Social Worker of the Year Award 2005

CDR Daniel Kavanaugh, MSW, LCSW-C, received the 2005 USPHS Social Worker of the Year Award for his role in advancing research in pediatric emergency care through the establishment and management of the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN); his efforts to foster research in this field across the Department of Health and Human Services through leading the Interagency Committee on EMSC Research; and other efforts described below.

Prior to becoming Director of the Emergency Medical Services for Children(EMSC) Program, CDR Kavanaugh spent 10 years as a clinical social worker at the NIH Clinical Center working directly with patients who were participating in cancer and HIV/AIDS clinical trials. He recognized the value of research in those areas and in his role as Director of the EMSC Program has worked to try and ensure that pediatric emergency care decisions would also be grounded in meaningful and rigorous multi-institutional research.

Although the focus of the nomination was on CDR Kavanaugh's work in advancing pediatric emergency care research at the national level, this is but one facet of his job as Director of the EMSC Program in which he and one staff member manage 88 grants and 6 contracts all focused on improving the care of ill and injured children in the pre- and in-hospital environment.

CDR Kavanaugh's leadership in bridging diverse professions, agencies, and organizations in order to improve the care of ill and injured children nationally is an example of a social worker who has shown the ability to effectively work with and negotiate very complicated systems of care. He saw that there was a need to ensure that ill and injured children benefit from evidenced-based decisions and has worked to develop new, national programs to meet that need."