Endowed research assistant opportunity for School of Social Work students enhances behavioral health in Michigan communities

Every year, an estimated 3 million Americans experiencing untreated or unidentified mental health or substance use disorders are jailed or imprisoned. For many, it’s not their first time. A team at Wayne State University’s School of Social Work intends to break this cycle.

The school’s Center for Behavioral Health and Justice (CBHJ) helps local communities, organizations, and behavioral health and law enforcement agencies across Michigan divert people from arrests and incarceration. Promoting opportunities for treatment outside the criminal justice system, CBHJ instills renewed hope for recovery.

So far, 43 of Michigan’s 83 counties have partnered with CBHJ to adopt high-impact care solutions. A $150,000 gift from the Lawrence C. Page, Sr. Family Charitable Foundation is accelerating efforts to fully encompass the state with CBHJ resources.

The Rose and Lawrence C. Page, Sr. Endowed Student Research Assistant Award will support a School of Social Work graduate student researcher in the CBHJ every year in perpetuity. Throughout their yearlong internship, the research assistant will collaborate with community partners and contribute to initiatives, data collection and analysis that will help optimize individual and community well-being.   

Liz Tillander, CBHJ deputy director, said the endowed research assistant is a significant step toward realizing the center’s mission and is an important educational opportunity for students to learn by doing.

“Seeing how we do this work in communities across the state will influence students’ viewpoints and give them real-time skills they can apply in this game-changing internship and future positions,” Tillander said.

Dean of the Wayne State University School of Social Work and Founding Director of the CBHJ Sheryl Kubiak, Ph.D., said the position is helpful because social workers need experience and paid opportunities do not always exist.

“The average debt for social work master’s students is $60,000, and when they graduate, they typically receive a salary of $50,000,” Kubiak said. “People don't go into social work for personal gain; they are a communal resource, focused on the needs of individuals and communities. It is important to invest in them as a communal good.”

The legacy of an enterprising electrician

A plaque commemorating the newly endowed research assistant was unveiled in the School of Social Work building at an event where students, alumni and faculty heard from Holly Kunick ’97, M.A. ’03., president of the Lawrence C. Page Sr. Family Charitable Foundation.

Established by Kunick’s late father, Lawrence C. Page, the foundation supports education throughout Southeast Michigan. Page’s company, Electrex Industrial Solutions (formerly Electrex Company, Inc.), has serviced Macomb County since 1957.

“My parents really believed in education, but my mom passed away quite young, and my dad essentially raised seven children. I was the only one to get any kind of a degree, and that was here at Wayne State,” Kunick, a College of Education and Department of Communication alumna, said.

Kunick said she and her husband, Frank Kunick ’99, M.S.E.T. ’09, chose to make the gift to the CBHJ because Dr. Danielle Hicks, their niece and Page’s granddaughter, showed them how social work impacts communities like theirs.

“We’re here today celebrating this research assistant position because Dr. Hicks has opened our eyes tremendously to the importance of Social Work in communities like Detroit and Macomb County,” Kunick said. “Her grandfather and grandmother, who are the namesake of this endowment, would be proud of her.”

Eye-opening experience

Hicks serves as director of the State Opioid Response Evaluation Project and data coordinator at the School of Social Work, as well as the research methods and statistics tutor. She is a four-time Wayne State alum, earning her bachelor’s in Honors Psychology and Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies in 2013; Master of Social Work in 2016; Master of Science in Criminal Justice in 2020; and Ph.D. in Social Work in 2022.

Hicks said she values having explored behavioral health and justice issues through the combined lenses of criminal justice, social work and psychology because collaboration is critical to cultivating better outcomes.

“The CBHJ understands the need to show each stakeholder in this system — police, psychologists, social workers, judges, doctors, attorneys — where they fit in and how they can be part of solutions,” Hicks said. “New research assistants will help the CBHJ work with officials in each of Michigan’s counties to implement tactics that will better serve individuals who have been let down by the system.” 

While earning her M.S.W., Hicks developed research skills and an understanding of the criminal justice system as she and the CBHJ published “Transition Planning from Jail; Treatment Engagement, Continuity of Care, and Rearrest” in Community Mental Health Journal. She also helped a law firm conduct domestic violence and substance abuse assessments for court-ordered clients and worked with government officials to analyze recidivism in Macomb County.

Hicks said she appreciates that the research assistant role will offer similar career-ready experiences.

“The CBHJ and new research students will collect valuable data and strengthen key relationships with municipalities while pointing people to long-term support and treatment options, and that will change lives,” Hicks said. “Too many people keep getting arrested and keep going back to jail. Police and prosecutors encounter the same people repeatedly, but it doesn’t have to be that way.”

 

To learn more about the Center for Behavioral Health and Justice and ways you can support its mission, visit behaviorhealthjustice.wayne.edu