Haruka is a master of social work student on the management and planning track at Temple University Harrisburg. She started working as a NEST graduate fellow this summer 2011. 

She was excited to be a member of NEST because the evaluation practice and research skills for community capacity-building that she is able to learn through NEST are exactly what she has wanted to learn in the United States since she left Okinawa, Japan, in 2008.
She was born and raised in Mie, Japan. In Japan, her educational paths developed mainly in the education field including Bachelor degree of Education (Elementary School Pedagogy major and English Education secondary major) and Master of Education (concentrate on Psychology for children with special needs study) while her career path has included work as a licensed public teacher, a social welfare worker, a teaching assistant at the University, and an executive director and a board director at a community-based nonprofit organization serving families and children in Okinawa, Japan. 

"Working at the nonprofit with my Okinawan colleagues helped me to find my passion to work on community capacity-building, and I decided to study social work specializing management and evaluation in the United States."

Since 2009 at TUH, as she studied the foundations of social work and learned about group organizing with Beyond Our Borders, a student group working on international affairs at TUH, she did her foundation internship at the Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Organizations. This year, an advanced year of her master of social work program, she plans to work on program management and evaluation through multiple data visualization and management tools, including Excel, SPSS, NodeXL, DoView, Tableau, Weebly, Dropbox, and Smartsheet (more later), to help human service organizations to build their capacities. This fall, as one of  the NEST fellows, she started working on Evaluation in multiple projects including Abstinence Education program, After school program at Youth Community Learning Center, Tobacco session data analysis, and ex-offender reentry networking analysis.  


Her interests currently lie in learning empowerment evaluation methods for network development, resource mobilization, and peer-driven support group. She loves traditional art, and music and books are her life-long friends. 

AWARDS & HONORS
Mary and Gary Ammon School of Social Work Scholarship 2011
Temple University, College of Health Professions and Social work, Tuition Scholarship 2010
Graduate Dean’s Master’s Fellowship, The University of Texas at Arlington, 2008, 2009
Golden Key International Honour Society Membership, 2008 to current
Family Support for Okinawan Families Grant, Okinawa Labor Union, 2008
Family Support for Okinawan Working Mothers Grant, Okinawa Labor Union Bank, 2007

ACTIVITIES
Music:
Piano for 10 years
Sanshin (Okinawan traditional musical instrument) for 5 years and received two new face awards

Volunteering and Leadership:
International students support volunteers at Mie University,Japan
Beyond Our Borders (Temple Harrisburg student body working on international affairs)
Japanese Social Workers Group (discussing social work in and out of Japan on Facebook group page)

Education:
Education major concentration with Pedagogy, Mie University, Japan
Special Education Teacher Certificate Program, University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan
Master of Education, University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, Japan
Graduate English Skills Program at University of Texas at Arlington
Master of Social Work candidate, Temple University Harrisburg 

Licensure:
Teacher’s license of Elementary School (Mie, Japan)
Teacher’s license of Middle School in English (Mie, Japan)
Teachers's license of Special Elementary School (Okinawa, Japan)

Employment:
Public elementary school teacher in Mie prefecture, Japan
Lilfe skills staff at after school program at a residential facility for people with special needs, Okinawa, JapanExecutive director at Children Family Resource Center Okinawa, Japan
Job placement counselor for mothers at Okinawa City hall, Okinawa, Japan
Board member, Children Family Resource Center Okinawa, Japan
International social work teaching assistant at Okinawa International University
Intern, Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Organizations
NEST fellow,  Nonprofit Evaluation Services and Training Center (NEST) at Temple University Harrisburg
Research Assistant, Abstinence Education Program administrated by NEST

Affiliation:
Member, American Evaluation Association
Member, Pennsylvania Association of Nonprofit Organizations
Member, Japan Nonprofit Organization Research Association
Member, Japanese Society for the Study of Social Welfare

Haruka is happy to receive your messages either/both in English and Japanese languages.日本語でもOkayです。 haruka.m@temple.edu