Rate My Professor Jody VanLaningham

Dr. VanLaningham's primary research interests include family relationships, child abuse and neglect, and child welfare policy, with specific focus areas encompassing child, adolescent, and family well-being, child welfare services, and social work education. Notable publications co-authored by her are 'Marital Happiness, Marital Duration, and the U-Shaped Curve: Evidence from a Five-Wave Panel Study' published in Social Forces in 2001 with David R. Johnson and Paul Amato, and 'Life satisfaction, self-esteem, and personal happiness among Mexican and African Americans' in Sociological Spectrum in 1995 with Kenneth Ortega. She co-presented 'Understanding Juvenile Reentry: Examining Past Trauma, Perceived Support and Youth Opinions of Service Needs and Utilization' at the Society for Social Work and Research 25th Annual Conference in 2021. Dr. VanLaningham participated in a team awarded a $5,000 University of Nebraska grant in 2019 to incorporate global perspectives into social work curricula, revising courses such as SOWK 420 and SOWK 467 to include content on Spanish and Korean speakers in helping professions. She volunteers as a Court Appointed Special Advocate for children in foster care, serves on the Nebraska Foster Care Review Board, and is a member of the Behavioral Health Education Center of Nebraska (BHECN) Central Advisory Board. Additionally, she has chaired annual child welfare conferences at UNK aimed at addressing issues like bullying and trauma-informed care.