Since our official launch in 2024, the Social Work Coalition on NC Workforce Development is off to a strong start. We are excited to announce a few of the important steps we have taken together to begin our work solving the challenges facing North Carolina’s social work workforce.
At the Coalition’s May 2024 meeting, we discussed the five critical service domains identified by the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Social Work as key indicators of the need for social work workforce development in North Carolina. These critical service domains include:
- Child and Family Services
- Mental and Behavioral Health
- Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (I/DD)
- Service to Justice-Involved Individuals
- Health, Aging, and Caregiving
Please read below to see what we have accomplished in the last few months as well as information on our upcoming projects and meetings.
Coalition Work Group Chairs Meeting
The Coalition work group chairs met for the first time in August 2024 for a planning meeting. The Coalition’s five work groups and their respective chairs include:
Data Analytics, Co-Chairs
Ramona Denby-Brinson and Stacey Kolomer
Innovations and Technology-Based Education, Co-Chairs
Mark Trahan and Summer Woodside
External Affairs, Chair
Valerie Arendt
Marketing and Communications, Chair
Barbara Wiedemann
Workforce Diversity and Special Populations, Co-Chairs
Yarneccia Dyson and Tauchiana Williams
Thank you to our chairs for their work and support as these work groups get underway! Learn more on our Work Groups page.
Fall 2024 1st In-Person Coalition Meeting
The Coalition hosted our first all-member, in-person meeting in November 2024 at NC State University. We were joined by 30 in-person and 30 virtual Coalition members to begin working collaboratively toward our objectives. Each of the Coalition’s five work groups discussed their key focus areas, shared progress, and announced new opportunities and projects.
Thank you to everyone who made this important event a success!
Spring 2025 Coalition Meeting
We are excited to announce our second all-member, in-person Coalition meeting, which will take place on Friday, March 28, 2025, from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at UNC-Greensboro. A virtual option is available for those who cannot attend in-person. Sign up for our email newsletter to receive information about the Spring meeting.
Program Specialist
We’re excited to announce the hiring of Allyson McCune as our Program Specialist. Allyson was hired in June 2024 and is a second-year MSW student at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Allyson began her work compiling a list of all the representatives from social work programs across the state and communicated with the Coalition to collect the most up-to-date information for our members and ensure comprehensive representation. Allyson helped the Coalition plan the Fall 2024 work group chairs’ meeting and in-person Coalition meeting and is currently assisting with preparations for the Spring 2025 Coalition meeting. Allyson has also assisted with the development of our new Coalition website and will continue to assist with content creation for the website as well as other communications efforts.
If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to info@socialworkcoalitionnc.org.
Member Registration
Interested in joining the Social Work Coalition on NC Workforce Development? Please complete the Coalition membership registration form. If you have colleagues, including other social work educators and practitioners concerned about workforce development in our state, please feel free to add their names and contact information to your member registration form and we will send them information about our work.
Building Partnerships
The Coalition has continued to strengthen our work through partnerships with leading state organizations and by applying for grants that support cross-state collaborations. These include:
- The Duke Endowment: The Coalition is working on a proposal to partner with The Duke Endowment on a program aimed at improving recruitment, training, and retention in the social work field, supporting the Endowment’s goal of bolstering the health and well-being of North Carolina’s residents.
- Blue Cross Blue Shield North Carolina Foundation: The Coalition is exploring ways to address the foundation’s primary aim to “expand access to mental and behavioral health services and resources for youth through models that are effective in the short term.”
- North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services: We’ve been in continued discussions with NCDHHS. We met with Secretary Kody Kinsley and Director Kellie Crosbie in August 2024, and we are excited to deepen our partnership in preparation of a strong and sustainable North Carolina workforce. We’re creating a working document called “The 10 Things We Need to Do Differently” in conjunction with NCDHHS. We will help set up clear communications, tracking, and timely information exchanges between the Coalition and NCDHHS.
Website Launch
We are excited to have launched our new Coalition website and introduced Coalition branding in Spring 2025. We researched similar coalitions across the nation and explored their websites for inspiration and organizational ideas. This site features general information about the Coalition and our focus areas, research supporting our work, upcoming events and opportunities for interested individuals to get involved, as well as updates on Coalition activities.
This website is crucial for sharing information about the Coalition and our important work, and we envision that in the future it will also serve as a hub for materials and resources that social workers can use to create improved workforce development strategies. If you have a strong interest in this core area of the Coalition, consider joining the Marketing and Communications work group.
Stay Involved
How can you stay involved with the Coalition? Ensure you have registered via the membership form to join our communications list. Share information, data, reports, research, and articles about our key areas or work groups that can be added to the library section of the website we are developing using the submission link.
Sign-up to be on at least one of the five Coalition work groups:
- Data Analytics
- Innovations and Technology-Based education
- External Affairs
- Marketing and Communications
- Workforce Diversity and Special Populations
Use the work group interest form to sign up.
If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out to info@socialworkcoalitionnc.org.
