James Brown

James Brown started his college career in engineering in Traverse City Michigan.  He originally had hopes of becoming an inventor.  However, while working at a roller skating rink, he discovered a calling to work with struggling youth.  This discovery led to entering a social work program in 1989 at Northern Michigan University.  In the process of earning his BSW, he and his wife Tammy, began parenting two (Yooper) daughters: Rebecca and Merina.

James began his post BSW career as a foster care caseworker for Child and Family Services.  The knowledge and skills he acquired from social work courses provided great value in working with a variety of families.  Upon acceptance to the University of Michigan, James and his family moved to Ann Arbor for a one-year MSW program.

During his field placement and training with Tony Alvarez, a school social worker and Adventure Therapist, James began co-facilitating adventure groups with middle school youth. Alvarez taught a new model for engaging clients that worked to reduce social barriers and promote communication and engagement.  Upon his graduation in 1993, James began a career in school social work, in North-East Michigan.

James joined an Intermediate School District team as one of two social workers that served youth with emotional and learning disabilities. The coverage area was vast: Three counties and four school districts.  After two years of diagnostic and classroom group work, he accepted a new role as an “at-risk” school social worker in a single school district.
The new position offered direct service work with kindergarten through fifth grade youth. Using a prevention model of service, parents and youth were provided interventions that helped target the reduction of youth stressors.  Two years later in 1997, James began working at the school districts junior high.

In 2005, James and his family made the decision to accept an offer made to him to attend the Indiana University School of Social Work, in Indianapolis.  He saw this as an opportunity that would prepare him for academic teaching.  Once there, his scholarly writing professor, Margaret Adamek, encouraged him to develop an intervention he used with youth called Verbal Judo, a cognitive behavioral technique developed by Dr. David Burns.  This led to a qualitative dissertation titled: Trajectories of parents’ experiences in discovering, reporting, and living with the aftermath of middle school bullying.  He successfully defended his dissertation in January, 2010.  While making a transition from student to academic, James has been working as a research associate in adolescent medicine, looking at detained youth’s barriers and facilitators to mental health care. 

James is excited to enter the Department of Social Work at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. He immediately noticed a goodness of fit that occurred while at the University.   Faculty communicated a strong emphasis on quality teaching and social work students showed a desire for transformative learning.

Contact Information:

Office: Swart 310

Phone: 920-424-2465

Email: brownj@uwosh.edu

Office Hours:

Monday: 11 am - 12 pm

Tuesday: 9:30 am - 10:30 am

Wednesday: 3 pm - 5 pm

Thursday: 9:30 am - 11 am

Friday: 12:30 pm -  1:30 pm