.

January 8, 2024 — 
On Jan. 2, Research Manitoba announced support for 11 early-career researchers from the University of Manitoba.