Dr. Sheridan Kingsberry (center), Delaware's 2018 Social Worker of the Year, poses with Michael Francum (l), executive director of the Delaware Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, and Shannon Fisch, the president of the NASW-DE Board of Directors. — *In this photo:* Dr. Sheridan Kingsberry (center), Delaware’s 2018 Social Worker of the Year, poses with Michael Francum (l), executive director of the Delaware Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, and Shannon Fisch, the president of the NASW-DE Board of Directors.

On Campus, Faculty & Staff

Dr. Kingsberry named Social Worker of the Year

Thursday, June 14, 2018

Dr. Sheridan Kingsberry listens to Gov. John Carney on the day he enacted a social worker law she helped advocate. Dr. Sheridan Quarless Kingsberry, a DSU social work faculty member, has been named by the state chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW-DE) as the 2018 Delaware Social Worker of the Year.

Dr. Kingsberry has taught social work at DSU since 2003, and currently serves as an associate professor in the Master of Social Work Program at the DSU@Wilmington location.

According to the NASW-DE nomination document – Dr. Kingsberry’s activities have not only been outstanding, but have also been “expansive reflecting unmistakable advanced knowledge and skills as well as an uncompromising commitment to the social work profession.”

The document continues: “She has done so as an innovative educator, scholar and global provider of services to needy individuals … her activities have traversed micro, mezzo and macro levels of social work practice both nationally and internationally.”

A sampling of Dr. Kingsberry’s social work activities over her DSU tenure:

Through a grant from the Wilmington HOPE Commission, from 2010-2013 she and MSW students provided resilience-building services to elementary-aged children of that city whose parents are incarcerated, diverting the children away from a downward spiral of physical and emotional problems common to such youths. The related evaluation data has been published in peer-reviewed journals, validating their work.
In 2015 she, another faculty member and two MSW students traveled with the Delaware Chapter of Hands International to provide mental health services in Antigua and Barbuda. The following next two years, she traveled to Trindad and Tobago with the organization’s team of physicians, nurses and mental health professionals to provide educational workshops and counseling services to clients of the mission’s clinic. Dr. Kingsberry conceived a formal interdisciplinary Study Abroad Program for DSU’s College of Education, Health and Public Policy, which resulted in a 2017 trip to London that included 10 undergraduate and graduate students and five professionals, providing all with a tremendous global learning opportunity. This Study Abroad also resulted in a similar trip to Costa Rica in May 2018. In October, she plans to take some MSW students to Guyana.
In 2017, she partnered with TOVA Healthcare to present a symposium in Wilmington entitled “Managing Chronic Diseases in the Black Community: The Expanding Roles of Primary Care and Behavioral Health Providers and Faith Communities.”
An active member of the NASW-DE, she has served as the organization’s treasurer and president. In addition to countless other activities and programs over the years, Dr. Kingsberry served on the organization’s Multi-tier Licensure Subcommittee that educated the General Assembly on the need to bring the First State’s social worker licensing standard up to the national level and negotiated the development of recently enacted legislation that requires all social workers – bachelor’s and master’s degree graduates as well as clinicians – to be licensed in Delaware to work professionally in the field. (For more info on this development, visit https://www.desu.edu/news/2018/06/dsu-faculty-grads-instrumental-social-work-bill-enactment).

Dr. Kingsberry has a MSW degree and a Ph.D. of Social Work degree from Rutgers University in New Jersey. She is the first DSU social work faculty member to be honored with the Social Work of the Year Award from the NASW-DE since Dr. Marlene Saunders received the award in 2008.