Tonya Bibbs, PhD, MSW

Tonya Bibbs, PhD, MSW, was drawn to social work both by what the field didn’t offer as well as what it did.

“In my clinical practice, I found little research that spoke to the children and families I worked with, who were often people of color, recent immigrants, and individuals whose first language wasn’t English,” she says. “I wanted to contribute to that body of knowledge.”

Through her teaching, she encourages students to take an interdisciplinary approach to social work, applying knowledge about child development as well as socioeconomic, cultural, and institutional factors that impact children and families. In her courses, students engage in deep discussions about cultural variation, factors such as ethnicity, class, and immigration status that play a role in how children develop — the same factors that drive her research.

Her research focuses on how socioeconomic, cultural, and institutional factors impact children and families, and one of her goals is to establish knowledge about normative development in minority children, particularly African-Americans. Her work includes a study of children’s developmental outcomes in socioeconomically mixed communities and how adults in these environments approach aspects of their relationships with children, such as discipline.

She also served as a member of the planning group that developed Erikson’s one-of-a-kind Master of Social Work program, the only program in the United States that infuses a social work curriculum with a deep understanding of child development. In addition, she was instrumental in Erikson’s Austin Community Early Learning Partnership Needs Assessment, an examination of early childhood services in a Chicago neighborhood affected by poverty and violence. The research team’s findings contributed to the establishment of new services in the community, including a satellite therapy office for Erikson’s Center for Children and Families, which brings mental health services for young children and their families closer to a population in need.