Social workers play a key role in helping people understand these changes to eligibility—and supporting them from a whole-person approach. “Social workers are trained to help people navigate systems and to deal with mental health crises,” says Elizabeth Palley, JD, PhD, professor of social work and director of the PhD in Social Work program.

Here’s a closer look at what’s changing, who will feel it most and how ������Ƶ prepares students to help.

What’s Changing With SNAP

There are a few key SNAP changes taking effect on October 1, 2026, the start of the federal fiscal year 2027. These include:

• States and counties absorb more administrative cost burden. The federal share of SNAP administrative costs drops from 50 percent to 25 percent, increasing the local share to 75 percent. For New York, this equals an increase in state costs by roughly $36 million per year, and county costs by $168 million a year.
• Benefits increase slightly. Given the higher costs of living, the are rising. For example, a family of four will go from a maximum monthly benefit of $994 to $1,023.
• The new three-year work-requirement window starts. People who are subject to SNAP work requirements must work for at least 80 hours a month. If they don’t, they can receive SNAP for only three months in a three-year window. The three-year window resets on October 1, 2026.

Some changes went into effect earlier in 2026. In particular, work requirements now apply to adults ages 55 to 64 (previously adults ages 18 to 54 without dependents) and to parents whose youngest child is 14 years or older.

Who Will Feel the Impact Most

The expanded work requirements have made it more difficult for people to qualify for SNAP. The New York governor’s office estimates that 300,000 households will lose some or all of their SNAP benefits, with an average loss of $220 a month.

Meeting the updated work requirements can be especially challenging for older adults and parents with teenagers. “We don’t want teens to be without parents around,” Dr. Palley says. “Often, the kinds of jobs you can get have night and early morning hours when your kid is around, so that can have impacts on parenting.”

Dr. Palley also notes that many adults in their 50s and 60s who have recently been pushed out of the workforce already struggle to find new jobs, and the jobs they can find are often physically demanding, minimum-wage work.

Losing SNAP benefits will be especially hard on children. “Certainly for children, hunger affects your physical and mental health, as well as your ability to concentrate, so school performance will likely suffer,” Dr. Palley says.

And shifting more of the administrative cost burden on states and counties will put the most strain on poorer counties that can’t absorb the cost shift. So, even if people qualify for SNAP, they may not be able to access benefits if funding runs short, Dr. Palley notes.

With more people losing SNAP benefits, the demand for food banks, private charities, and other community services will rise. Families may also need to divert money from rent to food, leading to housing instability, Dr. Palley says.

How ������Ƶ Prepares Students

������Ƶ’s social work programs teach students how to help clients access resources and, more importantly, how to engage in policy advocacy to support legislative changes that benefit their client population. “It’s important to have social workers who understand the experiences of clients, but also understand how to navigate and lead systems,” Dr. Palley says.

Students learn how to understand an issue, conduct research and interpret data, and create a convincing argument. “Those are the skills you would take into advocacy,” Dr. Palley says.

In addition to classroom learning, all students must participate in the School of Social Work’s annual social action initiative. Students can choose from various projects, including social media campaigns, expert interviews, website creation and legislative advocacy. Interested students can even travel to Albany and nearby counties to meet with legislators or testify on issues they care about at the county level.

“As a social worker, you’re closely tied to the populations you’re working with, so you can make a really good case and present people’s stories, because sometimes it’s too hard for people who are currently struggling to be able to testify and meet with legislators,” Dr. Palley says.

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This is why students in the ������Ƶ School of Social Work participate in research projects, whether they’re enrolled in undergraduate or graduate programs. Students then present their projects at conferences, including ������Ƶ’s Scholarship and Creative Works Conference, an annual event that celebrates their innovative work across all disciplines.

Here are a few of the projects School of Social Work students have shared on campus and beyond.

Kabian Brown, MSW ’11: Breaking the Silence Around Black Men’s Mental Health

Kabian Brown, MSW ’11, a DSW candidate at ������Ƶ, strives to understand how Black men make sense of racism-related trauma, and how cultural expectations of strength and masculinity shape whether they seek mental health treatment. “I always say that men suffer silently,” Brown says.

