2005 National Awards Ceremony and Reception - NASW Foundation

SHERYL BRISSETT-CHAPMAN, EdD, LICSW, ACSW
Lifetime Achievement Award
Through her innovative practices,
Dr. Brissett-Chapman has created
healthy and supportive environments
for children and youth. With
particular interest in children living
in foster and adoptive care, she has
dedicated her career dedicating to
improving the connection between
youth and the child welfare system.
Eager to for all social workers to
lend their voices to the voiceless, Dr.
Brissett-Chapman enthusiastically
works with children, youth and
families at risk for entanglement in the child welfare and
juvenile justice systems. As both a biological parent and an
adoptive parent of a child with special needs, she has
cultivated a special sensitivity to the complexity of child
rearing in today’s intergenerational and multicultural context.
In the 1970s, Dr. Brissett-Chapman established a
community-based youth development center in New York
City that catered to the needs of delinquent girls. She also
served for several years as the associate director of the
Division of Child Protection at Children’s National Medical
Center in Washington, DC. During her tenure at Children’s,
she led a model sexual abuse pediatric hospital trauma team.
Perhaps her crowning achievement is the transformation of
Baptist Home for Children from a group home for adolescents
that cared for 66 children annually to a thriving center – the
National Center for Children and Families (NCCF) – that
serves more than 1,900 children in the Washington area.
orphanage” to a contemporary and responsive institution
serving children and youth.
Since 1991, NCCF has flourished to become a state-of-the-art
facility, adding dormitories, conference centers, computer
labs and youth activity centers. The small staff has grown to
a motivated group of 160, assisted by more than 800
volunteers. NCCF offers many programs designed to serve
the needs of the community, including residential facilities,
a domestic violence emergency shelter, and independent living
and treatment foster care programs for delinquent and
maltreated youths.
In addition to her professional accomplishments, Dr. Brissett-
Chapman is an adjunct professor at Howard University
School of Social Work. She also provides field instruction
at NCCF to social work students from Columbia University,
Howard University, and the University of Maryland.
Dr. Brissett-Chapman’s contributions to social work also
include ability to create arenas for critical exchange and
proactive dialogue. She co-edited the Child Welfare Journal
on African American Children in the Child Welfare System,
and in 1995 she organized the first national African American
Child Welfare Summit in St. Louis.
It is her powerful intellect, rooted deeply in a compassionate
and spiritual commitment to a life of service that will continue
to inspire social workers by her personal example. It is with
great pride that we confer the Lifetime Achievement Award
on Dr. Sheryl Brissett-Chapman.
When Dr. Brissett-Chapman arrived as executive director
in 1991, she was challenged by a fiscal disaster, a small,
unfocused staff and sub-code facilities. She approached the
Board of Trustees with the need to change the organization
and a plan to transform the community from an “old
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