OCTOBER 31, 2012

The Boston College Graduate School of Social Work Immigrant Integration Lab (IIL) is pleased to announce its first Immigrant Integration Fellow. A $10,000 Fellowship has been awarded to Lyndsey McMahan, MSW '14, who will research the provision of basic needs to asylees in the United States being released from detention centers. McMahan, selected from a competitive pool of applicants, is a former community health worker in Zambia with the Peace Corps and a local social worker who has returned to school after a decade in the field. She is a native of Oklahoma.

McMahan will join the Lutheran Social Services (LSS) immigrant legal services with attorney Erin Frick (Boston College Law School) from their Worcester offices. The two professionals will team up to provide legal services to asylum applicants and find a way to provide essential food and shelter for the clients. As a Fellow, McMahan will combine direct service, along with the larger research project of finding models of intervention and developing a best practice in the field. She will share her findings through a paper and reports.

"My work throughout the fellowship will be to establish a model of aid for asylum seekers who are currently being held in detention centers and do not have access to government assistance," McMahon said. "The goal is to create a system that works here in Massachusetts and can be replicated in other states that have a high volume of immigrants."

The IIL Fellowship is funded through the generous support of a Massachusetts donor who is providing for the larger needs of the community through the faith community, LSS. The partnership was formed to pursue the questions raised by the provision of service as an opportunity to see the impact of combined professional disciplines working in a coordinated fashion for the client's benefit.