June Simmons Receives Joan Upshaw Award

June Simmons, Partners in Care Foundation’s President and CEO, has been awarded the Joan Upshaw Award by the Society for Social Work Leadership in Health Care (SSWLHC).

The Joan Upshaw Award was established in 2014 as a fitting way to honor the memory of SSWLHC leader Joan K. Upshaw.

Joan was a social work leader in health care, a longtime member of the Society and a pioneer in social work enterprise. This award honors an individual who demonstrates the application of entrepreneurship or intrapreneurship principles in their role as a formal or informal leader in social work in health care, including identifying and starting new ventures, increasing the efficacy and efficiency of social work interventions, generating new social work products and services, and advocating for the profession of social work.

June Simmons, MSW, is nationally recognized for her leadership in the administration of health care organizations. Since founding Partners in Care in 1997, she has led the organization’s pioneering role in developing and scaling evidence-based care models, leading to innovative and effective interventions for the management of chronic conditions, and better coordinated care to improve health care outcomes.

Throughout her distinguished career, she has been instrumental in creating, funding and operating, forward-looking health and social services research, and programs that meet the mutual needs of patient populations, providers, and health care delivery networks. These initiatives are designed to encourage implementation of cost-effective, patient-friendly integration of care from primary care and hospital to home and community.