Biography

Jim Clark, Ph.D., LCSW is associate dean for research in the UK College of Social Work and associate director of the UK Center for the Study of Violence against Children. He holds a joint appointment as an associate professor in the College of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry.

Jim grew up in Binghamton, NY and attended Siena College from 1976-1980, where he graduated summa cum laude with a major in sociology and a certificate from the social work program. He volunteered with a lay Catholic organization in rural W.V., during 1980-1981, where he participated in community action, home building and repair, and youth ministry. He then continued his studies at the University of Kentucky, graduating with a Master of Social Work in 1983. To pursue his work in rural Appalachia and clinical social work, Jim spent a year as a clinician for Catholic Community Services of the Charleston WV diocese, and worked in Doddridge, Harrison, and Ritchie counties. Jim returned to Lexington where he was hired as director of Catholic Social Services Bureau from 1984-1989; he also served as an adjunct faculty member at UK College of Social Work. During this period he received the Lyndhurst Young Prizewinners Award, which recognizes professionals, artists, and leaders in the American South.

In 1989, Jim began doctoral work at the University of Chicago-School of Social Service Administration, where he received an NIMH Research Training Fellowship and the University of Chicago Scholarship, which supported his research and coursework. He returned to Kentucky to teach and to complete his dissertation fieldwork, joining the UK College of Social Work faculty as an assistant professor in 1991. Jim completed the dissertation in 1995—a study analyzing the subjective experiences of mentally ill persons incarcerated for violent offenses. This study launched his scholarly work in the areas of severe mental illness, mental health consumers and forensic mental health. He has subsequently published in the areas of substance use and misuse intervention research; ethics, malpractice, supervision, and risk management in clinical practice; consumer satisfaction for youth and adult mental health service consumers; assessment of risk in child maltreatment; law and therapeutic jurisprudence; and, most recently a review of the history and theory of psychobiography.

Jim has designed and taught courses in the areas of social work practice, research, and professional leadership in the MSW program. He has served as director of the College’s Doctoral Program and on many College committees, including service for ten years on the Faculty Appointment and Promotion Committee. Jim currently teaches the human behavior and behavior change theory course and supervises student dissertations in the doctoral program. Jim holds appointments as a faculty associate in the UK Center for Drug & Alcohol Research, UK Center for Research on Violence against Women; and the UK Program for Bioethics and Patients’ Rights. He is a member of the UK Non-Medical Institutional Review Board and serves on the UK Office of Research Integrity’s Children’s Research Protection Subcommittee. Jim recently co-authored the Council on Social Work Education’s National Statement on Research Integrity in Social Work (2007).