2012 Social Work Alumni Society Award of Excellence recipient Tarin Mink

Tarin graduated from Wright State University in 2002 with a bachelor of arts degree in social work from the College of Liberal Arts. She is also a 2009 graduate of the Wright State/Ohio State joint Master’s in Social Work Program.During her master’s program, Tarin completed a thesis entitled “Using Service Learning to Teach Social Welfare Policy (2009)” and was the only WSU-OSU student in the program to complete a thesis. She recently co-authored an article with Dr. Sarah Twill entitled, "Using service-learning to teach a social work policy course," in the Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship (2012), which is based on her thesis.

Tarin is an early childhood mental health therapist at Samaritan Behavioral Health, Inc. and specializes in work with children under the age of 6 who have severe emotional disturbances and developmental delays. In addition to her professional work, Tarin is a founding member of the Social Work Alumni Society. For the past three years, she has been the co-chair of the fundraising committee. As part of those duties, Tarin helped host successful wine tasting events that have raised nearly $5,000 in student scholarships. She fought to get the Social Work Alumni Society off the ground and is fighting to keep it strong. Tarin has a demanding job in the field of Social Work and yet she is always willing to pitch in and help with Alumni.

She is a natural leader and is incredibly deserving of this honor. In her profession, Tarin is always going beyond what is expected, willing to help out coworkers, willing to train new staff or students and is very compassionate, empathetic and non-judgmental to her clients and their families. Those who come in contact with her in any facet of her life (professional or personal) will remember her, as she is always willing to listen, give a hug, offer help, and give 110%.