An opportunity to work with communities to bring about systems transformation was an opportunity too important to pass up for Dr. Kate Maurer, PhD.
Maurer has been appointed the inaugural Research Chair in Family Justice in the University of Calgary's Faculty of Social Work, starting in the post on Jan. 1.
Kate Maurer. Photo Courtesy Kate Maurer
In this role, they will work in tandem with the Centre for Transformation, an innovative collaboration between the faculties of Social Work and Law that aims to advance positive change in the family justice system.
Maurer said the centre's commitment to community-led collective action, underpinned by intersectoral collaboration, was the fundamental attraction of the new position.
"One thing that is very exciting about it is the partnership of law and social work. There have been people in law trying to transform the systems. There have been people in social work trying to work to transform the systems and it has been hard to get together," says Maurer, who is originally from Minnesota and has a doctorate from New York University's Silver School of Social Work.
Maurer is coming to UCalgary from Montreal, where they were an associate professor in the School of Social Work at McGill University and a faculty member of the McGill Centre for Research on Children and Families.
They have worked as a clinical social worker with homeless individuals and as a therapist specializing in trauma. In their academic career, Maurer has focused on how stressful experiences, including inequity, exclusion and oppression, affect life outcomes for youth and adults.
"My work is very informed by our current understandings in neuroscience, particularly affective neuroscience, about how past experiences influence our capacity to manage current experiences," says Maurer.
Centre aims to improve outcomes for families facing challenges
The Centre for Transformation's goal is a family justice system centring family and child wellness, improving outcomes for families facing challenges such as divorce, separation, child custody issues and intimate-partner violence.
Maurer says it is well known that the two main systems families can be involved with the youth protection/child welfare system and the family court system are themselves causing great harm to parents, children, families, and their communities.
Maurer is one of two research chairs who will be affiliated with the Centre for Transformation, with UCalgary Law currently in the hiring process for its own Research Chair in Family Justice. The centre will work with the research chairs and their partners in the two faculties to implement their community-based research as real-word solutions.
That kind of hands-on, practical approach fits well with their previous work, says Maurer, and was part of the appeal of the research chair position.
"My work is about helping people to heal," Maurer says.
Speaking specifically to their clinical practice and research with people who have caused harm in their intimate relationships, Maurer explains it is "about understanding the experiences people have, what underlies behaviours, and looking to find intervention points to help people change the ideas about what they are doing, help them understand new skills and capacities to self-regulate so that they do not cause harm in the future, and then supporting healing for all who have caused harm and have been harmed."
Newly named Research Chair, Dr. Kate Maurer, is flanked by Centre for Transformation directors Diana Lowe, KC, and Dr. Jennie Petersen. Photo Courtesy James Wood
New chair has a passion for improving support systems
Dr. David Nicholas, acting dean of Social Work, says Maurer's passion to make systems work better is evident.
"We are thrilled that Dr. Maurer is coming to the Centre for Transformation," says Nicholas, BSW'85, MSW'88.
"They bring such a wealth of experience and expertise in deeply engaging with communities to support healing, post-trauma. Their contribution to the work of the centre will be profound."
Social Work Dean Ellen Perrault, who is currently on administrative leave, chaired the selection committee that hired Maurer.
"They bring a real practical approach to social work and an ability to lead in holding various worldviews and being able to collaborate," says Perrault, BSW'93, MSW'95, PhD'09.
On a personal level, while Maurer will miss Montreal, they are looking forward to living in Calgary, especially the prospect of floating down the Bow River in the heat of the summer.
"I'm from the plains, I'm from Minnesota, so Calgary kind of looks like Minnesota does. There's a familiarity there. You have that lovely big river," Maurer says with a laugh.
