BUSSW Students Appointed to Competitive CSWE Minority Fellowship Program
Two master’s students at Boston University School of Social Work (BUSSW) have been appointed to the Council on Social Work Education’s (CSWE) prestigious Minority Fellowship Program. Matteo Montero-Murillo (SSW’25) and Sofía Vargas (SSW’25) will serve as fellows during the 2024-2025 program term.
The Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) supports the training of full-time, master’s-level social work students who are passionate about meeting the mental health and/or substance use disorder needs of racial/ethnic minority communities and are in their final year of study at a CSWE-accredited institution. Designed to reduce health disparities and improve mental health-care outcomes for racially and ethnically diverse populations, the program aims to increase the number of culturally competent master’s-level behavioral health professionals able to serve racial/ethnic minority populations.
The fellowship is funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a federal agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that leads public health efforts to advance behavioral health nationwide and improve the lives of individuals living with mental and substance use disorders and their families.
Sofía Vargas is a second-year student majoring in clinical practice at BUSSW’s On-Campus Master of Social Work (MSW) Program and a research assistant for the Early Connections/Conexiones Tempranas community program evaluation at Jewish Family & Children’s Service. She is interning this year at Child Witness to Violence Project, a program at Boston Medical Center focused on providing outpatient therapy to young children experiencing trauma and grief. As a bilingual, Mexican-American daughter of immigrants, she hopes to support and accompany immigrants and mixed-status families in her work. Sofia is training to work with individuals experiencing complex trauma through dyadic, family, and group modalities. She earned her bachelor’s degree in international politics with a minor in French and a certificate in international development at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.
Matteo Montero-Murillo, also a second-year student at the BUSSW On-Campus MSW Program, is a clinical trainee on the counseling team at the Massachusetts College of Art & Design. As a child of Mexican immigrants, he enjoys working with other children of immigrants to provide support for the unique challenges they experience. He is interested in intersectionality, queer theory, abolition/non-carceral frameworks, and Liberation Health practices, and hopes to help clients repair harm, unpack shame, develop identities, and find ways to live as their authentic selves. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Spanish with honors in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies from Moravian University.