Social Workers “Unsung Heroes and Sheroes”
(April 2003)
We must celebrate the vital role that social workers play in our society.
While we in the human service professions fully recognize the value of professional social work, the general public does not. Social workers are truly undervalued, misrepresented and misunderstood; they are truly unsung heroes and sheroes. The media rarely publicize the activities of social workers and when it does, the presentations are almost always negative and often are not about professional social workers.
Positive program results are attributed to psychiatrists or psychologists, administrators or even politicians. We only read or hear about social workers when someone in a department of social services does something wrong.
Social workers were the unsung s/heroes of 9/11. When the dust settled, hundreds and hundreds of social workers were counseling the families of victims helping them to cope with the loss of husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, friends and neighbors.
Social workers treated firemen and police traumatized by months of digging through debris as they searched for the remains of their own fallen comrades. They worked with children who had seen things no one should ever see and helped men and women who had lost jobs, businesses and livelihoods. They helped and continue to help New Yorkers heal.
Yet, as important as this work is, it is invisible to the public at large. We don't read about them in the newspapers or see them on the television news. Why not?
Social workers are not valued for several reasons. One is because they generally work with clients who themselves are not valued - the poor, the troubled, substance abusers, the ill, people of color. Another is because they are perceived as “do gooders” and, sadly, our society does not put much value on doing good.
I n fact, social workers are “do gooders” and doing good does have real value both for the individuals who are helped and for society as a whole. may otherwise go on for generations.
It is substance abusers and the mentally ill who fill our jails, men and women for whom treatment would be far more effective than incarceration. More than 22,000 of the State's prison inmates, fully one third of the total prison population, are incarcerated on drug charges. Nationwide, correction officials estimate that 14% of inmates suffer from serious mental illness.
To imprison these groups, New York State spends $110,000 to build a jail cell ($220,000 with debt service) and $32,000 each year on operating costs. Yet studies show that more than two-thirds of untreated parolees will begin abusing substances again within only three months of release. Incarceration is very expensive and it doesn't work.
Social workers, on the other hand, are more cost effective. A social worker, using the powerful tool of group therapy, can treat hundreds of substance abusers each year and indirectly influence the lives of thousands of their family members, friends and the larger community. Studies show that treatment can be 10-15 times more effective in reducing drug related crime than incarceration. Nationally, treatment programs cost an average $6,500 per participant and represent an economic savings to society of $68,800 annually in avoided incarceration costs and taxes paid by former offenders, not to mention the cost to society at large.
Social workers can help students struggling in school by looking at all the issues affecting that student's ability to learn. Social workers are uniquely trained to look at the whole system of psychosocial factors affecting the individual. In the process they can ensure that society's very substantial investment in education is effectively spent on each and every child with needed support to their families.
There are countless other sectors of society where social work can address personal and family problems before they reach crises - with all the emotional and financial costs involved.
Social workers provide most of the country's mental health services. Government studies show that 60% of mental heath professionals are clinically trained social workers, compared to psychiatrists (10%), psychologists (23%) and psychiatric nurses (5%). Over 40% of all disaster mental health volunteers trained by the American Red Cross are professional social workers.
Professional social workers are found in every facet of community life, schools, hospitals, mental health clinics, senior centers, elected office, private practices, prisons, military, corporations, and in numerous public and private agencies that serve individuals and families in need. Social work is one of the fasted growing professions, expected to expand 30% by 2010. Currently, nearly 600,000 people hold social work degrees.
Yet at this time of fiscal hardship, due to the lack of appreciation for the role that social workers can play in helping our city to solve fiscal problems, government's reaction is to cut back on social work programs that really make a difference. They are laying off social workers, cutting back on mental health services to adolescents, cutting back on training for foster parents, substance abuse, HIV education, batter workshops, etc, in essence cutting back preventative measures thus opting for more costly alternatives. We must commit to educating the general public with special emphasis on legislators about the true value of professional social work.
As our National President Terry Mizrahi says, “We know you're making a difference but you have to tell other people how you're making a difference. How do we tell the rest of the world how social workers are making a difference?
The next time a client or community group or constituency thanks you for your work, instead of being humble and saying
you're welcome, you can say, “ would you express how I,ve helped you to the director of my agency or to President Bush.
• Then, give e-mail, fax, address, phone number
• This is completely voluntary
• Not coercion
• It is about people telling the importance and value of social work
We must first honor our unsung heroes and sheroes by valuing them and seeing after their care. Secondly we must keep the contributions that social workers make in dealing with our society's most serious problems in the forefront daily. Social workers work on healing broken
The City and the State are confronting what can only be described as a fiscal crisis. I believe that social workers can be one of the solutions to these financial problems.
I recently attended a presentation by Broo klyn District Attorney Charles Hynes in which he described the work of social workers on his staff. One doesn't often think about social workers and prosecutors working together. Yet he pointed out that almost every case that comes to court has family issues associated with it - domestic violence, substance abuse, school problems, unemployment, child abuse and neglect. As families go through the court, these problems are exacerbated. Generally, the court doesn't deal with these problems because that is not the business of the court. As a result, families cycle back through the court system over and over again.
By assigning social workers to address some of these problems, the system can prevent families from repeating these endless and costly patterns of crime and abuse. In domestic violence cases, for example, social workers can work with both batterers and the battered partners to address problems in their relationships ensure the family's safety. Social workers can provide or secure access to parenting skills training to avoid foster care placements that are so costly in both emotional and financial terms. Treatment and counseling can spare children from growing up to repeat the family pattern of abuse that