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Background

Maureen Clark, PhD, MSW, LICSW is the BSW Program Director and an Assistant Professor in the Social Work department at À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ.  She graduated with her PhD in social work from the UConn School of Social Work in 2022 and received her MSW from Springfield College School of Social Work in 2006.  Maureen has extensive experience working with children, adolescents and adults dealing with a range of clinical needs, in both outpatient and inpatient settings.  Most of Maureen’s clinical experience comes from her work in Crisis Services engaging individuals experiencing a wide range of psychological, emotional, and substance use related crises (as defined by the person).  Maureen held multiple roles in Crisis Services including as a child and adult trained crisis clinician, shift supervisor, and the staff development and clinical supervisor, where she provided training and clinical supervision for a team of over 120 employees. Among her many duties, she had oversight and direct supervision of a large, competitive internship program working with both Bachelor and Master level students from programs throughout the Northeast, as well PA students and psychiatric residents.  Maureen has been a passionate advocate and proponent for continued learning for delivery of best practices. She is invested in research that focuses on implicit and explicit experiences of coercion among individuals diagnosed with psychiatric illnesses and the gaps within the mental health service delivery system that contribute to these experiences. Maureen’s current research focuses on promoting the voices of those with lived experience of involuntary civil commitment in Massachusetts. The research explores how individuals in early adulthood narrate and embody their experience of involuntary civil commitment, focusing on the connection to identity formation, and how societal values and ideologies related to mental illness impact the policy and practice of involuntary civil commitment. Maureen’s passion for education goes beyond her own learning. In addition to her full time position she has taught as adjunct faculty at Bay Path University, Elms College, UConn, Sacred Heart University, and Smith College.