Dr. Tiffany McDowell

Illinois Budget Crisis

Thu, 06 Jul 2017 12:28:28 -0700

A year ago my colleague and I published an analysis of the long-term impacts of state lawmakers' inability to pass a budget after one year. Well, we're now in the same spot another year later and negotiations continue to be difficult. What have you noticed in the past two years without a balanced budget? Read More

#GU272

Tue, 18 Apr 2017 12:10:16 -0700

Almost 180 years ago, the college now known as Georgetown University was in serious financial trouble. Then-President Fr. Thomas Mulledy made the decision to sell 272 African men, women, and children the college had been holding as property to pay off the debts. My great-great-great-great grandfather, Isaac Hawkins, was one of the enslaved Africans sold, along with his wife and children.

Many people who hear this story are surprised and saddened to learn of the Jesuits’ involvement in the ownership and enslavement of Africans, but unfortunately this was a reality during that era, as much of early American industry was fueled by slave labor. What's interesting for me is the connection to the Catholic church was an important part of discovering the history of my ancestors.

The story goes that Father Mulledy authorized the sale on the condition that the families would be able to practice their new Catholic faith, so the majority were sold to the West Oak plantation in Iberville Parish, Louisiana. Genealogists were able to trace many of those named in the sale to church records at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Maringouin, where they had settled and built new lives for several generations onwards.

Growing up I remember my grandfather saying his own grandfather had come as a slave from the Eastern shore of Maryland. My mother has been gathering our family history for decades but most of the facts regarding slavery, plantations, etc. had been hard to obtain. We now know that Jackson Hawkins, Isaac's son, was only 3 years old when he arrived in Louisiana. Jackson and his older brother Cornelius “Neely” Hawkins are buried just feet away from my grandfather and others in my family. I would have never thought we would be able to confirm my grandfather's story and learn more about how our family came to settle in Maringouin.

Graves of Cornelius "Neely" and Patrick Hawkins, sons of Isaac...Read More

Healthier Cities, Healthier Lives Through Public Policy

Mon, 11 Apr 2016 05:54:32 -0700

My colleagues and I participated in a podcast on designing public policy to create better health. This was originally posted on The Socially Responsible Practitioner blog.
In partnership with Chicago-based WGN Radio, Adler has created the podcast On Social Health and Change—a weekly series, in which faculty, students, and community partners address social justice issues.
In Episode 8, we discuss how advocating for public policy focused on social justice can change our environment, communities and individual lives for the better.
Part 1: Public and Private Sectors and the Social Contract
Valerie Werner, Ph.D., director of Adler’s Public Administration program discusses how welfare reform and wage increases could significantly improve lives of families and the overall economy.
“We are one of two countries that don’t provide any paid leave of absence for a woman when she has a child. We all know that bonding is essential to the physical and mental health of that child, and, yet, we don’t respect that at all in the policies we create around time off. So, you can have the leave but you’re on your own in terms of pay.”
Part 2: Pay Now or Pay Later: Investing in Communities
Dan Cooper, Ph.D., co-executive director of Adler’s Institute on Social Exclusion, explains the benefits of investing in under-resourced communities.
“This is what we used to do in this country, back in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s and the economy was producing better returns, better wages for people and,ultimately,...Read More

Beautification: An Important Part of Safe, Cohesive Communities

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 05:46:57 -0700

For the 2nd Englewood Clean & Green Day I talk about the impact of community engagement and beautification on our communities. My friend and colleague, Dr. Nataka Moore and I continue to partner with the Englewood community on various projects in solidarity to their mission. This was originally posted on The Socially Responsible Practitioner blog.
The Greater Englewood Alliance is a group of over 20 organizations and residents that works toward the goal of beautifying the Greater Englewood community. Last year, more than 200 volunteers participated in the first Greater Englewood Unity Day, part of Chicago’s city-wide Clean and Green Day, and organized by partners including the Adler School, Teamwork Englewood, Resident Association of Greater Englewood (R.A.G.E) and Imagine Englewood If (IEi).
Greater Englewood Unity organizers built on that success last year with this weekend’s Clean and Green clean up event on Saturday. As Asiaha Butler, President of R.A.G.E., explains,“The goal is to recruit our neighbors to clean and beautify their community.”
Community beautification is an important step in creating a neighborhood that feels safe and cohesive. The alliance itself and the Unity Day event came out of a January 2012 summit hosted by the Adler School and Illinois Sen. Mattie Hunter. At that event, Englewood community organizations came together to discuss and examine a solutions-based action plan to strengthen the struggling community’s economic development, improve education opportunities and lower crime. The alliance...Read More

