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Dona Reese

Dona Reese, Professor

Social Work

After completion of her M.S.W., Dr. Reese worked as a social worker for 15 years. She has experience in emergency foster care, eating disorders, residential treatment for children, domestic violence, child neglect, physical and sexual abuse of children, emergency room and hospice social work, and private mental health practice.

She began her academic career in 1994, and has previously served as a social work faculty member at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of North Dakota, and University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. At University of Arkansas, she also served as a faculty member in the interdisciplinary Public Policy Ph.D. Program. She has served as the Leader of the Social Worker Section of the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, a Health Disparities Scholar at NIH, was the founder of the Spirituality Symposium at the Council on Social Work Education, and a member of the first board of directors of the Society for Spirituality and Social Work.

Dona Reese

Phone: 618-453-3616
dona.reese@gmail.com

Education

  • Ph.D., Social Work, University of Maryland, Baltimore, 1994
  • M.S.W., Clinical Social Work, University of Maryland, Baltimore, 1979
  • B.A., Psychology, Northwestern University, 1975

Licensure

  • Licensed Clinical Social Worker (L.C.S.W.), Illinois

Selected Publications

Selected Refereed Journal Articles

Reese, D., & Csikai, E. (2018). Social work assessment and outcomes measurement in hospice and palliative care. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine 35(12), 1553-1564.

Reese, D., Buila, S., Cox, S., Davis, J., Olsen, M., & Jurkowski, E. (2015). University-community-hospice partnership to address organizational barriers to cultural competence. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine. DOI: 10.1177/1049909115607295.

Reese, D., & Beckwith, S. (Nov. 2015). Organizational barriers to cultural competence in hospice. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, 32(7), 685-694.

Munoz, B., Garrett, E., Reese, D., & Roberts, M. (April 12, 2015). Barriers to employment of African American professionals in hospice: A qualitative study with African American social work students. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, 32(3), 280-285.

Reese, D., Smith, M., Butler, C., Shrestha, S., & Erwin, D. (July 11, 2014). African American client satisfaction with hospice: A comparison of primary caregiver experiences within and outside of hospice. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, 31(5), 495-502.

Reese, D. (2011). Interdisciplinary perceptions of the social work role in hospice: A replication of the classic Kulys and Davis study. Journal of Social Work in End-of-Life and Palliative Care, 7, 1-24.

Reese, D. (2011). University-community-hospice partnership to address organizational barriers to cultural competence. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, 28(1).

Reese, D., Chan, C.L.W., Chan, W.C.H., and Wiersgalla, D. (2010). A cross-national comparison of Hong Kong and U.S. student beliefs and preferences in end-of-life care: Implications for social work education and hospice practice. Journal of Social Work in End-of-Life and Palliative Care, 6(3-4), 1-31.

Reese, D., Raymer, M., Orloff, S., Gerbino, S., Valade, R., Dawson, S., Butler, C., Wise-Wright, M., and Huber, R. (2006). The Social Work Assessment Tool (SWAT). Journal of Social Work in End-of-Life and Palliative Care, 2(2), 65-95.

Reese, D., Melton, E., and Ciaravino, K. (2004). Programmatic barriers to providing culturally competent end of life care. American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, 21(5), 357-364.

Reese, D., and Raymer, M. (2004). Relationships between social work services and hospice outcomes: Results of the National Hospice Social Work Survey. Social Work, 49(3).

Reese, D. (2001). Addressing spirituality in hospice: Current practices and a proposed role for transpersonal social work. Social Thought: Journal of Religion in the Social Services, 20(1-2), 135-161.

Reese, D., and Sontag, M-A. (2001). Barriers and solutions for successful inter-professional collaboration on the hospice team. Health and Social Work, 26, (3), 167-175.

Reese, D. (2000). The role of primary caregiver denial in inpatient placement during home hospice care. The Hospice Journal, 15(1), 15-33.

Reese, D., Ahern, R., Nair, S., O’Faire, J., and Warren, C. (1999). Hospice access and utilization by African Americans: Addressing cultural and institutional barriers through participatory action research. Social Work, 44(6), 549-559.

Reese, D., and Brown, D. (1997). Psychosocial and spiritual care in hospice: Differences between nursing, social work, and clergy. The Hospice Journal, 12(1), 29-41.

Reese, D. (formerly Ita, D., 1995-96). Testing of a causal model: Acceptance of death in hospice patients. Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, 32(2), 81-92.

Book

Reese, D. (2013). Hospice social work: Addressing the whole person in end-of-life care. New York: Columbia University Press.

 

Research Areas

Dr. Reese’s position as a hospice social worker inspired her to earn a Ph.D. in order to conduct research and contribute to practice in that area. She has studied a model of variables that influence hospice social work outcomes, including cultural diversity, spirituality, social support, death anxiety, and denial. Along with colleagues, she conducted the first national study on hospice outcomes, and developed the Social Work Assessment Tool (S.W.A.T.), the first measure of hospice social work outcomes.

Teaching Areas

In her career, Dr. Reese has taught across the social work curriculum. At SIU, she has taught human behavior, interviewing and interpersonal skills, research, and statistics in the B.S.W. program. In the M.S.W. program, she teaches Children, Youth, and Families Practice I and II; and Evaluation Research.

 

Selected Publications

 

Selected Chapters in Professional Books

Reese, D., & Bolton, A. (2022). Hospice: The origins of interprofessional palliative care. In Donesky, D., Milic, M., Saks, N., Wallace, C., & Head, B. (Eds.). Textbook on interprofessional palliative care. New York: Oxford University Press. (Invited publication).

Reese, D., Nelson-Becker, H., & Callahan, A.M. (2022). Spirituality and social work practice in palliative care. In Terry Altilio, Shirley Otis-Green, and John Cagle (Eds.). Oxford textbook of palliative social work. (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. (Invited publication).

Reese, D. (2011). Spirituality and social work practice in palliative care. In Terry Altilio and Shirley Otis-Green (Eds.). Oxford textbook of palliative social work. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 201-214.   

Raymer, M. and Reese, D. (2004). The history of social work in hospice. In Berzoff, J. and Silverman, P. (Eds.). Living with dying: A  comprehensive resource for end-of-life care. New York: Columbia University Press.

  

Encyclopedia of Social Work

Raymer, M., and Reese, D. (2008). Hospice. In T. Mizrahi and L. Davis (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Social Work, 2 (20th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.