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Jean Livermore, associate director of field education, retires

Jean Livermore, associate director of field education and clinical assistant professor, has retired after more than two decades of service to the UNC School of Social Work and nearly 45 years of service to various state supported agencies in North Carolina.

“Jean is a stalwart member of our program and will be greatly missed,” said Rebecca Brigham, assistant dean of field education.  “She carries our institutional memory and while we are sad that she is leaving us, we all wish her the very best.”

Livermore entered the social work profession in 1973 with the N.C. Division of Services for the Blind, serving Orange, Chatham and Lee counties. Soon after, she began working as a clinical social worker for Children and Youth Services with the Alamance-Caswell Area Mental Health Center, where she provided outpatient therapy to parents and families of preschool children with emotional and behavioral problems; group therapy with teenage mothers; assessment of high-risk preschoolers; case consultation with day care centers, Head Start, schools and other community agencies. Over the next three years, Livermore worked with several other state supported agencies before entering private practice in Durham, where she provided psychotherapy and divorce mediation with individuals, couples and families, while specializing in working with parents of children with developmental, learning and behavioral disorders.

Livermore first joined the School of Social Work full-time in 1997 as a clinical instructor and training coordinator for the Children’s Mental Health Program, where she developed and provided training for service providers and family members regarding best practices with children and families. She became a field advisor with the School’s Field Education program in 2002 before being appointed as a clinical assistant professor and interim field education director in 2003. In 2004, she was appointed associate director of field education, taking on the responsibilities of among other things, matching full-time students with foundation field placements; coordinating recruitment of field placements and instructors; teaching SoWo524, Foundation Field Seminar; and participating in program development in the community.

School faculty and staff will host a retirement party for Livermore next month.