School of Social Work excited to welcome new faculty members
Fred Andersen
Fred Andersen earned his BA, BSW, and MSW from Memorial University and is an Assistant Professor (ABD) in the School of Social Work, at Memorial University. Prior to his appointment, Fred was a per course instructor in the School of Social Work for the past seven years.
Drawing from his experience as a residential school survivor, Fred’s scholarly interests include a self-reflexive gaze which champions the voices of residential school survivors and their successive generations.
Fred has a wide ranging local, regional and national community-based and institutional expertise in the areas of HIV/AIDS, addictions and mental health. His practice areas focus on Indigenous contexts in both urban and community populations as an addictions counsellor, mental health consultant and therapist, advocate and activist, and as a community-based researcher.
He is a doctoral scholar in the School of Social Work; his dissertation explores Indigenization in BSW Social Work Education.
Dr. Julia Janes
Dr. Julia Elizabeth Janes is a first generation scholar, second generation settler to Newfoundland, and a guest on the ancestral homelands of the Mi'kmaq and Beothuk. Julia received her PhD from York University, and a MSW and BA in English Literature/Economics from the University of Toronto.
Julia’s professional experience includes community practice to promote the well-being and inclusion of marginalized older adults, and clinical practice in crisis intervention, social enterprise, psychiatric patient advocacy, and health promotion among refugees. Her activist work contests the violence’s of neoliberal late capitalism, contemporary colonialism, white supremacy and racism, psychiatric systems, and housing/income insecurity.
Julia’s research interests are driven by the communities that she has collaborated with on numerous participatory action research projects. After a yearlong program in decolonizing post-secondary education, Julia is seeking research and practice alliances that disrupt settler colonialism and support indigenous resurgence.
Kathy de Jong
Kathy de Jong completed an MSW (with distinction) at Wilfrid Laurier University in 1995, having previously earned an honors BA in sociology at McMaster University in 1991. She is presently a Doctoral Candidate (ABD) at Wilfrid Laurier University with expected completion in 2019. Prior to joining Memorial, Kathy spent 23 years as a social work professional in the field of children’s mental health, serving in various capacities, both clinical and administrative.
Kathy’s area of scholarly interest is in critical mental health as it pertains to service delivery to LGBTQ2S+ youth and their providers. She is particularly interested in the lived experience of youth service users and how they have experienced the embedded heteronormativity in the service system. Similarly, she is interested in understanding how service providers experience the same and what they do to try and mitigate its impact.
Currently, Kathy will be focusing her energies on teaching practice-based courses in the BSW stream while completing her dissertation. Her greatest passion is challenging conventional practice wisdom and encouraging the inclusion of a critical lens into micro-practice while integrating practice-based learning with social work theory.
More information about all three new faculty members can be found on the school’s faculty page.
Many thanks to the Faculty Search Committee. Congratulations and a warm welcome to all!