News & Announcements
Social work transforms

Read our news stories, below, and view our 2025-2030 Academic Plan to learn how FIFSW researchers, students, alumni and partners are working to create a more just, equitable and compassionate world.
Prof. David Brennan speaks on CTV’s Your Morning
Categories: David Brennan, FacultyIt’s been 35 years since the cause of HIV was discovered.
Here’s what has changed since this virus was discovered, and what the outlook is today for someone with an HIV diagnosis.
Prof. Lin Fang receives SSHRC Partnership Engagement Grant
Categories: FacultyProf. Lin Fang, the Factor-Inwentash Chair in Children’s Mental Health, received research funding from the Social […]
Prof. Toula Kourgiantakis is a recipient of a 2018-19 UofT Early Career Teaching Award
Categories: Faculty
The award recognizes faculty members who are effective teachers and demonstrate an exceptional commitment to student learning, pedagogical engagement, and teaching innovation. Each year, up to four awards are offered.
Professor Toula Kourgiantakis is being recognized for developing Practice Fridays for MSW students at the FIFSW.
A ceremony presenting the awards will be held in the Fall of 2019.
The University of Toronto Early Career Teaching Award winners are determined by a process of nomination and selection by a committee. The selection committee assess candidates based on proven evidence of successful undergraduate and/or graduate teaching as well as evidence of impact in at least two of the following areas:
- Initiatives to enhance and/or support student learning (e.g., the development of student mentoring programs, innovative classroom practices, distinct approaches to courses and curricula).
- Initiatives promoting student-faculty interactions (e.g., development of learning communities, creating opportunities for co-/extracurricular learning).
- Contributions to the scholarship of teaching and learning (e.g., formal/informal research, presentations and/or publications on teaching and learning in a post-secondary environment)
- Pedagogical contributions outside the classroom (e.g., contributions to departmental/divisional curricular initiatives, work with teaching/learning committees or centres, mentorship of more junior colleagues).
- Ongoing pedagogical development/enhancement (e.g., professional development to enhance one’s own teaching, evidence of a scholarly approach to teaching).
Prof. Tanya Sharpe recipient of Distinguished Alumni Award
Categories: Faculty, Tanya Sharpe
Professor Tanya Sharpe is the 2019 recipient of the Boston College School of Social Work Distinguished Alumni Award. The award ceremony will take place on February 1, 2019.
Ontario Senior Achievement Award Recipients
Categories: FacultyThe Ontario Senior Achievement Awards recognize people who have made outstanding contributions to their communities through voluntary or professional activities after the age of 65.
Lilian M. Wells of Toronto has spent decades advocating for seniors’ welfare in Toronto. She is a founding member and served two terms as president of the Toronto Council on Aging. She helped design many programs to empower seniors, and her work helped Toronto receive the Age-Friendly City designation from the World Health Organization.
Kate Scowen (MSW, 2015) social enterprise, Hard Feelings, featured in UofT Magazine
Categories: Alumni + Friends
The wait-lists for publicly funded therapy are long. FIFSW alumna, Kate Scowen, devised a way for people to receive low-cost counselling sooner.
Prof. Peter A. Newman; PhD alumna, Dr. Ashley Lacombe-Duncan; and MSW alumna, Prof. Adrian Guta publish landmark study on PreP
Categories: Alumni + Friends, Faculty, Peter NewmanProf. Peter A. Newman, along with recently graduated Dr. Ashley Lacombe-Duncan and former MSW student, now […]
PhD(c) Gio Iacono publishes article on an Affirmative Mindfulness Approach for LGBTQ+ Youth
Categories: Students
Gio is a PhD candidate, research coordinator and course instructor in the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto. Gio also teaches at Ryerson University. His research and scholarly interests include: LGBTQ+ youth mental health, resilience, social work education and mindfulness-based treatment approaches.
Prof. Hulchanski illustrates growing income inequality in Toronto
Categories: Faculty
In Toronto, the colour of money is mainly white.
New demographic charts show a strikingly segregated city, with visible minorities concentrated in low-income neighbourhoods and white residents dominating affluent areas in numbers far higher than their share of the population.