DR. ELAINE P. CONGRESS, Professor and Associate Dean
BA, Brown University; MAT, Yale University; MSW, Columbia University; MA, New School for Social Research; DSW, CUNY (Hunter)
Dr. Elaine Congress received her B.A. magna cum laude from Brown University, her M.S.S.W. from Columbia University, and her D.S.W. from City University of New York (Hunter College School of Social Work). She also has a M.A.T. in English from Yale University and a M.A. in Psychology from the New School for Social Research. Before entering academia, Dr. Congress worked as a practitioner, supervisor, and administrator at a community mental health clinic.
Dr. Elaine Congress is Professor and Associate Dean for Continuing Education and Extra Mural Programs. She also has served as Director of the Doctoral Program.
Dr. Congress is the North American Representative to the International Ethics Committee of the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) and serves on the United Nations team for IFSW. She also is on the National Board of Directors of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and is a past President of the New York City Chapter of NASW.
Dr. Congress has written extensively in the area of social work ethics, cultural diversity and social work education, including four books and over thirty professional journal articles and book chapters.
Her most recent book Multicultural Perspectives in Working with Families (2005) published by Springer Publications and co-authored with Fordham faculty member Dr. Manny Gonzalez examines assessment, life cycle, and practice issues from a cultural perspective. Dr. Congress developed the culturagram, a family assessment tool for understanding and working with culturally diverse families, which has been the subject of a number of journal articles and professional presentations.
Another book , Social Work Values and Ethics: Identifying and Resolving Professional Dilemmas (Wadsworth,1999) presents the ETHIC model of decision-making to use in identifying and resolving ethical dilemmas in social work practice. This book was recently translated into Korean. Her professional journal articles and book chapters have focused on dual relationships, teaching social work ethics, resolving ethical dilemmas, confidentiality, comparative international codes of ethics, social group work, empowering communities, ethical issues in administration, and groups for immigrant children.
Dr. Congress has presented on social work ethics and cultural diversity at national conferences in San Francisco, Anaheim, Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, Charleston, Orlando, and international conferences in Canada, France, England, Australia, Finland, Holland, Korea and Singapore.
Recent Publications:
Congress. E. and Gonzalez, M. (2005). Multicultural perspectives in working with families (2nd ed.) New York: Springer Publishing Company.
Apgar, D. and Congress, E. (2005). Authorship credit: A national study of social work educators' beliefs. Journal of Social Work Education 41(1), 101-112..
Congress, E. (2004). Cultural and ethnic issues in working with culturally diverse patients and their families: Use of the culturagram to promote cultural competency in health care settings. Social Work in Health Care 39 (3/4), 249-262.
Congress, E (2004). Crisis Intervention and Diversity: Emphasis on a Mexican Immigrant Family's Acculturation Conflicts. In P. Meyer, Paradigms of Clinical Social Work, Volume 3, Emphasis on Diversity (pp 125-144). New York: Brunner-Routledge.
