Philicia Ross, LCSW-C, is a licensed clinical social worker and advocate who has been dedicated to mental health and professional equity since 2010. Over the course of her career, she has focused on increasing access to high-quality mental health services and reducing barriers that prevent social workers from entering and advancing within the profession. Her experience spans direct clinical work, community engagement, and systems-level collaboration to improve the landscape of social work practice in Maryland.

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Philicia served as the NAACP-appointed representative on the Maryland Workgroup on Licensure Requirements, where she contributed to statewide discussions on licensure accessibility, workforce needs, and the impact of current policies on both practitioners and the communities they serve. Through this role, she gained a deeper understanding of the challenges social workers face, including the structural factors that limit professional opportunities and contribute to shortages across behavioral health settings.

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Since SWEAR’s formation, Philicia has worked closely with its members to support the organization’s development and shared commitment to transparency, fairness, and accountability in the profession. She believes SWEAR can serve as an important space for collaboration, advocacy, and community building; bringing social workers together to address concerns, share solutions, and uplift the values of service, ethics, and equity that define the field.

Dr. Christa C. Gilliam is a social work educator, mom, wife, and fiber artist living in Baltimore, MD. She is an experienced social work educator and a highly regarded leader in the field. Her practice experience spans public and nonprofit settings serving children and families in diverse communities. 

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Her research focuses on social work workforce development, leadership, professional mentoring, and policy and practice in urban settings. As coauthor of Mentoring Women for Leadership: Empowering the Next Generation (2021), Dr. Gilliam highlights pathways to leadership and the importance of equitable access to advancement within the profession.

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Through her teaching, research, mentorship, and service, Dr. Gilliam works to strengthen the social work workforce and advance the values central to SWEAR: equity, access, and meaningful change in the profession.

Dr. Concetta Pucci is a DeafBlind individual and a licensed clinical social worker in Maryland, DC, and Virginia. She is also an educator who coordinates internship programs and brings extensive experience in providing community-based and telemental health services in both group practice and agency settings, particularly serving Deaf, DeafBlind, and Hard of Hearing communities. She currently operates her private psychotherapy practice, HeartForza Mental Wellness & Consulting, LLC.

It took Dr. Pucci more than 20 years to obtain her clinical licensure due to disability-related barriers, including limited language access, inadequate exam accommodations, and a lack of accessible supervision and continuing education. These challenges, though painful and traumatic, now motivate her work within SWEAR to advance accessible and equitable licensing practices for people with disabilities.

To balance her work life, she enjoys doing fitness programs and running, cooking new recipes, sampling food at restaurants, traveling and visiting new places, and spending quality time with her loved ones and her sassy cat, Bear.

Rachel Doyle, LICSW, is a clinical social worker, supervisor, and community advocate committed to building a more equitable, evidence-based, and accessible social work profession. She has worked across community mental health, healthcare, and nonprofit settings, providing clinical supervision, developing trainings, and strengthening systems that support both social workers and clients. She also has an interest in neurodiversity affirmative care.

Rachel became involved in the formation of SWEAR after years of supervising interns and new graduates who were exceptionally skilled, but whose careers were stalled or derailed by obviously meaningless high-stakes exams. That experience fuels her commitment to expanding fair, valid, and transparent pathways into the profession. Her leadership in Washington, DC advocacy efforts led to their non-exam alternative pathway becoming codified less than three years after reform efforts began.

She lives in Prince George’s County with her family, a silly dog, and two opinionated cats.