Mary Ann Jones, MSW, DSW
Associate Professor of Social Work
maryann.jones@nyu.edu | (212) 998-5972
bio
Dr. Mary Ann Jones teaches in and is chair of the Research Curriculum Area in the MSW program. Her areas of interest are child and family welfare, psychotherapy research, and survey research.
Prior to joining the faculty at NYU, Dr. Jones worked for two national social welfare organizations—the Family Service Association of America (FSAA) and the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA)—where she had the good fortune to learn from two pioneers in social work research, Dorothy Fahs Beck and Ann W. Shyne. At FSAA, Dr. Jones collaborated with Dr. Beck on a nationwide study of 3500 family service agency clients (Progress on Family Problems). At CWLA, Dr. Jones served as the Director of Research for several years, managing a large research department and conducting her own research. Among the studies she conducted was a field experiment of the use of intensive, comprehensive casework services to prevent and shorten foster care placement. The findings (A Second Chance for Families: Evaluation of a Program to Reduce Foster Care) provided the first experimental evidence of the efficacy of this kind of service in averting foster care placement and were cited in federal and state legislation creating and funding what became known as preventive services. Five years later, Dr. Jones followed-up the original cases from the study, providing the first experimental evidence of the longer-term effects of preventive services (A Second Chance for Families--Five Years Later).
Additional highlights of Dr. Jones's professional work are:
- Co-creating a slide show entitled "Regarding Ourselves: A History of Women in Social Work" for the International Year of the Woman that evolved into a film of the same name that has been used in many schools of social work and by professional groups.
- Serving as the founding chair of the Advisory Committee of the Fahs-Beck Fund for Research and Experimentation, which funds doctoral and faculty research in problems affecting individuals, couples, and families and services to ameliorate those problems.
- Establishing and chairing the Advisory Committee of the Fahs-Beck Fund for Research and Experimentation, which funds doctoral and faculty research in child and family welfare, literacy, and services to ameliorate social problems.
- Collaborating with NYU SSW colleague, Dr. Martha Gabriel, in conducting a nationwide study of the experience of lesbians and gay men in psychotherapy (the GALIP Study). This study of 600 subjects provides the most extensive data available about the psychotherapy histories of lesbians and gay men. Presentations have been made at several national conferences and two articles have been published based on the findings..
- Serving as Vice-President of the Board and founding Chair of the Program Committee of Senior Action in a Gay Environment (SAGE), a social service organization for LGBT seniors in New York City that serves as a model for similar organizations around the country.
articles from the GALIP (gays and lesbians in psychotherapy) study
- Jones, M. A., Botsko, M., & Gorman, B. S. (2003). Predictors of psychotherapeutic benefit of lesbian, gay, and bisexual clients: The effects of sexual orientation matching and other factors. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 40, 289-301.
- Jones, M. A., & Gabriel, M. A. (1999). Utilization of psychotherapy by lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals: Findings from a nationwide survey. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 69, 209-219.