Project Overview

Our annual Connecting the Dots newsletter explores research findings in practice in the social work field. Each year, we collaborate with researchers, practitioners, and those with lived experience to create a publication focused on important topics in the field.

Check out past editions or Connecting the Dots and our former digest Clinician’s Corner below, and sign up for our newsletter to get the latest updates.

View past editions

Our Winter 2025 Connecting the Dots publication tackles the many definitions and methods of family engagement.

How to Practice Family Engagement

The 2024 edition of Connecting the Dots focuses on contemporary adoption and the language used to describe it.

Changing the Language of Adoption

In our the first edition of our revamped Connecting the Dots newsletter, we compiled articles and interviews on pathways to change in the child welfare system.

Paths to Progress in Child Welfare

The 2022 edition covers tips for encouraging, navigating, and facilitating difficult conversations—conversations that need to happen but never do, or ones that spark resistance or discomfort.

VOICES: Holding Space for Difficult Conversations

Read 2022 articles on Medium

The third installment examined research and practice related to integrating social justice into our everyday actions.

Everyday Justice: Cultivating Intentional Connection

Read 2020 articles on Medium

Download PDF

The second edition focused on evidence-based practice (EBP), covering the basics of these practices, reservations about their use, and more.

The EBP Issue: A Letter From Our Director

Evidence-based Practice is a Process

How to Find the Right Evidence-based Practice Using EBP Clearinghouses

Evidence-Based Does Not Mean One Size Fits All

Heart Work and Head Work: A Conversation About Relationships, Self-Awareness, and Evidence Based Practice

How to Make Effective Cultural Adaptations to Evidence-based Interventions

“Making it their own”: Supervising the Implementation of EBPs in Clinical Practice

How to Change the World One EBP at a Time: A Clinical Researcher’s Journey to Evidence

Download PDF

In the first edition of Clinician’s Corner, our researchers explored how to translate information about adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) into social work practice.

The ACEs Issue: A Letter from Our Director

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study: The evidence behind what we know

How to Create Trauma-informed Systems of Care within Organizations

Social Workers Can Collaborate with Physicians to Create ACEs-informed Healthcare

How to Administer a Trauma Screening Using the ACEs Questionnaire

ACE’s in Foster Care: Rethinking trauma-informed care