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Maura Busch Nsonwu, Candidate for Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Cultural Studies, University of North Carolina at Greensboro; Assistant Professor with the North Carolina Child Welfare Education Collaborative, University of North Carolina at Greensboro and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical University, Joint Master of Social Work Program Tel: 336.256.0446 Email: mbnsonwu@uncg.edu |
Biographical Information
Maura Busch Nsonwu, a veteran social work educator, educates refugee and immigrant communities on lead paint hazards. Nsonwu is an assistant professor with the North Carolina Child Welfare Education Collaborative in North Carolina A&T State University and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro Joint Master of Social Work program.
She focuses on refugees and immigrants, medical social work, and social work education, all of which combine in her current projects. She is co-principal investigator for the Lead Safe Housing Program at the UNCG Center for New North Carolinians. She co-authored "Operationalizing Diversity Issues in Lead Safety Education," which describes the implementation of a community education program, for a 2006 edition of Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies.
Nsonwu recently presented her research at the 2006 Refugee and Immigrant Conference, "Partners in Success for New Americans, Family - School - Health." She has taught social work-related classes at High Point University and is an instructor in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's, North Carolina Child Medical Evaluation Program, where she and a physician team-teach on the medical aspects of child maltreatment.
From 1990 to 2000, Nsonwu was a social worker with Moses Cone Health System in Greensboro, N.C. And in the late 1980s and early 1990s, she held several positions with Lutheran Family Services Refugee Resettlement Division in Greensboro as a part-time social worker, linking newly arrived refugee families to community resources. She also directed the refugee daycare program and was a caseworker in the church's Montagnard resettlement program.
Nsonwu received her bachelor's degree from UNCG, her master's in social work from the University of South Carolina, Columbia, and is completing her Ph.D. in educational leadership and cultural studies in UNCG's School of Education. Subject to committee approval, her doctoral dissertation research will detail the experiences of Liberian refugee women.
CNNC Research Fellow/
AmeriCorps ACCESS Project, Professional Corps Member, 2006-07
Nsonwu participated in the CNNC Research Fellows and AmeriCorps ACCESS Project Professional Corps initiatives in 2006-07. During that time she focused her research on lead safety education within the refugee and immigrant communities. Her work in this area produced a journal article, a Power Point presentation and a multilingual book of photographs. Her journal article and presentations describe the Center for New North Carolinians' (CNNC) Lead Safe Housing Project targeting four cultural groups in Greensboro, NC: African, Laotian, Latino, and Montagnard. Implications for operationalizing diversity issues with the four targeted groups are discussed and innovative strategies for community networking are highlighted. Her multilingual book of photographs is designed to engage refugee and immigrant children and their families in a creative approach to learning about lead safety issues.
Links
Please note: some items below require the Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader, which can be downloaded from the Adobe web site.
URL - cnnc.uncg.edu/research/fellows/nsonwu.pdf
PDF Article, Nsonwu, M.B., & Taylor, M. (August, 2006). "Operationalizing Diversity Issues in Lead Safety Education." Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Services, 4(3).
URL - cnnc.uncg.edu/research/fellows/Lead-Paint-Power-Point.ppt
Microsoft Powerpoint Presentation, Lead Safety at Glen Haven Tutorial Center, created by Maura Nsonwu, funded by the Center for New North Carolinians and the City of Greensboro.
While culturally competent practice in social work has been increasingly emphasized in recent years, information and research, relating to specific health hazards, such as lead exposure among immigrant and refugee groups, has not been widely available. This presentation describes a lead safe housing project in Greensboro, North Carolina, an area experiencing changing cultural demographics due to an influx of immigrants and refugees.
Research
Multimedia
- Photo Gallery
- Podcasts