The NASW Foundation Award Honors Those Who Have Made Significant Contributions to Practice
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The National Association of Social Workers Foundation (NASWF) is pleased to name Enola Proctor, Ph.D., as the recipient of the Knee/Wittman Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Knee/Wittman Awards are given to recognize individuals who are models of excellence and have made significant contributions in the field of health and mental health. The Knee/Wittman Award Program was established to recognize those who represent the values, ethics and approaches exemplified by two dedicated social work pioneers, Ruth Knee and Milton Wittman. The Lifetime Achievement Award is presented to a professional social worker who has made exemplary contributions in health and mental health practice.
A member of the George Warren Brown School of Social Work (Washington University of St Louis) faculty since earning her doctorate in 1978, Enola Proctor has focused her scholarship on mental health services and, more recently, on “implementation science,” the study of how to move research findings and the practices they inform into on-the-ground settings where they can meet real human needs. Before her work, most mental health services research focused on psychiatry and psychology and their practitioners. Dr. Proctor has worked tirelessly to demonstrate and expand the ways in which social services, child welfare services, and services for the elderly are built upon a robust body of evidence.
Dr. Proctor’s research interests center on mental health and health service delivery, post-acute health and mental health community care, with a particular emphasis on services for low-income elderly. She has also passionately pursued the development of knowledge to guide delivery and evaluation of clinical social work and championed the implementation of evidence-based practice in the mental health and social work fields.
Dr. Proctor’s scholarship has significantly advanced the field of mental health services research. For nearly two decades, she has led the Brown School’s Center for Mental Health Services Research (CMHSR). Continually funded by the National Institute for Mental Health since its inception in 1993, the Center collaborates with its national network of research partners to build a base of evidence designed to address the challenges of delivering mental health services to vulnerable populations.
Nationally, Dr. Proctor was appointed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to serve on the National Advisory Mental Health Council of the National Institute of Mental Health; the only social work researcher to receive this prestigious appointment. She also serves as a strategic planning expert to the NIH Offices of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research and as an external reviewer to the Institute of Medicine. Among her numerous awards, Dr. Proctor has been recognized by the National Association of Social Workers (ok to mention NASW has already recognized her achievements?)and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.
“Throughout her career Professor Proctor has been committed to the implementation of evidence-based practices and the translation of research into practice,” says Jeanne C. Marsh, George Herbert Jones Distinguished Service Professor in the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. “There is no question that through her research, teaching and policy development activities she has improved the quality of mental health services available to vulnerable populations.”
NASW Foundation congratulates Dr. Proctor on her lifetime of distinguished research and advocacy.
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The National Association of Social Workers Foundation (NASWF) is a charitable organization created to enhance the well-being of individuals, families, and communities through the advancement of social work practice.