ECU helped advance alumnus to award-winning career
Victor Armstrong’s roots as a kid living in Plymouth who liked to watch sitcoms on TV — “I just knew I wanted to go to work with a suit on and come home with a suit on,” he said — helped to groom him professionally, as did being the son of a preacher and eventually gaining an interest in politics.
Armstrong flirted with the banking business for a few years, but it was enrolling and thriving in the East Carolina University Master of Social Work program in the mid-1990s that really molded him to later emerge as one of the most notable social workers in the state and region.
Victor Armstrong, a 1998 graduate from the East Carolina University Master of Social Work program, was named North Carolina’s top social worker. (Contributed photo)
“ECU really helped me to fully understand not just the feel-good part of social work, but the challenge of social work and the commitment required to really be a good social worker,” Armstrong said.
Armstrong’s commitment helped earn him this year’s National Association of Social Workers-North Carolina Chapter (NASW-NC) social worker of the year award. The 1998 ECU graduate has worked in human and social services for more than 30 years, including as the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services’ first chief health equity officer.
He recently transitioned to the position of chief diversity officer for the global organization RI International, which has an office in Greenville.
“There were a few instructors (at ECU) who were really influential in helping me just fall in love with social work,” he said. “I had a class in psychopathology, which is where I really started to delve into diagnoses and mental health challenges. I realized that is where my fascination was, thinking about just the struggles people face living with mental health challenges. When you think about social justice, that is a whole different realm of social justice because you’re talking about people who are discriminated really because of mental health issues they have. They can be discriminated from housing and employment. That is when I decided I wanted to dedicate my career to mental health.”
Suicide prevention and equity have been major points of focus for Armstrong while serving on various state boards.
NASW-NC executive director Valerie Arendt called Armstrong to inform him he had been chosen as social worker of the year. She noted Armstrong’s overall ability to empower.
“Victor Armstrong is truly the epitome of the social work profession, uniting his micro experience in social services with his macro work advocating for suicide prevention awareness, mental illness destigmatization and health equity to make a real change in the behavioral health system in North Carolina,” Arendt said. “North Carolina is truly lucky to have such a strong advocate for the empowerment of others.”
In determining an annual award winner, the NASW-NC board of directors emphasized how the nominated social workers have made an impact professionally and in their client communities.
“This (award), by far, was the most special, because it was from my peers and also it was really in recognition of work that, for me, is really the core of who I am and what I do,” Armstrong said. “To be recognized for something that you do because it’s part of who you are just makes it that much more special. … It was not something I was expecting or anticipating, so I was extremely surprised and pleased to find out.”
Armstrong, who lives in Charlotte, graduated magna cum laude in earning a bachelor’s degree from North Carolina Central University. He also received a 2018 Distinguished Alumni Award from the ECU School of Social Work.