To paint a clearer picture of mental health care in BIPOC communities, Brown and a colleague reviewed studies on access to in-person and virtual mental health services, and explored how community spaces like barbershops serve as informal therapy. The goal: to give clinicians a guide for facilitating men’s groups in Black and Brown communities.

“A lot of BIPOC people might not trust the system. They think that if they talk to someone about mental health, they’re going to be seen as crazy, or that the therapist won’t be equipped to help them,” Brown says.

They presented their work at the inaugural hosted by the National Association of Social Workers (NASW).

The experience changed Brown’s mind about what research could be. “At one time, I said, ‘I’ll never go back to school because I hate research,’” he recalls. “But when you’re doing research that’s intentional, it’s more satisfying.”

Fritza Gue: Removing Invisible Barriers to Care for Immigrant Communities

As a Haitian immigrant, MSW student Fritza Gue has seen mental health stigma in her community firsthand. “When we see someone with mental health issues, we automatically think voodoo,” she says. “We don’t believe this person went through an amount of stress that their brain and body cannot take anymore.”

Gue fell in love with mental health when she started working at a psychiatric center on Long Island. There, she met people with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety. “I noticed there are a lot of Haitians who experience these issues,” Gue says.

For a course at ������Ƶ, she researched the invisible barriers that keep immigrant communities in Baldwin from accessing mental health care, and identified solutions to bridge the gap. She found that the barriers are systemic, not individual: limited access, transportation and language support, plus cultural barriers.

Part of the solution to these barriers, which she presented at ������Ƶ’s Scholarship and Creative Works Conference: Raise awareness in immigrant communities, in multiple languages, so services don’t remain hidden.

The experience left Gue with a key realization: “Research is not just for people who love statistics—it’s for anyone who wants to understand the world better and make a real impact.”

Shirley Braithwaite-Crawford: Rethinking Child Welfare Through a Trauma-Informed Lens

Shirley Braithwaite-Crawford, an MSW student completing an IDEATE fellowship in behavioral healthcare, is using her ������Ƶ education to strengthen her work in child welfare. “One of my concerns is how to help families from returning to the system over and over,” she says.

She notes that the child welfare system tends to be punitive instead of considering the role of past trauma. Some families face financial hardship that repeats across generations, and that stress can affect how parents raise their children. “When we’re able to support parents, we’re able to keep children safe,” Braithwaite-Crawford says.

That insight led her to propose an approach to supporting families from marginalized communities, presented at ������Ƶ’s Scholarship and Creative Works Conference. Her research drew on her child welfare experience, past studies and human rights protections that often go unenforced. She’s especially excited to use cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which helps people identify and change unhelpful thoughts and behaviors, in her practice.

“One of the things that I take away from the experience is being able to connect theories with practice,” Braithwaite-Crawford says. “When you go into the classroom, you learn a lot about theories, but then what about when you come out into the real world?”

Christina Grant ’26: Shining a Light on Poverty Among Minority Single Mothers

After completing her BSW at ������Ƶ, Christina Grant ’26 moved on to the MSW program, where she’s currently honing her research skills.

Inspired by her own mother, who worked multiple jobs to support her family as a single parent, Grant explored the systemic inequities that contribute to higher rates of poverty among minority single mothers. “I looked into intersectionality and how racial discrimination interacts with gender and socioeconomic status, and how it’s often overlooked in discussions of poverty,” she says.

The experience sharpened her critical thinking and research skills, empathy, and ability to view an issue from multiple angles. It also reinforced the need to view these social issues from a strength-based perspective: “Despite structural hardships, it was great to look at how minority single mothers demonstrate resilience, resourcefulness and reliance on their strong support systems to help them nurture their children and support their family,” Grant says.

Sharing her research at the Scholarship and Creative Works Conference gave her the opportunity to highlight an important issue for a room full of future social workers and faculty members who can create solutions. “Not everyone has a voice to speak into this,” Grant says. “If I’m given the opportunity to share this research, then I’m hoping we can come together and make a difference.”

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