New Faculty Profile

Brad Zodikoff
(Assistant Professor, School of Social Work)

A brief overview of background, area of expertise, research and teaching.

I am a social work educator, researcher and practitioner with expertise in the fields of gerontology and health care social work. I obtained my M.S.W. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University School of Social Work. Prior to my faculty appointment at Adelphi, I taught as an adjunct lecturer in the M.S.W. program at Columbia and in the B.S.W. program at Lehman College, City University of New York. I have spent over a decade in social work direct practice and program development positions at academic teaching hospitals in New York City -- most recently at Mount Sinai Hospital. I have published in the areas of family caregiving, self-care of older adults, the social service needs of LGBT elders, and social work practice knowledge in aging and health. At Adelphi, I currently teach Foundations of Social Work Practice II, Social Work Research Methods I, and the advanced elective Social Work Practice in Health Care Settings.

My research interests currently focus on the service utilization patterns and attitudes of older adult caregivers and care receivers. My dissertation research, funded by a John A. Hartford Foundation Fellowship in Geriatric Social Work, examined dyadic congruence and gender differences in the community service use attitudes of older spousal caregiver-care recipient couples.

What do you wish to contribute? What has been your experience so far?

I joined the faculty at Adelphi because I am eager to contribute to an academic community that highly values excellence in both teaching and scholarship. It was immediately apparent to me that the School of Social Work and the University offered a superb environment where I could pursue my research and teaching interests among faculty who are passionately committed to training the social work practitioners of the future.

My experience so far has been great. Adelphi has a very personable and hospitable culture. I have found colleagues and administrators to be extraordinarily accessible, welcoming and friendly. I have found students to be serious about their learning, committed to their educational and professional development, and very engaging in the classroom.

The campus provides a wonderful environment for work and study. I think Adelphi's geographical location, from my perspective, is a great asset. I love the fact that the students live and obtain their fieldwork training in an incredibly diverse range of settings all over Nassau, Suffolk, the boroughs of New York City, upstate, downstate, tri-state and beyond.

What do you feel strongly about in regards to teaching or your specialization?

Though my substantive areas of interest broadly encompass social work practice in health care and aging, I feel strongly about attracting more students to careers in gerontological social work. Due to the rapidly growing aging and "baby boomer" populations, the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a substantial increase in the demand for social workers with gerontology training over the next decade. (http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos060.htm) The need is acute. In fact, many health care and community-based social workers have already become "de facto" gerontology providers because they are already dealing with more and more aging people on their caseloads; however, in my view, these providers need much more specialized training to address the complex needs of aging clients and their caregivers.

The new generation of graduating social workers who possess specialized gerontological training will likely be in high demand - they will undoubtedly find great opportunities to pursue clinical practice, to develop innovative grant-funded service programs, and to do important work that directly affects the health and well-being of older adults, families and communities. It is a particularly relevant path for students interested in working with multi-generational families. It is also a field that places a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary teamwork -- collaborating with other allied health professions including nursing, medicine, psychology, and the rehabilitation specialties.

What do you wish to impart to your students?

I am keenly aware that the direct impact I have on student learning has immediate and tangible implications for the field work my students perform with real clients in various communities every day. This in itself makes teaching social work practice so exciting and rewarding. I am also attuned to the fact that social work students undergo a very unique formative experience as they obtain knowledge for practice while at the same time developing a genuine, authentic and skillful use of their personal and professional "selves". I know I developed a truly expanded awareness about the world around me after I completed my M.S.W. training. My hope is that my students will similarly experience new ways of thinking about working with clients and addressing social problems, while also attending to their own personal and professional growth.

Like any educator in an applied discipline, I really want to inspire my students to forge meaningful connections between classroom knowledge and their fieldwork. I aim to accomplish this not only in my practice classes where the "classroom-field" connection is generally well understood, but also in my research classes where the students' perceived relevance of the material to direct practice requires a lot more explication. I like to use practice illustrations in my research classes and I like to bring research concepts into my practice classes. I want to encourage students to think in a more integrated way about the relationships among all types of knowledge for practice.

Finally, I hope to communicate to students the enormous diversity of career paths that are available with a social work degree. Social work graduates become clinicians, program developers, agency administrators, educators, researchers, advocates, activists and elected officials-- the list goes on - the breadth of career possibilities in this field is truly tremendous.