Christine Callahan, PhD, LCSW-C
Financial Social Work Solutions
Dr. Christine Callahan was formerly Research Associate Professor and Chair of the Financial Social Work Initiative (FSWI) at the University of Maryland School of Social Work (UMSSW). She joined the FSWI in July 2012 and with her colleagues conducted research and provided trainings in financial stability and financial empowerment. Dr. Callahan received her MSW from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1993 and her PhD in social work from the Catholic University of America in 2012. She worked as a clinician for nearly 20 years at the NIH Clinical Center in Bethesda, MD, working intensively with patients and families enrolled in clinical trials at this federal research hospital. Much of her work involved financial distress and financial burden with people who were in medical and psychosocial crisis and dealing with life-threatening or life-limiting illnesses. She maintains a strong interest in and dedication to financial stability in vulnerable populations, along with those struggling with poverty and psychosocial, health-related, and environmental stressors. Since 1999, Dr. Callahan has presented regularly at national conferences and has written steadily on financial social work issues, including in The Journal of Social Work Education, Social Work in Health Care, and The Journal of Psychosocial Oncology. Dr. Callahan is also the lead author of the book The Routledge Handbook on Financial Social Work: Direct Practice with Vulnerable Populations.
Dr. Callahan remained the co-investigator on a funded project at UMSSW entitled “Prioritizing Our Women’s Economic Rise (POWER),” focused on empowering Black and Latina women to accelerate generational wealth in West Baltimore, Maryland, through investments in entrepreneurship, workforce training, and active support for these women and real estate developers aiming to challenge and reform inequitable systems. She has also started a private practice in financial social work and financial therapy called Financial Social Work Solutions that offers counseling, consultation, and training around these issues.
