: About Me

I'm a professor, School of Social Work, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, USA. My research is on how persons overcome adversities, child development and adversities, and the meanings of violence to perpetrators. I also study social service programs that work.

I like to laugh. I like witty people. A perfect day is breakfast in bed, reading in bed, writing a bit in the morning, tending my garden, walking the dog, working with bright students,riding my horses Ellie or Finn on the trail with my friend Sandy and her horse Striker who has one eye.

Browse free or buy my books.

On Being a Shit: Unkind Deeds and Cover-Ups in Everyday Life. This is a humorous take on a serious topic. You can get it through Amazon.com, Magers_and_Quinn.com, and other on-line booksellers, or through Mobipocket. I learned about the topic through research on violence where perpetrators did terrible things and then blamed victims or did other things to keep themsleves out of trouble. After a while, I started to see that well all do some unkind things and use all kinds of tactics to cover up. That is what the book is about. You will learn to de-throne the next person who dumbs on you. For those who aspire to be shits, the book is a step-by-step guide. You can read the whole thing on-line or buy it at http://www.lulu.com/content/1141551.

You can also buy On Being a Sh*t: Unkind Deeds and Cover-Ups in Everyday Life. This is for people who don't like to read slang. You can browse or read it at http://www.lulu.com/content/2239317.

Another book is I Want to Show You: A Memoir In Poems. This is my way of sharing my life story. As a child, I rode horses on Narragansett Beach, fished off Beavertail, and roamed the Spring Woods. As an adult, I was a social worker, a professor, and a researcher on violence. This book shows how one woman lived her life the best way she could. Browse the whole thing or buy at http://www.lulu.com/content/2350136 or buy through Kindle or Mobipocket. Avialable soon at on-line booksellers.

The NEATS: A Child & Family Assessment is available as a free download at http://www.lulu.com/content/3987178. The NEATS is also available as a paperback. THE NEATS is a child and family assessment that focuses on five areas that
research has established as fundamental to human development and functioning: neurobiology, executive function, attachment, trauma, and self regulation. The title NEATS draws from the first letter of each of the five areas.

The goal of a NEATS assessment is the development of case plans characterized by interventions that build on client strengths. To do so, practitioners identify risks and adversities as well as resources, competencies, strengths, and resilience processes in the multiple ecologiesin which children and families lives their lives.

I have another book that is in preparation but that you can download for free now. It is Child Sexual Abuse: Perpetrators and Child Survivors Tell Their Stories at http://www.lulu.com/content/1823038, written with Alankaar Sharma

Buy my photos of Ireland and other beautiful places at
stores.lulu.com/jgilgun

Buy shorts at amazon.com/shorts where I have four articles

* Laugh and Cry with Elvis in the Army, with my brother John Gilgun. This was an instant best-seller.

* Smuggling Drugs into Prison, an hilarious account by a prison inmate who was "the man" on his cell block that day

* Thought by Thought on Death Row, about a man about to die for a crime he didn't commit and his dream the night before he died

* Yukee the Wine Thief, about a boy who is sexually assualted by a trusted family friend

Here are some blogs of interest

fionaspeaks.blogspot.com
onbeingashit.blogspot.com
elvisinthearmy.blogspot.com

See picable.com for photos I've posted including Anthony in Amazonia, which won the grand prize in the photo exhibit at the Manorhamilton Agricultural Show, County Leitrim, Ireland, in July 2007. Nature, horses, a piranha, Ireland, Scotland, England, the Lake District, Brazil, a spider, a snake, hoofprints into the sea-all kinds of beautiful pictures.

{i}I am a professor at the School of Social Work, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. I have done research on perpetrators of child sexual abuse and other forms of violence for more than twenty years. I have written a lot of academic papers and am now writing for the general public. I believe that much of what I have learned is of interest to the general public. {/i}

My passion is ...

wit, horses, connection with others

I know too much about ...

how much it can rain in Ireland

My parents always told me ...

You're just like your Aunt Frances, who was smart, rich, and beautiful

My childhood ambition ...

to be a cowgirl

My favorite memory ...

riding with Binky Donahue on the back of his horse Danny

Why I write ...

to put words to thoughts and emotions

What I am reading/watching/listening to ...

dressage-being a partner with my two horses

My first job ...

working with race horses

My best moment ...

none of your business

My inspiration ...

people with love for their work

Politics, News & Issues > Political Issues Future challengers to Obama in 2012

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It's over. Barack Obama is president of the United States. He has shown great promise during the campaign, and I grew to admire his intelligence, his focus, and his people skills. In so many ways, he stood in stark contrast to how John McCain presented himself. McCain became a kind of pit bull with no teeth, nipping and howling but with the bite of a gnat. Obama responded politely to these nips and returned to the point. No bite. McCain's supporters slimed Obama, and Obama responded with his side of the story and continued to stay focused. My hope now is that the Obama administration can b...

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