Shipra Parikh, MSW, PhD

Shipra Parikh, PhD, LCSW (she/her/hers), is an Associate Instructional Professor at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice.

Dr. Parikh's work centers on relational attachment and anti-adultism in youth and families, expecially as it pertains to intergenerational trauma, community violence, and abuse. She is interested in social work across international settings, in particular the experiences of the South Asian diaspora and within India itself, as a prime example of social work needing to apply intersectionality and local solutions to justice issues related to religion, caste, class, gender, sexuality, ability, and ethnic diversity. She also engages actively in community social work, providing training and consultation to social workers, engaging trauma responsive youth work in community centers, with youth violence interruptors, and creating linkages with teaching artists and art creators. She is particularly interested in the intersection of art and expressive therapeutic approaches to treating youth trauma.

Dr. Parikh brings these clinical experiences as a community-based social worker to her academic teaching philosophy as well, centering the power of participatory process as a way to dismantle adultism, white supremacy, and classism (and other isms) as a fundamental organizing concept. Classroooms become a space to implement transformative justice principles, accountability, intersectional self-study, and to practice the dynamics of mutuality in the group process. We have to know all parts of ourselves and practice self-awareness in order to work effectively as social workers in any setting. Dr. Parikh is passionate about supporting the next generation of social workers to cultivate authenticity and creativity in their work.

Work experiences

• Multilingual (Spanish/English/Indian dialects) clinical social worker focusing on developmentally, culturally appropriate, and systemic abuse-focused treatment of youth and their families 

• Clinical consultation with violence prevention services at local community organizations, such as Enlace Chicago and the Conscience Community Network

• Experience with community based research from a participatory framework

• Facilitator of arts and expressive therapeutic trainings, for different local arts organizations

Fields of Special Interest

• Complex, developmental trauma experiences in youth and adulthood
• Play and sandtray therapy for youth
• Cross-cultural and global social work models of engagement
• Participatory research and clinical approaches
• Intrafamilial abuse, sexual assault, domestic violence, and community violence
• Parenting support
• Insight-oriented, anti-oppressive, and relational clinical supervision and mentoring

• Sout Asian Digital Archive (SAADA) Affiliated Scholar