Got a Happy Story? Social Work Edition

Got a Happy Story is a community gathering every Friday night where we share stories large and small that have put a smile on our face.  It is a time to acknowledge the joy and wonder we experience.  The Happy Story diary exists as a way to anchor the community in hope and comfort while we do the hard work of taking back our country. Everyone and all sorts of stories and pictures are welcome. May we find joy and strength here.

March is Social Work month and it seems only fitting that I recognize that in some way.  I struggled to figure out what I wanted to do when I grew up.  It took me 8 years of college courses at night, switching majors regularly, before I earned my degree.  Even then, four months into a new job at a Boston teaching hospital, I still wasn’t sure about a profession.  That was almost 20 years ago and I had no idea that the fluke of a job I’d landed would grow into a career.

I’d been volunteering at our local AIDS organization, going to school, and working as a receptionist at a different teaching hospital.  I knew that the receptionist position that I tolerated while juggling coursework would never be satisfying once I graduated.  My experience in AIDS volunteering gave me a foot in the door to the new position.  I would be working for the Social Work department and placed in the Home Care department of the hospital.  My job was to visit frail and homebound patients and to connect them with services.  Two thirds of my caseload were elderly and the rest were younger chronically or terminally ill patients.  I loved the work; I loved my patients; and I loved my colleagues in Home Care.

Social Work, the profession, was a mystery to me.  I hadn't taken any social work or psychology courses in college.  Over 90% of the social workers in my department had Master's degrees.  I was introduced to the profession through supervision.  Every week I would meet with my supervisor and discuss my patients.  Initially it seemed ridiculous to me because my supervisor didn't work in Home Care and knew nothing about the services I was trying to arrange.  And it seemed absurd to spend time talking about what might be going on with people rather than just getting them what they needed.

But my patients taught me that it wasn’t as easy as filling out forms and making phone calls.  Some patients alienated their home health aides.  Others feared that accepting a sliding scale meant they were taking welfare.  Others had family members that tried to refuse services in order to control their relative’s assets.  It took me 2 visits to figure out that the reason one woman’s groceries weren’t being delivered was because she was ordering them through the air conditioner.  That was my introduction to schizophrenia.

I always say that I went to graduate school because I was sick of the MSWs taking away my favorite patients.  I connected easily with patients and they often told me things while I was filling out paper work.   And it seemed that just as I was beginning to find out what their troubles were, and just as I was really beginning to care for them, the case would be considered "complex" and reassigned to one of the MSWs.  My supervisor was right to do that; I had no training in social work or psychology—not even a 101 course.  But I couldn’t see that at the time.  She taught me about transference, the emotions and dynamics with others redirected at the provider, and countertransference, the provider’s emotions and buttons with the client.  I realized that if I wanted to control my own caseload I needed to attend graduate school.

By that time I had no problem seeing Social Work as the profession for me.  I had learned that Social Work was not solely interested in the intrapsychic life of the client.  Social Work was all about the person in the environment.  Social Work sees that the individual’s level of functioning is affected by relationships with others and by societal forces.  I had also learned that social justice was an essential part of the profession.  Social Work combined my love for people with my political awareness of economic injustice.  

Once in graduate school I fell further in love with the profession.  My first year placement was in the sexual abuse unit of a child guidance agency.  My little clients introduced me to the world of play therapy and showed me how important the therapeutic process could be to their functioning.  My second year internship was in a community mental health center where I learned how to do group and family work.

I entered graduate school with a strong idea of where I wanted my career to go.  My coursework and internships steered me in a different direction.  I work part time while I juggle the care of a child with special needs and a husband with cancer.  I have that flexibility that is so necessary for my family.  I control my own caseload, with a bit too much of an assist from the insurance industry.

This week I’ve had contact with people I met while in grad school.  Yesterday I spoke with a woman I met in my first year internship.  She came in to supervise the therapists running sex offender groups.  I had the opportunity to sit in on those supervisory sessions in order to learn about that work.  Eighteen years later we’re each working with different members of the same family.  And just today I spoke with a former classmate.  She’d just met with one of my former clients who’d moved away.  It was a complete fluke that my former client ended up on her case list.  In an odd irony, the only class we’d had together was on substance abuse treatment, the very thing bringing the client back into treatment.

I think back over the clients I’ve known, people who continue to live on in my heart and mind years after I’ve seen them last, and I’m awed by their strength, courage, and candor.  It’s such a privilege to be invited into someone’s life and an honor to witness their journey.  I’m so grateful to be a Social Worker.

What’s your happy story this week?