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Alumni briefs: Chavis, ’87; DeNard, MSW ’10 and Baldwin-Hamm, MSW ’12

Annie McCullough Chavis, MSW ’87, received the Order of the Long Leaf Pine Award from the State of North Carolina. The award was presented by Rep. Elmer Floyd of Fayetteville, NC, in February 2017. Dr. Chavis was honored for 40 years of service to the state as a social worker and social work educator. She taught 26 years before retiring Jan. 1, 2017, as a professor of social work at Fayetteville State University.

Christina DeNard, MSW ’10, is among 15 students tapped for the Doris Duke Fellowship for the Promotion of Child Well-Being. DeNard, who is a graduate of the UNC School of Social Work’s Child Welfare Education Collaborative, is pursuing a Ph.D. in social welfare at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice. In addition to other child welfare practice experiences, she worked as a success coach social worker where she participated in the creation and provision of an intervention to families with children exiting foster care, while also assisting in mitigating the challenges of its implementation within the agency. These work experiences influenced DeNard’s research interests, which include examining the implementation of evidence-based practices within child welfare agencies, child welfare policy and practice, and child welfare reform.

Jadie Baldwin-Hamm, MSW ’12, and a graduate of the School of Social Work’s Child Welfare Education Collaborative, and her husband, Jeffrey, were interviewed recently for a broadcast about North Carolina’s foster care system. The broadcast, which aired on the CBS-affiliated station, WNCN, featured the Hamms, who have been foster parents since 2013.