Enola Proctor, PhD, MSSW

2010 Knee/Wittman Lifetime Achievement Award in Health & Mental Health Practice

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.

A generous and committed teacher to both doctoral and master’s students, Dr. Proctor’s teaching focuses on research and evaluation methodology, and social work in health and mental health care settings.

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 1995, 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.

Under the guidance of Dr. Proctor, the CMHSR is conducting projects that represent some of the pioneering clinical epidemiological, service systems and quality of care research at the mental health-social service intersect. She has been Principle Investigator (PI) or Co-PI on research grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, the AARP Andrus Foundation, and the American Heart Association. She recently completed a study, serving as Co-PI with Dr. Morrow-Howell, examining depression within the public long-term care system. Dr. Proctor is prolific in the dissemination of her findings in prestigious peer reviewed journals, submitting about eight publications per year throughout her career.

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 (President’s Award for Excellence in Social Work Research) and the Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

Dr. Proctor serves as the Associate Dean for Faculty for the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. She also chairs the School’s Evidence-based Task Force, which looks at ways the School can help infuse new standards of evidence, effectiveness, and accountability in both social work research and practice. She has won the School's Distinguished Faculty Award and the Arthur Holly Compton Award, the University's highest honor for a faculty member.

Dr. Proctor has been a member of NASW since 1973.  She has been a leader in numerous professional associations, including the Group for the Advancement of Doctoral Education in Social Work (Chair, 1993-95) and the Institute for the Advancement of Social Work Research (Chair, 2000-2005).