Principal Investigator Emily Spence-Almaguer, MSW, PhD is the Director of Community Development Services at the Community Services Center. She has completed community-wide studies including a United Way-funded Community Assessment for Navarro County and evaluations for the City of Fort Worth’s Early Childhood Resource Center, the Tarrant County Youth Collaboration’s NETCARE 2.0 program, and The Salvation Army’s Greater Metroplex Command’s organizational restructuring and long-range plan. She has also completed several projects related to homelessness including the Client-Centered Community Assessment of Homelessness for the Day Resource Center and Union Gospel Mission, analysis of the 2007 Tarrant County Homeless survey data, and the City of Arlington Client-Centered Community Assessment. (See Dr. Spence-Almaguer’s UT Arlington Research Profile.)
Co-Investigator / Study Coordinator James Petrovich, MSW, PhD is a Research Faculty Associate through the School of Social Work. Since beginning his doctorate at UT Arlington, he has completed six homelessness-related research projects including the Fort Worth Community Needs Assessment and the City of Arlington Client-Centered Community Assessment, which led to the Arlington’s 10-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness. His dissertation, funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs, provided a comprehensive assessment of veteran and non-veteran men residing at the Presbyterian Night Shelter and their use of assistance services. He has been heavily involved in efforts to address local homelessness through the Arlington Homelessness Task Force, the 2008 Community Projects Review Committee, participation in three homeless counts, local and national presentations, and published scholarly work.
About Development Services at the Community Services Center
Development Services operates under the Community Services Center (CSC). It is an innovative research, planning, teaching, and service organization that uses research to identify root causes of community social and organizational problems. A shrinking funding base combined with increased client needs leave many human service organizations with limited resources for implementing cutting edge programs. For this reason, a large portion of human service research is never translated into action. Development Services offers research expertise and partners with local social service agencies, governments, churches, schools, and civic organizations to design cost-efficient solutions to this problem.
Development Services is housed in the CSC, a service arm of the School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Arlington. Dr. Spence-Almaguer supervises graduate and undergraduate social work interns and other staff in carrying out research and implementation efforts. While working with Development Services, interns are given opportunities to interact with community leaders. These opportunities facilitate their planning, organizing, administration, and research skills, in a working environment. Dr. Petrovich, Directions Home Co-Investigator / Study Coordinator, facilitates most aspects of the evaluation plan. Other School of Social Work faculty also lends their expertise through consultation and assistance when needed.
Development Services operates through service contracts, grant funding, and donations. Although the Development Services are affiliated with the School of Social Work, operations are not tax supported.
Development Services promotes partnerships and works in collaboration with community groups to provide expertise in organizational consulting, including administration, management, planning, research and evaluation. Development Services also assists community partners in identifying human needs including health, employment, education, housing, and identifies the causes of social problems through needs assessment and program evaluation.
To learn more about CSC Development Services, visit our link here.
