Erin Barry-Dutro, administrative assistant I, Family Welfare Research and Training Group, University of Maryland School of Social Work (UMSSW), has two roles with state-funded projects that help to train social workers.

On one project, she helps write and develop in-person and online trainings for case workers with the state’s Family Investment Administration (FIA). On the other, she serves as a tech host for pre-service and in-service trainings for social workers and handles administrative duties such as communications, working closely with the Maryland Office of Adult Services.

Barry-Dutro said she likes the variety offered by the two roles of curriculum development and project coordination.

“For the different projects that I work on, although they’re both focused on training for social workers, which I’m passionate about, they focus on them in entirely different ways,” she said. “I have different roles within those two projects, and I think that keeps me on my toes.”

For her efforts, Barry-Dutro has been named the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) December Employee of the Month. UMB President Bruce E. Jarrell, MD, FACS, surprised Barry-Dutro with the news during a videoconference Dec. 9 with several of her colleagues as well as representatives from the UMSSW dean’s office and the UMB Staff Senate.

“I’ve read the glowing summary of all the things that you’ve been doing in the School of Social Work with education and other efforts during COVID, and it’s just a wonderful list of accomplishments,” Jarrell said.

Alfred Guy, training officer, UMSSW, who supervises Barry-Dutro on the FIA project, says she is in large part responsible for helping the training group’s work continue and even grow in the new environment that the pandemic has created.

“Working with Erin has given me the opportunity to have someone to share ideas with,” said Guy, who nominated her for the award. “But she also contributes ideas that have become a great part of what we’re doing in the design and development of the training.”

In her role helping to design and develop the training materials, Barry-Dutro revises the materials, drafts exercises and activities for training topics, helps determine training topics for future course offerings, and maintains the training sessions calendar.

Those skill-based trainings include online classes on effective listening, conflict resolution, and change management. She helps develop a new course quarterly for case workers employed by FIA.

Joan Davitt, PhD, MSS, MLSP, associate professor and chair of the aging specialization, UMSSW, who supervises Barry-Dutro’s work on the Adult Services project, said she is more than an administrative assistant.

“I can bounce ideas off her. I can trust that she’s going to follow through on everything that I assign her,” Davitt said. “She is someone who cares about the work that she’s doing and invests her energy and time into doing the best job and making the project the best that it can be.”

In that role, Barry-Dutro provides tech support during training of adult protective services workers who investigate claims of abuse and neglect. The trainings are for social workers who are entering the field or working to keep their licenses.

“Erin is patient with the staff who are for the most part not very technology savvy and have had to switch to doing all the trainings online,” Davitt said. “She is just so patient and understanding and gentle with them in terms of answering questions and getting the same question a million times and still answering it with a smile on her face.”

Barry-Dutro said COVID-19 radically changed her job.

“Prior to COVID, I did no online training whatsoever,” she said. “Transitioning to all online courses meant that we also needed to adapt all of the existing courses that Alfred and I had and make them online-ready and change the format entirely. And the same happened with Joan’s project. I worked with the trainers on editing the courses to make them online-friendly. And I basically added a new role to my job, which was doing tech host work.”

Jamie Haskel, MBA, director, Center Operations, UMSSW, called Barry-Dutro even-keeled.

“She is happy to take on whatever it is that we ask her to do, and she’s been a delightful employee, especially through these hard times,” he said.

Barry-Dutro, who has worked for UMSSW since June 2019, will receive a plaque, a letter of commendation, and an extra $250 in her next paycheck for being named Employee of the Month.

She thanked her supervisors — Haskel, Guy, and Davitt.

“They’re wonderful to work with and work for,” she said. “And it makes my daily life at UMB really pleasant.”

Barry-Dutro, who said she was “floored” to find out she had won the award, appreciates the recognition.

“It’s amazing to hear that the people I work closest with appreciate what I’m doing here and that it’s noticed and acknowledged by other people at the University,” she said.

— Jen Badie