Personal Summary

Deja Williams, JD., MSW is a Clinical Assistant Professor in the Online MSW Program. Deja is passionate about healthcare and strongly advocates for equal access to quality healthcare, ranging from primary and preventative care to highly innovative and specialized clinical care. Broadly, her research and teaching focus on legal and social inequality within the intersections of race, gender, socioeconomic status, and healthcare. She has also done extensive research, policy drafting, and advocacy in ending Human Trafficking, especially the criminalization of youth for prostitution and the issue of victim offenders. Deja serves on the Board of MyPlace, a non-profit organization aimed at reducing the risk of exploitation to the young men and women it serves. When she is not teaching or reading, Deja enjoys spending time with her puppy and her family in Kansas City, Kansas, where she lives. 

Education

Juris Doctorate

Law, George Washington University School of Law, May 2023

Master of Social Work

Social Work, University of Michigan School of Social Work, Aug 2018

Bachelor of Social Work

Social Work, Spring Arbor University, May 2017

Courses Taught

SW 500: Intro to Social Work Practice

SW 505: Foundations of Social Work Practice

SW 510: Human Behavior in the Social Environment

SW 532: Indian Child Welfare Act

SW 545: Practice of Organizational Leadership

Professional Experience

Medical Social Work

Community – Based Mental Health

Social Work in the Justice System

Adolescent Diagnostics and Mental Health

Family Therapy

Macro/ Research Social Work

Deja has been a Social Worker for nearly a decade. She began her journey conducting macro-level research for Jackson, Michigan. Later, she served as a social worker in a health system's adult inpatient psychiatric unit, where she founded the CLE, All Women Are Leaders, a program seeking to bring equality to the intersection of gender, race, and health care. After moving back to Ohio in 2018, she served her community as a community–based Multi-Systemic Therapist working with court-involved youth and their families. In this position, she worked closely with multi-disciplinary team members, diagnosed, developed treatment plans, advocated before judges and magistrates in the court of law, and provided her clients with individual, group, and family therapy. In 2020, her career shifted when she went to law school. During her legal education, she continued to be engaged in social justice. She clerked for the Supreme Court of Michigan, worked at an affordable housing law firm, externed at a legal clinic where she represented low-income clients in claims against Medicare, Medicaid, and other public benefit programs, and with Shared Hope International, an organization seeking to end human trafficking through political and legislative advocacy. Following law school, she joined the field as a healthcare attorney within a large health system. She strives to blend social work principles, equity, and social justice into healthcare.