Katherine Epps

Katherine Epps, LCSW, is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Virginia. She earned her Master's of Social Work from Rutgers University and a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from the University of Maryland Global Campus.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Katherine completed her internship with the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), where she provided crisis services to survivors of sexual violence. Following graduation, she began her career at Chesapeake City Correctional Center, delivering mental health services to justice-involved individuals.

Katherine currently serves as the District Mental Health Clinician for the Hampton and Newport News offices of Probation and Parole within the Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC), Community Corrections Division. In this role, she collaborates with treatment teams to develop creative interventions for individuals with serious mental illness, helping them successfully complete community supervision and reduce the risk of recidivism. She also works to ensure that individuals with mental health conditions are connected to effective, community-based treatment providers to promote stability and long-term success. She is also an active member of her community’s reentry council and serves as chair of the Mental Health and Substance Use Subcommittee.

Her professional contributions include developing and facilitating mental health awareness trainings to reduce stigma and discriminatory practices associated with mental illness, as well as creating the current mental health in-service training used in VADOC Community Corrections. She has also collaborated on the development of a regional mental health screening tool to identify individuals at risk of falling through systemic gaps that may contribute to reincarceration. Additionally, Katherine contributes to statewide initiatives, including committees focused on redeveloping suicide prevention training across VADOC and strengthening collaboration between VADOC and community mental health.

Katherine’s scholarly and professional goal is to utilize knowledge gained through the DSW program to improve correctional and community practices for justice-impacted individuals with mental health needs. She is committed to advancing equity, reducing systemic barriers, and amplifying the voices of this underserved and underrepresented population.