Integration of faith and practice.

WACO, Texas – In her new book, The Soul of the Helper, Holly Oxhandler, PhD, LMSW, combines solid research with practical application to show how giving attention to both our mental and spiritual health can lead to greater healing. Oxhandler, associate professor and associate dean for research and faculty development at Baylor University’s Diana R. Garland School of Social Work, focuses specifically on the needs of those in helping positions (parents, pastors, teachers, healthcare workers, caregivers...), who are currently experiencing alarming levels of burnout due to the stress of the pandemic.

What does a healthy relationship look like for a Black son-in-law and his father-in-law?

A study aims to answer that question and was published in “Psychology of Men & Masculinities” by University of Maryland School of Social Work’s (UMSSW) Assistant Professor Ericka M. Lewis, PhD, MSW, with Professor Michael E. Woolley, PhD, MSW, and Baylor University Assistant Professor Brianna P. Lemmons, PhD, MSW.

Studies on in-laws are far and few between, less so for male in-law relationships, and even less so for Black male in-laws, Woolley said. This study is a way to lift Black voices and examine those roles.

Drs. Holly Oxhandler and Clay Polson, associate professors in the Diana R. Garland School of Social Work at Baylor University, have been awarded an $843,647 grant from the John Templeton Foundation as a subaward through the University of South Alabama. Oxhandler and Polson are serving as co-investigators of the overall Spiritual and Religious Competencies Project, and are leading one of the team’s four sub-projects. Specifically, the two are seeking to understand faculty views, behaviors and needs regarding graduate education training in religious and spiritual competencies in an effort to better serve those seeking mental health treatment.

Dr. Bonni Goodwin, a graduate of the GSSW PhD program, was recently selected to receive the 2021 Adoption Excellence Award by the Children’s Bureau for her work and research in adoption. Dr. Goodwin graduated from Baylor with her PhD in December 2020. Before her time at the GSSW, she was working with an adoption agency in Oklahoma. It was there she realized several ways in which the field of adoption could be improved.