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Research and Scholarly Interests

Kara Mia’s research will focus on social workers who must engage with carceral logic while serving vulnerable populations, such as persons with mental illness experiencing crises. She hopes to contribute to the growing body of knowledge on the reframing of civil commitment for involuntary treatment as a carceral service, with its resemblance to punitive practices and an increasing involvement of law enforcement in responding to crisis calls. In the interest of safeguarding civil rights, Kara Mia also hopes to explore ways that social workers can challenge injustice through empowerment of persons in crisis.

Biography

Kara Mia has been dedicated to serving persons with acute mental illness across a variety of settings, beginning with her career as a social worker at Princeton House Behavioral Health’s inpatient psychiatric unit and psychiatric emergency room. When Early Intervention Support Services (EISS) was introduced in New Jersey, Kara Mia was in the first cohort of clinicians to serve Middlesex County. EISS was innovative in providing urgent outpatient mental health treatment as an alternative to hospital-based emergency room treatment. Her most recent work as a certified screener, serving persons in crisis, will ground her research with clinical experience and experiential knowledge.

Kara Mia is a licensed social worker in New Jersey. She holds a BA from New York University, with magna cum laude honors, and MSW from Columbia University’s School of Social Work. She is currently in her second year of doctoral studies at Bryn Mawr College’s Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research.