Dr. Elaine R. Wright

 Assistant Professor of Social Work

Avila BSW Field Coordinator

816.501.3647

Elaine.Wright@avila.edu

Dr. Elaine Wright joined the Social Work Program at Avila University in the fall of 2008. She has a variety of social work experiences with services for youth, as well as experience teaching and providing lectures in schools of social work in the USA and abroad. In urban and rural settings, Elaine has worked with youth in cross-cultural exchanges, immigrant and refugee services, juvenile justice programs, peace projects, and public school systems. Prior to completing a dissertation on the impact of globalization on social work education in the USA, Russia, Germany, and China, Elaine traveled to these countries and many others to study or teach about social work around the world. Elaine has also taught macro practice, research, and elective courses in the master's program at the Kent School of Social Work in Louisville, Kentucky.

With a background of working in outdoor settings as therapeutic environments, Elaine previously served as social services coordinator and family worker for a residential wilderness treatment program for youth at risk and as a counselor and special needs facilitator for a YMCA camping program. Elaine's environmental interests include conducting research on the environmental attitudes and practices of social workers in different countries and the environmental discourse in social work literature. Elaine has also volunteered with Living Lands and Waters on river clean-up projects and as a research consultant for the Community Farm Alliance on LIFE (Locally Integrated Food Economies) in Kentucky.

Having travelled to many countries across the globe, Elaine has had a range of multicultural experiences including management of an employment training and peace/reconciliation project for young adults from Ireland and Northern Ireland, implementation of a crisis intervention program in Northern Ireland, and facilitation of or participation in exchanges to and from China, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Mexico, Russia, and South Africa. Elaine has also supervised the coordination of orientation services for newly arrived immigrants and refugees and volunteered with local agencies responding to the needs of these individuals and families.

Special interest areas: The environment, globalization, immigrants and refugees, international social work, sustainable development, and programs for youth.

Lindee Petersen Wilson, BSW, MSW, LCSW, LSCSW
Assistant Professor of Social Work

Avila BSW Department Chair

Lindee.Wilson@avila.edu

(816) 501-3648

B.A. (Journalism), B.S.W., M.S.W., University of Iowa
Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Illinois since 1991
Licensed Specialist Clinical Social Worker in Kansas since 2007

Lindee Petersen Wilson joined the Social Work Program at Avila University in the fall, 2002. She has extensive social work experience in child and family services, as well as seventeen years of teaching experience in schools of social work.

For eighteen years Lindee served as a family social worker and clinical supervisor in a juvenile delinquency prevention agency. In addition to providing supervision and family social work services, she designed and implemented an early identification program for young children who had a first-time arrest. The program organized families, schools, older youth in detention facilities and police departments to prevent further delinquency behavior and to strengthen family units.

Lindee previously administrated an undergraduate social work program, was the chairperson of a social and behavioral science department at a midwestern university, and has a wide variety of teaching experience in practice classes at both the undergraduate and graduate levels of social work. She has served as Field Coordinator in two BSW programs during the past decade. In addition, she is a licensed clinical social worker in the state of Illinois, where she ran a small clinical social work private practice until coming to Avila.

For two years, Lindeee participated in one of the first Basic Training programs in Internal Family Systems (IFS) with IFS founder Richard C. Schwartz in Chicago. Lindee has offered many introductory presentations about this model of intervention, speaking regularly at the IFS national/internation annual conference in the Chicago area. Lindee is also a Licensed Specialist Clinical Social Worker (LSCSW) in Kansas with a small private practice specializing in IFS treatment.

Special interest areas: Family-based social services, adolescents, Internal Family Systems therapy ,treatment of anxiety disorders and depression, spirituality, women's issues and life span development.

Adjunct Instructors with many years of quality practice experience in the Kansas City region provide a variety of perspectives and backgrounds to the students' education experience in Social Work.

Doug Sikkel, MSW, has taught the department's Policy and Program Analysis course for many years.  Doug has had many years of social work practice and consulting experience, and also teaches at a Kansas City regional community college.  Doug has also taught a three course series on child maltreatment for the department.

Eva Williams, MSW teaches the department's Crisis Intervention special topics course.  Eva has been employed in the field of medical social work for many years.

Deb Danelly, MSW, an Avila social work alum, teaches the Grief and Loss special topics course.  Deb worked for years in Hospice settings and currently provides counseling services through her own private practice.