GRACE Education Event | Expanding Career Pathways in the Field of Aging
Alyssa Aguirre, LCSW-S, serves as the Assistant Director of Dementia Care Transformation for The University of Texas Dell Medical School Department of Neurology and is an Assistant Professor of Practice at the UT Steve Hicks School of Social Work. She has dedicated her social work career to designing innovative models of support for family caregivers of individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders (ADRD) within health care systems. Her current research is focused on validating family caregiver outcome measures and using machine-learning techniques to support dementia care partners. Alyssa’s mission is to improve the quality of life of older adults living with dementia and their family caregivers through clinical practice, education, research and community collaboration.
Van Doan, LCSW, obtained her MSW with Advance Generalist focus from Grace Abbott School of Social Work, University of Nebraska at Omaha. Since her graduate education, Van has worked in a variety of settings with diverse populations including domestic violence shelters and housing for women and children, non-profit legal and community health programming for immigrant adult/older adults, benefits counseling for older adults, hospital social worker for children and families, and mental health and group facilitator, and hospice social worker. In 2019, Van obtained her LCSW licensure. Currently, Van is the Culture & Arts Education Coordinator at the City of Austin, Asian American Resource Center developing and implementing intergenerational cultural programming for youth, families, and older adults in Austin.
Kcie Driggers, LCSW, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and the Chief Program Officer at Senior Services of Austin, a geriatric care management agency that serves older adults and adults living with disability in the greater Austin area. She graduated from The Steve Hicks School of Social Work in 2018. During graduate school, Kcie was a GRACE Scholar and a member of the initial cohort of the Integrated Behavioral Health Scholars program. She is proud to serve as a Practicum Instructor for first year GRACE Scholars.
Rachel Neely, LMSW, is the Director of Medicaid Policy for ADvancing States. In this role, she leads policy and regulatory analyses related to Medicaid long-term services and supports, provides technical assistance and consulting to state Medicaid and operating agencies, and supports state projects and initiatives. Before joining ADvancing States, Rachel worked for over five years at the Texas Health and Human Service Commission, where she served as a Policy Specialist and then Senior Policy Advisor. In these roles, she served as policy lead for Consumer Directed Services, the state’s self-direction option; subject matter expert for Medicaid personal care services; and project lead for implementation of the federal Home and Community Based Settings Rule.
Ms. Neely holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the College of William & Mary and a master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Texas at Austin. She also holds a graduate certificate in Public Administration from the University of Virginia.
Nadia Velasquez, LCSW-S, (she/her/hers) is a graduate of the Steve Hicks School of Social Work. She is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Board Approved Social Work Supervisor.
Nadia began her career in the non-profit sector as a hospice social worker providing anticipatory grief and loss support to patients and families coping with a terminal prognosis. Nadia continues her passion of advocating for accessible mental health services for all, with a focus on older adults. Presently Nadia provides in-home psychotherapy services to homebound adults at Family Eldercare in addition to offering contract therapy services at Austin Center for Grief and Loss.
Nadia has extensive experience working with adults in areas of mental wellness, aging, life transitions, chronic illness, generational trauma, grief, and loss. Nadia is mindful of how systemic barriers may keep individuals from seeking out mental health services. As a result, Nadia incorporates a culturally sensitive, collaborative, and relational approach to therapy. Additionally, Nadia is an alumni of American Society on Aging’s ASA RISE Fellowship, Cohort 2.
Outside of work Nadia enjoys spending time outdoors, cooking, eating local Austin food and spending quality time with her family.
