Education:
Ph.D., National Catholic School of Social Service, The Catholic University of America
M.S.W., National Catholic School of Social Service, The Catholic University of America
B.A, Political Science, George Washington University
Biographical Information:
Having completed both her MSW and PhD degrees at CUA, Dr. Early returned to NCSSS as a full-time faculty member in 1990, earning tenure and promotion to Associate Professor in 1996. At NCSSS, she developed and taught classes in the Masters Program including family and child practice courses, strengths-based home and community practice with families, research, and cognitive and behavioral theories. Dr. Early has been a member of the NCSSS Committee on Appointment and Promotions and as chair of the NCSSS Management Team, on which she continues as a member. She served as Chair of the MSW Program from 1998 to 2001 as the Faculty significantly restructured the program. Now chairing the doctoral program, Dr. Early teaches the foundation doctoral course in Philosophical Issues and has served as the major professor or reader on numerous doctoral dissertations. She continues to teach the Strengths-Based Family and Cognitive-Behavioral Theory courses in the MSW program.
A practicing school social worker for many years, Dr. Early helped to develop the program for seriously emotionally disturbed students in the City of Alexandria Public Schools, serving as its first clinical social worker. As the evaluation coordinator for a family preservation program, she developed and implemented a strengths-based program evaluation system. She continues a small private practice in psychotherapy and clinical supervision and provides consultation to and workshops for community agencies and schools.
Dr. Early’s area of research and publication is in enhancing the strengths of client families within their supportive networks across populations of at-risk children, families, chronically ill, and dying. She has presented at local, regional, and national conferences on topics of the role of theory in practice, strengths-based practice, cognitive-behavioral intervention, and spirituality.
Selected Publications:
Early, Barbara P., Smith, Elizabeth, & Zabora, James (in press). The person and the environment: Social workers’ mission to actualize the common good. Current Issues in Catholic Higher Education 25 (1) Special Issue on Professions and the Common Good.
Early, Barbara Peo (2001). Integrating cognitive-behavioral theory with play therapy: An alternative model. Chapter 8 in E. Timberlake & M. Cutler (Eds), Developmental Play Therapy in Clinical Social Work. Allyn & Bacon: Boston, pp. 195-214.
Early, Barbara Peo & Smith, Elizabeth Daffer (March/April 2000). Circles of care: a strengths-based hospice model to empower caregivers to support the dying through Natural Helping Networks; Journal of Hospice and Palliative Care 17 (2), 1-10.
