Anna Parisi, PhD

mthomp7 — Mon, 08 Jan 2024 17:32:45 +0000

Anna Parisi, PhD mthomp7 Mon, 01/08/2024 - 12:32

Assistant Professor, Social Work

Contact Information

Dr. Anna Parisi
Assistant Professor
Department of Social Work
College of Public Health

CV

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Personal Websites

ORCID

ResearchGate

Biography

Dr. Anna Parisi is a licensed clinical social worker and licensed clinical addictions specialist in the state of North Carolina. After graduating with her MSW from UNC Chapel Hill, Dr. Parisi worked with individuals with comorbid mental health and substance use disorders in community mental health settings—many of whom were ensnared in the criminal legal system. Her experiences in community mental health have served as the foundation for her research, which is focused on understanding the pathogenic mechanisms that contribute to the development, maintenance, and recurrence of addictive behaviors, as well as the intersection between addiction and mental health. Ultimately, Dr. Parisi’s research aims to promote effective and equitable access to evidence-based practices in community mental health settings. She is particularly interested in improving services for system-impacted women. In addition to her MSW, Dr. Parisi has a BA in psychology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and a PhD in social work from UNC Chapel Hill.

Education

PhD, Social Work, UNC Chapel Hill
MSW, Social Work, UNC Chapel Hill
BA, Psychology, UNC Chapel Hill

Trauma-informed fellowship prepares Master of Social Work students to become more effective at supporting clients

Mary Cunningham — Mon, 15 May 2023 14:13:29 +0000

Trauma-informed fellowship prepares Master of Social Work students to become more effective at supporting clients Mary Cunningham Mon, 05/15/2023 - 10:13

In This Story

Vicki Kirsch, PhD, MSW, MA

Seeing a need for more trauma-informed social workers, Mason’s College of Public Health began a summer fellowship to provide the workforce training that graduate students were looking for.

In June of 2022, a group of Master of Social Work (MSW) Advanced Level students began a fellowship to receive training and diversify their clinical skills. Through this initiative, participants learn how to recognize distressing experiences that may have occurred in a client’s past and how to provide specific treatments based on their individual needs.

The fellowship is grounded in the core principles of ethical and social justice-oriented clinical social work practice in a health setting using an integrative model of therapeutic and community-based interventions at the individual and small group levels.

Frankie Keesee, MSW, participant in the trauma-informed fellowship

“It is important for social work students to be trauma-informed so they can meet all clients with care and empathy and establish trust,” said Frankie Keesee, a participant in the trauma-informed fellowship. “You never know who has experienced trauma, so learning trauma-informed strategies is a good foundational skillset for all social work practice.”

Trauma-informed care is an approach that trains social work practitioners to proactively address traumatic experiences in clients and provide treatment appropriate for trauma-related behavioral health problems.

The fellowship prepares clinicians to work with various populations such as veterans, immigrants, sexual and emotional abuse survivors, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community with the goal of using trauma-informed care and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) to help clients reach their goals.

“This fellowship has supported my capacity to serve underserved populations because I have practiced how to meet people where they are, how to introduce DBT to folks who have never heard of it before, and how to modify sessions to meet the needs of clients,” said Keesee. Dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) is an evidence-based treatment to teach life skills including mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness skills, emotion regulation skills, and distress tolerance skills.

Vicki Kirsch, associate professor of Social Work in the College of Public Health, leads the fellowship and utilizes her expertise in DBT to mold the next generation of well-rounded social work clinicians.

Participants note how the experience has made their job search easier and given them greater confidence to serve clients. Keese, who currently works with veterans, values the skills she has learned and intends to implement them as a full-time case manager with the Veterans Affairs Medical Center after graduation.

“I was able to lead a DBT group for veterans in a residential treatment setting,” Keesee said. “My confidence to lead this group was rooted in the skills I learned during the trauma-informed fellowship.”

The Social Work Department will be offering this Summer Trauma-Informed Fellowship for advanced MSW students this Summer 2023.

Additional reporting by Brandon Cantrell.

Topics

Social Work

master of social work

College of Public Health

trauma-informed care

social work students