With a total of 44 loyal years of state service behind her, the first social worker ever to serve in a public defender office in North Carolina retired on December 13, 2023.
When the Durham Public Defender Office took on parent defense nearly two decades ago, there was an obvious need for the expertise of a social worker. Social workers by nature are helpers; they are change agents who are devoted to making a positive impact upon others and improving the lives of all those they encounter.
Vivian L. Duffin said she has always “had her hand in state jobs.” She had previously done work as a mental health social worker for the N.C. Prison System, serving the Sanford, Durham, Orange, Alamance, and Albemarle units by establishing home plans for inmates who were soon to be released. She has also been a program manager, and she even spent two years as a correctional officer for Central Prison in Raleigh and the Raleigh Women’s Prison.
But it was after a brief stint doing Medicaid and Medicare billing for a state agency, when she knew that her heart was not in her work. Determined to stay “rooted and grounded” in social work in downtown Durham, she sent out applications for local social work positions in the area. Soon she would land the job where she would spend the next 18 years helping to reunite children with parents who had “just made some mistakes.”
In 2002, Duffin was interviewed and hired on the spot. She spent the last 18 years of her career in Defender District 14, where she paved the way for public defender offices across the state to embrace adding full-time social worker positions to their legal teams.
IDS Deputy Director and General Counsel Whitney Fairbanks recalls as a former attorney for the Office of the Parent Defender, that Duffin’s presence on staff and the expertise she brought to the table “raised the bar for the parent defenders in Durham as well as the assistant public defenders doing the work there.”
Durham County Chief Public Defender Dawn Baxton planned a retirement celebration for Duffin Friday, December 1. Duffin said she was pleasantly surprised. She said the decorations were beautiful, the food was excellent, and the room was filled with her friends and colleagues, social workers from DSS, professionals from the Guardian ad Litem, deputies from the Office of the Sheriff, and many others.
“There was so much love in the room,” said Duffin about the retirement event. “When you are in it [the work], you don’t realize the lives you touch,” she said. “All the while, I thought it was them who were impacting my life,” said Duffin.
Here are some words of reflection, which Duffin shared about the work she did as a social worker for Defender District 14:
I love helping people. I like to go to bed at night knowing I have done some good for somebody. We may not always get what we want at the end of the day, but we get tomorrow. Even if at the end of the case, we don’t get reunification, and the client feels some kind of way… We tell them, “When your child comes back—because they will—keep a house with a door! You go out and keep a house with a door so down the road, when your child comes to that door and knocks, you will open it. And your child remembers, ‘Mama fought for me.’”
Here are some reflections from colleagues, both past and present:
Whitney Fairbanks had this to say about her time working alongside Duffin:
Vivian, through expertise and commitment really amplified my work. I was able to work every case harder because she was there helping with everything from running down a witness to reviewing discovery to attending meetings I could not. She also knew how to connect clients with important services, which sometimes meant that a client got everything they needed in place earlier rather than later. She saved families. Parent defense is different. It takes more than just a good attorney to do it. It takes a team. Vivian taught me that.
Assistant Public Defender Jane C. Campbell said:
She advocates strongly for the clients with the DSS social workers and the guardian ad litems assigned to each case, and she provides important emotional support to each of them. Vivian would often attend a visitation of a client to see for herself how the parent interacts with the children, instead of relying on what the DSS visit supervisor reports. She is also a cheerleader and uplifting co-worker. She definitely set a high standard for social workers for respondent parents.
Chief Public Defender Dawn Baxton said:
Vivian Duffin will surely be missed by our office. Not only did take care of our clients in Abuse, Neglect, and Dependency Court, but she made sure that her co-workers and colleagues felt valued and appreciated. She made sure every person in our office was celebrated on their birthday and received a special gift. She also made sure our office celebrated her favorite holiday, Christmas, with style and cheer. Her loving and caring spirit is a treasure that we hate to lose, but she has earned her time to relax and rest, and we wish her nothing but a great retirement.
What’s next?
Duffin said that in retirement, she plans to continue helping others. Duffin is the co-pastor of Light of the World Ministry alongside her husband the Reverend John Thorpe. She said for more than 20 years, they have been blessed with a faithful congregation. Together they serve the spiritual needs of their church family and extended community. Vivian L. Duffin may have left her day job, but that just means there will be more hours in the day freed up for her to serve others through the church ministry. And that is what she plans to do.
Congratulations on your retirement, Vivian. IDS wishes you the best of luck for the next chapter of your life! Thank you for setting the standard for social workers who serve in public defender offices so high. We wish every office in North Carolina had at least one of you.