Dawn E. Shedrick, LCSW
Suffolk Division Director
Dawn E. Shedrick is a clinical social worker, consultant, educator, and writer whose work focuses on the health and wellbeing of family caregivers, trauma survivors, and queer people. She is the founder and principal consultant of JenTex Training & Consulting, a continuing education and professional development firm for health and human services professionals. Dawn weaves her extensive experiences as her mother’s primary caregiver since 1996, mental health practitioner, trainer, educator, and holistic healer to create experiences and tools for caregivers to heal from stress and burnout and to help health and human services professionals develop the skills to support them in their healing. She is the author of Courageous Contemplation: A Guided Journal for Family CareGivers of Chronically Ill, Disabled, and Elderly Loved Ones.
Dawn has designed and delivered corporate emotional and mental wellness seminars and workshops for clients such as GE, Canon USA, Office Depot, NY Mets, JPMorgan Chase, Columbia University, and the USDA. She has delivered these learning experiences online and in person in China, Tanzania, Canada, Puerto Rico, and throughout the U.S.
Dawn is a lecturer at the Columbia University School of Social Work where she was an inaugural recipient of the Steven P. Schinke Teaching Innovation Award. She is a doctoral candidate studying Adult Learning and Leadership at Teachers College- Columbia University. Her participatory action research involves partnering with other caregivers to create tools to support emotional healing. To manage her own caregiver stress, Dawn loves spending time near the ocean, knitting, traveling, watching true crime TV with her two Yorkies, and sharing her stories of caregiving so her peers know they are not alone.
As the NASW-NYS Suffolk Division Director, Dawn is passionate about building and cultivating community with seasoned social workers, emerging leaders, and students; professional development for social workers in all areas of practice; co-creating and supporting the chapter’s policy agenda; and advancing social work entrepreneurship.