Ruth Sterlin, L.C.S.W., received her M.S.W. at Jane Addams College of Social Work. She has a private practice in Buffalo Grove, where she sees adults, couples and families, specializing in relationships and attachment issues. She also works at Jewish Child and Family Services in Northbrook where she serves as a field instructor for several Schools of Social Work in the Chicago area, and a clinical consultant to Family Network's Right from the Start program serving the Latino community in the northern suburbs. Ruth is a published author of several clinical articles, and currently has a parenting column in the north suburban newspaper What's Happening?  

Patrick Brown, our New Professionals Chair, joins us as a graduate of Loyola University School of Social Work, with a concentration in mental health. His undergraduate and graduate research interests included exploring the relationship between social support and clinical depression among the retired elderly, and characterizing the utilization of social services among persons experiencing homelessness in suburban Chicago. Patrick is actively involved in numerous professional activities, and he has contributed articles to the NASW Networker.
Clinical social work is Patrick's second career. His goal is to help individuals, couples and families deal with the full range of life's challenges and get to a better place. In his first career telecommunications research and development he designed computer hardware and software and served as an internal consultant and facilitator guiding cross-organizational teams in the design of products and services. As a second-time new professional, he brings substantial administrative and organizational experience to the New Professionals program. He has a strong commitment to fostering communication and collaboration among new professionals. Patrick says that his guiding principle is, We are all in this together.

Lindsay Janowski, Lindsay Janowski is our new Board Secretary. She received her MSW from the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. Her past experience includes working at the Jewish Child and Family Services, where she provided therapy to individuals, couples, families and groups from a variety of diverse backgrounds. Before that she worked in crisis intervention and debriefing following the shootings at Northern Illinois University and has attended several critical incident debriefings throughout the Chicago area.
Lindsay now works with the police departments of Proviso Township providing services to residents dealing with the following issues: mental illness, child abuse, domestic violence, juvenile/elderly/family problems, and the death of family members. Much of her energy has been focused on trauma and resiliency.
Lindsay has also had previous experience serving as the secretary of a large organization, and she looks forward to being involved with the ISCSW to enrich the clinical social work community.

Public Relations

Judith Ierulli, L.C.S.W. specializes in working with trauma survivors and abuse related issues including PTSD, dissociation, self injury and attachment at Womencare Counseling Center in Evanston.
She received her MSW at the University of Pennsylvania. During this time she worked at Women Organized against Rape where she trained under and participated in Dr. Edna Foe’s groundbreaking longitudinal study on trauma and PTSD using cognitive behavioral therapies. She has worked in the field of rape crisis in both Chicago and southern suburbs. She also teaches workshops for survivors and their families, and runs an ongoing group for male survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

Membership

Allyson Morch, our new Membership Chair, served as a student liaison to the ISCSW Board during the 2007-08 academic year and made a valuable contribution even then. Allyson received her under-graduate degree from Truman State University in Missouri and then received her MSW from Jane Addams College of Social Work.
Her experience includes working with the Muscular Dystrophy Association as the Healthcare Coordinator at various Chicago hospitals, and being a Community Support Worker for the Pathways In-dependent Living Program, using the ACT treatment model. ACT stands for assertive community treatment involving intensive case management. At Pathways, she was part of a multidisciplinary team that provided round-the-clock services to wards of the state who live independently in the community.
Allyson currently works as a medical social worker at Hines VA Hospital in the Spinal Cord In-jury and Disorder Unit. She decided to become active in ISCSW in order to reinforce her interest in the clinical, psychodynamic perspective on treatment. As Membership Chair, Allyson would like to help ISCSW gain more recognition and membership around the Chicagoland area and the state of Illinois and provide a clinical social work framework for students who have graduated with a background in community and administration.