The Hub for Engaged Action Research

at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work

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December 2024 Newsletter

 

UH GCSW HEAR Lab launches final 2024 Walk N' Listen, Covering Renewal, Recovery, and Support for Student Researchers

As the year comes to a close, we invite you to join our December Walk-N-Listen series—a four-week journey designed to inspire renewal and resilience for student researchers. Each week, we’ll share a podcast episode that centers on self-care, community-driven research, and long-term wellness. In addition, you’ll find optional supplemental episodes to deepen these themes. You may find the list provided at the end of this newsletter.


We encourage you to take a walk or any recreational activity, tune in, and reflect on how these insights can inform your research practice as we head into the near year!

Research Spotlight: Faculty Highlights

We're proud to highlight two significant research efforts from our faculty.

Coming Soon: New Podcast with Dr. Priscilla Kennedy

We’re excited to announce the upcoming release of our new podcast, Uncovering the Contradictions in Social Work through Research, with Dr. Priscilla Kennedy. Look out for its publishing this Friday!

 

Main Podcast: One Foot In, One Foot Out, Academic Aunties

Foundations of Self-Care in Community Research in University


Explore the balance of caring for yourself while fully engaging in meaningful community-based research. This podcast can help you discover how self-care can be seen as an ethical responsibility for sustainable engagement--with yourself and your communities.


Additional Listening:

Healing the Land IS Healing Ourselves, All My Relations

This episode reminds us that caring

for our environments and honoring

cultural ties can restore our sense of

purpose and well-being, reinforcing

interconnectedness of land,

community, and researcher.


Main Podcast: Caring Justice: Empowering Communities with a Love Supreme, inSocialWork

Recovery and Resilience in Marginalized Contexts


Hear how justice-oriented research practices enhance resilience and communal recovery, especially in marginalized contexts. Listeners will learn to co-create more equitable, healing-centered research approaches.


Additional Listening:

Creating Trauma-Informed Communities w/ Mary Donnelly-Crocker, Trauma-Informed Lens

Experts implementing

trauma-informed strategies

that build trust and culturally

responsive methods discuss how

they've leveraged these

techniques for stronger, more

supportive research partnerships.

Main Podcast: Notice the Rage; Notice the Silence, On Being

Anti-Racist and Equity Focused Approaches to Self-Care


This conversation reveals how addressing the embodied impact of racism is integral to self-care. Through recognition, healing, and anti-racist action, we can create research spaces that acknowledge and combat oppression.


Additional Listening:

You Are Not Alone: Race + Mental Health, PhDivas

This dialogue focuses on intersectional

mental health challenges and the

importance of building inclusive,

equitable academic cultures to support

researchers of all backgrounds.

Main Podcast: How To Deal With Structural Inequality

Sustaining Hope and Long-Term Wellness in Public Scholarship


Confronting systemic barriers, this episode offers strategies to maintain your long-term motivation, ethical integrity, and purpose in scholarly pursuits that strive for meaningful public impact.


Additional Listening:

Making Research Matter, Scholars Strategy Network

Explore how to bridge the gap between

evidence and action, ensuring that your

research meaningfully influences policy,

practice, and community well-being.

 

By embracing renewal, building resilience, and grounding our work in justice and care, we can approach the coming year feeling more prepared, connected, and inspired!


Warmly,

The HEAR Lab Team