Megan Conti

 Professor Conti joined the Social Work faculty in 2022. Her direct-practice experience includes clinical, administrative, and supervisory roles in outpatient mental health facilities and non-profit organizations. Her scholarship focuses on utilizing queer theory, post-modernism, and critical race theory/critical social work to challenge dominant knowledge and practice paradigms, as well as integrating macro concepts into micro social work practice. She received her BA in Political Science and Latin American and Latino Studies from the College of the Holy Cross and her MSW from Fordham University with a dual major in clinical practice and administration. She also completed two years of post-graduate training from the Ackerman Institute for the Family before receiving her Doctorate in Clinical Social Work (DSW) from Rutgers University.

My Siena Experience

My Teaching Philosophy

As an educator informed by my practice, I approach each class from the clinical perspective that every student possesses a tremendous capacity for their own personal journey through the education process. Therefore, as an instructor, it is my job to identify the nature of that public and private journey and how that journey will contribute to the class dynamic as a whole. In doing so, I encourage students to be active participants in their own learning. I believe strongly that each course should be modeled around a critical examination of the practice of social work; I encourage students at every juncture to consider how their practice is informed by their own positionality and privilege while also considering how social work is situated in the larger fabric of society.

What I Love About Siena

I love that Siena is a small, liberal arts college focused on educating the whole person.  I also love the focus on Franciscan emphasis on social justice. Being given the opportunity to work closely with students as they embark on their journey of self-discovery is truly a gift.

My Favorite Courses to Teach

 I love teaching courses that focus on practice, theory, structural analysis, and clinical issues.  In a BSW program this would include SW practice with communities, policy courses, SW practice with individuals and families,  etc. In an MSW program, that would include clinical courses, electives focusing on social issues in practice, intersectional feminism, and critical theory.

My Professional Experience

Articles & Book Reviews

• Sartre and No Child Left Behind: an existential psychoanalytic anthropology of urban schooling
  Journal of Progressive Human Services, vol. 30
  2019
• The Case Study of Jacob: Childhood Sexual Abuse and the Limitations of the Holding Environment
  Psychoanalytic Social Work, vol. 24
  2017

Books & Book Chapters

• The Social Work and LGBTQ Sexual Trauma Casebook: Phenomenological Perspectives
  Routledge Press
  2020
• The Social Work and LGBTQ Sexual Trauma Casebook
  Routledge
  2020
• The Social Work and Sexual Trauma Casebook: Phenomenological Perspectives
  Routledge Press
  2018
• The Social Work and Sexual Trauma Casebook
  Routledge Press
  2018
• The Social Work and Sexual Trauma Casebook
  Routledge
  2018

Presentations

• Clinical Social Work as Activism: Policy Analysis and Dismantling Power through Social Work Practice.
  2018
  National Association of Social Workers, Washington DC, United States of America