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Forsyth names new director of social services

Christine Dowdell. Image courtesy of Forsyth County.

Forsyth County has a new director of social services. Christine Dowdell was chosen after a nationwide search. 

She has almost 30 years of experience in social services and has directed family services in Chowan County since 2018.

In Forsyth County, she'll manage more than 500 people. The county's social services department assists or administers a variety of programs for vulnerable populations, including food and nutrition programs, child support, and protective services for children and adults.

She also has ties to two of the area's HBCUs. Dowdell has taught classes at Bennett College in Greensboro and has two children who graduated from Winston-Salem State University. 

Dowdell will take over the Forsyth County position on February 28. She replaces former director Victor Isler, who left to take a job as an assistant county manager in Guilford County in November. 

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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