Health Care Veteran Named Social Welfare Officer
Episcopal News Service. April 14, 1983 [83065]
NEW YORK (DPS, April 14) -- Marcia L. Newcombe, a nurse and counselor, has been named staff officer for Social Welfare at the Episcopal Church Center.
Newcombe was appointed April 1 by Presiding Bishop John M. Allin. She succeeds Woodrow W. Carter who retired March 31 after 11 years in the post and 15 years on the Church Center staff.
As staff officer for social welfare, she is responsible for working with most of the Church's agencies involved with delivery of human services: welfare, bail and criminal justice reform, and ministries among aging, deaf, alcoholics and other groups. In addition to her work with these social and specialized ministries, Newcombe will monitor social services legislation and serve as ecumenical liaison to educational and activist groups in these areas.
Newcombe's background ranges from hospital nursing through administrative, educational and supervisory experience to private-practice counseling. She is a native of Philadelphia where she studied nursing at Mercy Douglass Hospital and then worked as a surgical nurse there.
Later she worked in a variety of hospital services before beginning to concentrate on psychiatric work. Before joining the Church Center staff she was mental health nurse and supervisor at the out-patient department of South Beach Psychiatric Center in New York.
She holds a bachelor's degree in psychiatry from the College of Staten Island and a master's degree in social work from Hunter College.
A member of All Saints' Episcopal Church in New York, she has served her parish as trained lay pastoral minister and as an educator. She is active in a number of professional and civic organizations. Her husband Edward, a retired New York City policeman, is on the staff of the Diocese of New York. They have two children and live on Staten Island.
Carter joined the Church Center staff in 1968 after a career in social work that included case work, supervision, administration, teaching and advocacy, both here and in Canada.
He organized, and served as staff to, a commission on social and specialized ministries that has brought new strength and direction to these fields. The commission is now an active partner in the Church's Coalition for Human Needs and has been a key factor in the establishment of numerous diocesan panels on family life, drug abuse, and aging.
The criminal justice and welfare systems of the country have been a strong interest of Carter's in recent years. He served a lengthy term as chairman of the Ecumenical Minority Bail Bond Committee, a group with a highly-successful record in maintaining access to this part of the justice system for minorities.
Carter has been honored for his work by the Virginia Seminary and by the General Convention and the Executive Council.