About the Author

Dr Cynthia Franklin, LCSW-S is the Stiernberg/Spencer Family Professor in Mental Health in the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Franklin is an international expert on solution focused brief therapy (SFBT) and school social work and school mental health services. Her career has been devoted to advances in practice and research on SFBT with the aim of preparing school social workers and other school mental
health professionals for practice in schools. She was named one of the 100 most influential contemporary social work faculty (Journal of Social Service Research, 2019) and received the Gary Lee Shaffer award for
academic contributions to the field of school social work.

Dr. Mary Beth Harris is retired from the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work at the University of Southern California where she directed campus-based and virtual programs in School Social Work. Prior to entering social work education in 2000, Harris was a family therapist, clinical director, and program administrator in the U.S.-Mexico border region for more than 20 years. Dr. Harris designed numerous courses across school social work and family practice curriculum. Her
research and published works centered primarily around school social work and adolescent pregnancy. She developed Taking Charge, a widely implemented school-based life skills program for pregnant and parenting
mothers. She subsequently co-authored a training manual with Dr. Cynthia Franklin for that program, Taking Charge: A School-Based Life Skills Group Curriculum for Adolescent Mothers, published by Oxford University Press.

Dr. Paula Allen-Meares is an international expert on human services in educational settings, physical and mental health in under-resourced communities, and educational access and success. She served as Chancellor of University of Illinois at Chicago and Vice President of University of Illinois. Currently, she is John Corbally Presidential Professor Emerita and Professor of Medicine, College of Medicine, at the University of Illinois at Chicago. She also serves as Dean and
Professor Emerita and the Norma Radin Collegiate Professor at the University of Michigan and previously served as Dean of the School Social Work at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.