Katherine Tyson McCrea

Katherine Tyson McCrea, Ph.D., Professor, earned B.A. and M.Div. degrees from Yale University, and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration. She received a Doctorate, Honoris Causa, from Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania, in June, 2015. Recognized as a Master Teacher by the Council on Social Work Education since 1994, she has developed social work curricula about child treatment, philosophy of research, participatory action research, and global social work practice. A Fulbright Senior Specialist, she has taught seminars for social workers from the U.S. and abroad (Korea, Lithuania, Italy, Greece, Finland, and Thailand), in-person and through video-conference methods. She was named Graduate Faculty Member of the Year by the Council on Graduate Programs of Loyola University Chicago in 2019, for outstanding research, service, and teaching reflecting Ignatian values.

Her publications have focused on 1) improving services for persons experiencing disadvantages based on low income, racial discrimination, and disabilities, and 2)  using participatory action methods to optimize social work knowledge, models and policies for persons experiencing disadvantage. The founding Editor-in-Chief of Illinois Child Welfare, she developed the journal so that it  became international and multidisciplinary.

Since 2006 she has been the Principal Investigator for the participatory-action–based Empowering Counseling Program Participatory Science Initiative (ECP-PSI), which uses participatory methods in a translational science framework to optimize knowledge, service and policies based on clients' perspectives. The ECP-PSI provides street-based clinical social work services and after-school and summer program services for disadvantaged children and youth in Chicago’s high-burden communities of color (see https://empowercounselprog.wixsite.com/ecp-luc). The Empowering Counseling Program Participatory Science Initiative has received over $2.4M in funding from diverse local, state, and federal and private sources, educated over 65 bachelors, masters and doctoral level social workers, and served over 1000 disadvantaged children and youth. ECP-PSI research has yielded several dissertations, peer-reviewed journal articles, and local, national, and international presentations, most often co-authored with youth. As Empowering Counseling Program PI, Prof. McCrea was a Co-Principal Investigator, in partnership with Prof. and PI Maryse Richard's Risk and Resilience Lab, in a Department of Justice funded project studying the development of resilience via cross-age mentoring for youth of color living in high-poverty, high-crime Chicago communities (http://savinglivesinspiringyouth.weebly.com/) from 2014-2019.

Professor Tyson McCrea teaches the nature of social work knowledge, social work practice, clinical social work practice with children, and global social work Since 2006, Professor Tyson McCrea has partnered with colleagues at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania to offer and develop global social work education using videoconference methods. With Prof. Jonas Ruskus she teaches courses on Global Social Work that have been offered to social work students from every continent of the planet except Antarctica. The focus of their partnership for global social work education is development, with students, of peacebuilding global social work models. She lives in Evanston with her husband and three children.