BUSSW Professor Receives Grant to Study the Association between Childhood Maltreatment and Adolescent Binge Drinking

BUSSW is proud to announce that Assistant Professor Sunny Hyucksun Shin has been awarded a Silberman Fund Faculty Grant to continue his research on the relationship between childhood maltreatment and adolescent binge drinking.

It is well known that exposure to childhood maltreatment increases the risk of alcohol problems in adolescence, but little is known about what mechanisms actually propel adolescents from histories of maltreatment to binge drinking.  Over two-years, Dr. Shin hopes to identify these mechanisms and developmental processes that could prevent and treat hazardous binge drinking in adolescence. With this understanding, social workers and human service providers would be able to better design interventions to help adolescents overcome their trauma histories and transition into healthy adulthood.

Says Dr. Shin, “This research is important because we still have a number of unanswered questions regarding childhood maltreatment and addictive behaviors in adolescence. Why are maltreated children more vulnerable to hazardous drinking in adolescence than non-maltreated children? What are effective interventions for these young people?  How can social workers assist young people not to engage in, to decrease, or to stop hazardous drinking and recover from its consequences? I hope this research program would make meaningful contributions to social work knowledge and practice with maltreated children.”

The Silberman Fund Faculty Grant Program is a competitive program for qualitative or quantitative research that furthers social work practice.