CSW faculty addresses Grand Challenges for Social Work
September 9, 2024
The College of Social Work is proud to be home to distinguished faculty conducting noteworthy, groundbreaking research. CSW faculty addresses Grand Challenges for Social Work, tackling the nation’s toughest social problems. The Grand Challenges initiative for social work is led by the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare to champion social progress powered by science.
Dr. Amy Krings
Dr. Amy Krings plays a key role in the initiative. As part of her scholarship, Krings provides network leadership on the Create Social Responses to Changing Environment Grand Challenge team. The team examines how environmental challenges are reshaping contemporary societies and creating profound risks to human well-being, especially for marginalized communities. These challenges include climate change, disaster risks, unequitable development, and environmentally-induced migration–all of which threaten health, coping mechanisms and worsening social and environmental inequities. Additionally, they explore ways in which impacted communities can shape sustainable policies and programs that build upon indigenous knowledge and priorities.
Krings, along with the college’s Dr. Smitha Rao, is co-author of a 2024 policy brief outlining recommendations to meeting the Grand Challenge to the Create Social Responses to Changing Environment. These recommendations include:
- Strengthening the social safety net to reduce disaster risk;
- Proactively responding to environmentally induced migration and displacement; and
- Extending equity-oriented rural and urban resilience policies and center marginalized communities in adaptation planning.
Dr. Smitha Rao
View the complete policy brief.
Krings has co-authored several recent publications about the intersections of climate change, environmental justice, and social work including:
- “Abolitionism and Ecosocial Work: Towards Equity, Liberation and Environmental Justice”
which was also coauthored by the College of Social Work’s Dr. Smitha Rao - “Experiences with environmental gentrification: Evidence from Chicago”
- “Which Environmental Social Work? Environmentalisms, Social Justice, and the Dilemmas Ahead”
In her research, Krings explores how members of marginalized communities come together to prevent, mitigate and resist environmental injustice in ways that increase health equity and social justice. Her studies reveal opportunities for political and social changes to support health equity, including action by social workers. As a leading scholar in environmental social work, Krings grounds her questions and participatory methods in her practice experience as a community organizer and nonprofit manager in Cincinnati.
Additionally, she is part of Ohio State’s Race, Inclusion and Social Equality initiative, along with Dr. James Lachaud, where they will develop and lead interdisciplinary, innovative and impactful community-based research to mitigate and prevent environmental hazards in Ohio and beyond.
