Associate Professor
Acting Associate Dean, Undergraduate Programs

School of Social Work
St. John's College,
Room: J3019
Memorial University of Newfoundland
P.O. Box 4200, 230 Prince Philip Drive
St. John's, NL, Canada, A1B 3P7

Phone: (709) 864-8688
Email:  pissahaku@mun.ca

Dr. Paul Alhassan Issahaku has a BA degree from University of Ghana, Legon, a MSW from Columbia University, New York, and a PhD from University of Toronto. Dr. Issahaku’s recent teaching experience began with the position of course instructor at the Factor Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto, where he taught SWK 4654H: Social work practice with organizations and communities. From October 2012 to January 2013 he taught two undergraduate courses in the Department of Sociology and Social Work at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana, and from January 2013 to December 2014 he taught research methods and practice courses in the Department of Social Work at the University of Ghana, Legon, at undergraduate and graduate levels. The range of courses Dr. Issahaku has taught includes Introduction to Social Work Research, Quantitative Methods in Social Research, Organization Planning in Social Work Practice, Research and Evaluation Methods in Social Work, and Strategic Planning for Community Development. In addition to teaching, he has supervised over 18 undergraduate student research projects and six MPhil thesis projects on various topics in child and family welfare.

Dr. Issahaku has a wide range of scholarly and research interests with an orientation towards shaping social policy in an interdisciplinary framework. These include domestic violence and intimate partner violence; children, youth & family services; social policy processes; ageing and older persons; community development; and program evaluation. Dr. Issahaku has been part of research on child protection mediation and cyber bullying among school-aged youth in Canada and research projects evaluating the impact of community development programs in Ghana. Dr. Issahaku’s current research agenda comprises: (1) an investigation of correlates and health implications of intimate partner violence in Ghana; (2) an investigation of child abuse and neglect in care institutions in Ghana; (3) a study on the childhood experiences and family backgrounds of inmates of Ghanaian prisons; and (4) an investigation ofhow the experience of ageing and the meaning of old age differ across gender and across geographic setting in Canada.

Dr. Issahaku has six-years practice experience organizing and facilitating workplace teams and community level task groups in northern Ghana. He has served as resource person to UNICEF, Ghana country office, and the Ghana Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection in formulating a new Child and Family Welfare Policy for Ghana.