Prolific Researcher

Professor Jim Drisko, M.S.W. ’77, Ph.D., is both a teacher and researcher. Drisko was elected to the National Academies of Practice in Social Work in 2008 and was named a first cohort Fellow of the Society for Social Work and Research in 2014. He was awarded Best Conceptual Article of 2015 by the Journal of Social Work Education for his work on assessing educational outcomes.

While serving as the Chair of the M.S.W. Research Sequence at Smith, Drisko has completed two projects. The first took him 12 years to read, digest and fully understand. His article, “Qualitative research synthesis: An appreciative and critical introduction,” was published in May 2019 by Qualitative Social Work journal. The article provides an overview for researchers who want to explore a topic in depth and combine the results of multiple qualitative studies. “Done well, qualitative synthesis can guide practice and policy and help ensure many different voices are represented,” said Drisko.

Drisko’s second area of current work is focused on reviewing the effectiveness of play therapy. As a clinician, Drisko wondered if research actually supported this widely used and often taught model of treatment. He teamed up with former SSW Ph.D. students Perri Corvino, Lisa Kelly and The second edition of Drisko’s book Evidence-based Practice in Clinical Social Work, co-authored with Melissa Grady M.S.W. ’96, Ph.D. ’04, came out in June. Jane Nielson. Together, they reviewed 5,485 publications, narrowed down to just 17 high-quality outcome studies on play therapy.

The team found varied results, but overall play therapy met standards as an “empirically supported therapy” with generally good impact across several common child concerns. To share these results, the team prepared an article that was published in June 2019 in Research on Social Work Practice. The team will also present on this topic at the Council on Social Work Education [CSWE] conference to be held in Denver in October 2019. The second edition of Drisko’s book Evidence-based Practice in Clinical Social Work, co-authored with Melissa Grady, M.S.W. ’96, Ph.D. ’04, came out in June. He also had a presentation accepted for CSWE in Denver with Professor Carol Tosone, Ph.D., LCSW, of New York University on distinguishing a developmental and progressive model of educational competencies for clinical social workers at M.S.W., D.S.W. and Ph.D. levels.