Pictured (left to right): RCPS Director of Community and Student Support April Fallon, Carolina Robinson, RCPS Social Worker Nancy Bogardts, Facie Goodman, RCPS Homeless Liaison Kathia Brown, RCPS Social Worker Rena’ Glass-Dixon.

Carolina Robinson, Edwards Middle School Parent Liaison, and Facie Goodman, Director for the Health SafetyNet with Rockdale Coalition for Children and Families Project, were named the 2016 Laura H. Barnes Honorary Social Worker Award winners at the March 17th Rockdale Board of Education meeting. This is the ninth year of the tradition of choosing one person in the community and one person in the school system to name as an honorary social worker because they have shown the exemplary traits and qualities of a school social worker. The award is named in memory of Rockdale County Public Schools Social Worker Laura Barnes, who passed away suddenly in 2012, whose work and spirit touched many lives.

Robinson has been EMS’s parent liaison since 2010. She has sought and won grants to purchase shoes for needy students at Edwards. Robinson facilitates the Title 1 parent workshops for the school; she has a special interest in parent engagement in special education. Along with her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, she helps organize bi-annual clothing drives to help women in crisis obtain business attire and she sorts the remaining clothing to bring back to school for Edwards’ students who are in need. She solicits donations from the community to help provide food and gifts at Thanksgiving and Christmas and organizes the school’s Angel Tree for donated gifts. She offers parents a Job Resource Board in her room where she posts local job opportunities and she is the President of the Edwards Middle School Parent Teacher Organization.

Goodman worked in Rockdale County Public Schools for 40 years, retiring as the Special Education and Student Support Director in 2008. After working for several years at ViewPoint Health she was hired by the Rockdale Coalition for Children and Families as the Project Coordinator for the Health SafetyNet. In this role, Goodman seeks out community resources and grant funding to help the chronically ill and indigent in our community find ways to pay for medical, dental, mental health and vision care as well as prescriptions. Through a grant, she helped to start the Community Paramedic Program which sends paramedics to homes to visit patients with chronic health conditions to reduce the number of Emergency Room visits. Goodman also chairs the local interagency planning team, which brainstorms ideas to help youth experiencing behavioral problems, and chairs the Prevent Child Abuse Rockdale board of directors.