Examining Environmental Factors that Exasperate Violence

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 05:40:35 -0800

Below I talk about the connection between environment and violence with The Socially Responsible Practitioner blog
Green space. Nutrition. Clean air and water.
What do these things have to do with violence prevention? They are all social determinants of mental health, conditions that play a role in shaping the mental health of individuals and communities. And, when these conditions are poor – and there is a low level of community advocacy to fix these problems – it can lead to higher rates of violence.
Joining our week-long “Conversations on Social Change: Preventing Violence” is Tiffany McDowell, Ph.D., program manager and research associate at the Adler School of Professional Psychology’s Institute on Social Exclusion (ISE). Here we explore with Dr. McDowell the environmental factors engrained in communities, especially the most vulnerable, that help keep underserved populations marginalized and crime rates high.
Q. What are some examples of these social determinants and how they affect communities?
A. There are many social determinants of both mental health and violence, such as employment opportunities, safety and housing, that can affect communities in a variety of ways. For example, we have been working in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood to look at how a lack of access to nutritional foods and high levels of lead are both linked to aggression and violence in children.
Q. What can happen if these environmental factors such as access to healthy foods and high lead levels are not addressed?
A. The more that poor conditions like these go untreated in a community, the more...Read More

Across cultures and continents

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 05:22:33 -0700

I have been blessed with the opportunity to learn from and with some of the world's top thought leaders in understanding health and wellbeing. Here I talk about my experiences in London studying under Sir Michael Marmot and our subsequent global conference on social determinants of health, originally published on The Socially Responsible Practitioner blog.
The Adler School’s Tiffany McDowell, Ph.D., Program Manager and Research Associate for the Institute on Social Exclusion, traveled to London this month for the opening conference of the 2012 University College London’s (UCL) Health and Society Summer School on the Social Determinants of Health.
She attended the program in advance of the ISE’s own global conference Sept. 19-20 on “The Social Determinants of Urban Mental Health: Paving the Way Forward,” featuring UCL’s Dr. Michael Marmot as keynote speaker. Dr. Marmot is a globally renowned expert and professor of epidemiology and public health.
Dr. McDowell reports the UCL conference included significant remarks from Dr. Marmot and other notable speakers including Oxford University health economist Dr. David Stuckler and Dr. Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Dr. Stuckler spoke to health changes that can take place during times of economic crises—and described a clear relationship between current European mental health condititions and economics. He is among several European health economists who believe the current...Read More

New EEOC guidance on arrest records and hiring decisions

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 05:32:02 -0700

Access to a livable wage is a critical determinant of physical and mental health. One of my 1st projects at Adler was working on an analysis of employment policy and impact on mental health in Englewood. Here is a review of the project, as originally published on The Socially Responsible Practitioner blog.
After more than 20 years, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) this spring revised its policy guidance on employers’ use of arrest records in making hiring decisions. The announcement received a great deal of media attention.
In communities like Chicago’s underserved Englewood community, a significant number of residents are arrested in police sweeps but ultimately neither charged nor convicted of crimes. Nonetheless, in violation of EEOC guidance, employers often do not hire residents based upon these arrest records.
Are residents of communities like Englewood aware of the new federal policy guidance and their rights?
Not necessarily. “Englewood residents reported to us that they were largely unaware of their rights regarding how their arrest records are used by employers,” says the Adler School’s Tiffany McDowell, Ph.D., M.F.T., Program Manager and Research Associate for the Institute on Social Exclusion.
ISE faculty, staff and project teams have worked closely with Englewood residents and community organizations for more than six years on a range of efforts, from the ongoing Gun Violence Prevention Program to the current Mental Health Impact Assessment project.
For more than a year, the ISE and its MHIA team, including Englewood community leaders, have examined the EEOC policy guidance and the projected impact on an entire community’s mental health when...Read More

A Day of unity in englewood

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 05:08:13 -0700

One of the projects I'm most proud to have worked on was the 1st Englewood Clean & Green Day. Here is a recap of the day, as originally published on The Socially Responsible Practitioner blog. You can even see my friend and colleague, Dr. Nataka Moore, in the pic below!
About 100 volunteers in bright green T-shirts split up into groups Saturday and cleaned main thoroughfares and yards in Englewood, clearing away much of the litter that has long plagued the neighborhood’s streets and lots. The volunteers worked together from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. for the first ever Greater Englewood Unity Day, part of Chicago’s city-wide Clean and Green Day–and organized by partners including the Adler School Teamwork Englewood, Resident Association of Greater Englewood (R.A.G.E) and Imagine Englewood If (IEi).
Chicago Aldermen Toni Foulkes (15th), Roderick Sawyer (6th) and Latasha Thomas (17th) came out to support the effort and provide cleaning supplies. Food 4 Less and Subway donated sandwiches and snacks for the volunteers. And throughout the day, as the volunteers collaborated to beautify their neighborhood, more people throughout the community became inspired to step out of their homes and join in the clean-up.
By the end of the day, the neighborhood looked noticably different, said Dr. Tiffany McDowell, program manager and research associate with the Adler School’s Institute on Social Exclusion. She and Dr. Nataka Moore, an Adler School Core Faculty member, were among the day’s volunteers–and are working closely with the recently created Greater Englewood Alliance.
The alliance and Saturday’s Unity...Read More