150: The Grand Challenges for Social Work: 10 Year Update with Dr. Carrie Pettus

Episode 150: In today's episode I'm talking with Carrie Pettus, chair of the executive board for the Grand Challenges for Social Work. Today's episode explores the 10-year journey of the Grand Challenges for Social Work, reflecting on its evolution, its measurable impacts, and the critical lessons learned along the way. Carrie talks about successes, including creating a vast social and professional network dedicated to solving some of the most persistent social problems, and some of the challenges, including the difficulty defining and measuring impact, which she acknowledges is ironic given that the initiatives are lead by some of the leading scholars in the world. She also acknowledges some of the misses, such as uneven involvement of frontline social workers and not including an initiative explicitly focusing on eliminating racism until a few years ago. We end the conversation with Carrie discussing the importance of sustainability and resources if the Grand Challenges for Social Work initiative is to continue for another 10 years. You can read a transcript of today's interview at You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page at or follow the Bluesky feed at

You can listen to 150: The Grand Challenges for Social Work: 10 Year Update with Dr. Carrie Pettus online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

150: The Grand Challenges for Social Work: 10 Year Update with Dr. Carrie Pettus is an episode from The Social Work Podcast by Jonathan B. Singer, Ph.D., LCSW.

This episode is 23:39 long.

This episode was published on Mar 29, 2026.

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