So much of the good that happens here at University spreads beyond campus to bring light to others in the community. One particularly luminous example is the work that eight Ford Scholars in the National Catholic School of Social Service (NCSSS) are doing to learn to better serve people experiencing homelessness in various regions around Washington, D.C.
The NCSSS launched the Ford Scholars program this semester, after receiving a $1.76 million grant from the Alice and Eugene Ford Foundation to provide opportunities for master’s students in social work to complete field work during their studies. The program funds two-year scholarships for a cohort of eight students and partially funds a field liaison to supervise them and develop new initiatives for the community they serve here in D.C.
“There’s a lot of passion within the cohort,” says Margaret “Meg” Hannigan DomĂnguez, the Ford Scholars program field liaison. “It’s been so encouraging to see the drive that the students have to work with this community. This scholarship provides opportunities for this work that these students otherwise may not have had.”
The students began their field work in August 2024, with each placed at one of five local agencies: Miriam’s Kitchen, Friendship Place, Community of Hope, Thrive DC, and Pathways to Housing. They will continue through the end of the academic year, doing field work two days per week and learning generalist social work skills such as case management, community outreach, and others. In their second year, they will be assigned a different agency that provides a more advanced clinical setting for them.
DomĂnguez explains that while field experience is standard for graduate social work programs, the Ford Scholars program also offers a weekly seminar that allows the students to dive deeper into issues of homelessness, helping to improve their ability to provide a more individualized approach to the people they serve.
“Working in homeless services is not glamorous,” she notes. “It takes a lot of grit and resilience, but there’s so much beauty and joy in accompanying people with these challenges and in treating them with dignity and hospitality.”
Frank Gaetani, director of field education and NCSSS adjunct professor, adds that the Ford Scholars are often the first person that someone experiencing homelessness might encounter when seeking services at an agency.
Referring to the distinctiveness of the NCSSS approach to social work, Gaetani adds, “We definitely try to root our programs in the principles of dignity, service, and social justice in Catholic social teaching. Not all our students and faculty are Catholic, but we’re all rooted in those principles here, in both the classroom and community-based field placement sites.”
In line with the Church’s preferential option for the poor, the eight Ford Scholars devote their energy, care, and skills to the most vulnerable of the vulnerable and, in the process, they help the Alice and Eugene Ford Foundation achieve its goal of increasing the number of clinical social workers able to provide clinical services to unhoused D.C. residents.
Come spring 2026, when the first cohort of students graduates, NCSSS will contribute eight new social workers well prepared to help meet that need.
