Meet UMB’s Public Servant of the Year

About Kyla Liggett-Creel, PhD, LCSW-C

Kyla Liggett-Creel has spent more than two decades shaping programs and policies that center community voices and expand opportunity across the city of Baltimore. She has worked with schools, clinics, neighborhoods, and city hall task forces to ensure that those most affected by trauma and systemic inequities are part of solutions. Building on years of community partnership, Liggett-Creel now leads UMB’s EMBRACE Initiative as executive director. The initiative operates across four interconnected areas — violence prevention, youth leadership and development, system transformation, and training and technical assistance — and centers lived experience as the foundation of each. She has worked on the UMB campus since 2008, having previously served in roles with the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the University of Maryland School of Social Work.

Impact

One of EMBRACE’s most impactful programs, the Embrace Resource and Reentry Center, brings together credible messengers, peers, the UMB Police and Public Safety Department’s Community Outreach and Support Team, licensed social workers, social work interns, and community organizations to remove barriers that traditional social work alone has not been able to address. The ERRC has helped clients achieve over 3,700 tangible goals, including securing jobs, enrolling in drug treatment, and obtaining essential documents such as IDs and birth certificates. Working with the Eutaw Street Collaborative, EMBRACE contributed to an 83 percent reduction in open-air drug sales in that corridor. The initiative’s youth justice program achieved a 95 percent rate of no new arrests in the six months following enrollment.

Quotes

“I hope that some of this work begins the healing process and builds trust between the community and the University as an institution. I also hope that this Public Servant of the Year Award will inspire other leaders at the University to include, and center, the voices of those who have lived with the challenges, issues, and barriers that we are studying and trying to address to improve the human condition.” — Liggett-Creel

“Whether organizing community caravans to celebrate milestones or connecting residents with critical resources, Dr. Liggett-Creel embodies servant leadership in every sense. Her work has not only improved lives — it has inspired a generation of social workers, students, and community leaders to believe in the power of collective healing.” — Joni Holifield, founder and executive director of HeartSmiles, a nonprofit that supports Baltimore youth