Social workers have been, and always will be, an essential part of how we respond to the challenges we face in society. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, these essential services are needed more than ever, as the most vulnerable among us experience the most severe consequences. Yet, compared to other helping professions, the experiences of social workers and the ways in which they’re responding to the challenges we now face have received little to no attention.
In collaboration with the UCLA Luskin Social Welfare, this series of interviews hopes to shine a light on social workers’ unique experiences in a time of crisis, the challenges they face, and their ideas of what a more equitable future might look like if we can work together to bring about real change. It is our hope that these interviews, featuring GCSW alumni across the range of social work practice, serve to inform our community and the public at large about the essential role of social work in this unprecedented and life-changing moment in our history.
Conversations on COVID-19 | Social Work and Social Justice Perspectives featuring Marie Arcos (MSW '96)
GCSW Dean Alan Dettlaff interviews Marie Arcos (MSW '96), Executive Vice President, Government and Community Affairs at YMCA of Greater Houston about how the pandemic is influencing her work and the social work values and perspectives that inform his response.
Conversations on COVID-19 | Social Work and Social Justice Perspectives featuring Casey Malish (MSW '19)
GCSW Dean Alan Dettlaff interviews Casey Malish (MSW '19), Outreach Specialist at Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans, and Vice President, Houston Harm Reduction Alliance about how the pandemic is influencing his work and the social work values and perspectives that inform his response.
Conversations on COVID-19 | Social Work and Social Justice Perspectives featuring Dayna Gurley (MSW '17)
GCSW Dean Alan Dettlaff interviews Dayna Gurley (MSW '17), Emergency Center Social Worker about how she is responding to the pandemic and the social work values and perspectives that inform her response.
Conversations on COVID-19 | Social Work and Social Justice Perspectives featuring Ali Lozano (MSW '19)
GCSW Dean Alan Dettlaff interviews Ali Lozano (MSW '19), Voting Rights Outreach Coordinator at the Texas Civil Rights Project about how the pandemic is affecting the work she does and the social work values and perspectives that inform her response.
Conversations on COVID-19 | Social Work and Social Justice Perspectives featuring Helen Stagg (MSW '02)
"We have the kinds of questions that you might ask in every situation a crisis. Why is it that the poorest people are the people who have the worst consequences or the worst outcomes? That’s a basic question that we could begin to look at as a community to figure out then why is it that the poverty and the poorest people suffer more disproportionately than anyone else?
And then that helps to drive us on activities and implement interventions and things that we can work on together. You hear it said a lot that we're all in this together. Not just, we’re all in the uncertainty of the moment we're in, but we're all in it together in terms of how we're going to proceed, as we come out of it. Working together on that basic issue of why it is that the poorest of us suffer the worst consequences. And that's all of us. One of the ways that Change Happens will be using our imagination and ideas is to look at that basic question and then pull the pieces together to work on issues of advocacy and implementation and interventions that can help in areas so that people don't suffer disproportionately as we see now."
– Helen Stagg (MSW '02), Chief Executive Officer of Change Happens a community-based social service organization in Third Ward in Houston, Texas
Conversations on COVID-19 | Social Work and Social Justice Perspectives featuring Chau Nguyen (MSW '10)
GCSW Dean Alan Dettlaff interviews Chau Nguyen (MSW '10), Chief Public Strategies Officer for the Houston Area Women's center about how her agency is responding to the pandemic and the social work values and perspectives that inform her response.
Conversations on COVID-19 | Social Work and Social Justice Perspectives featuring Jennifer Battle (MSW '98)
“Listen to the stories of the people that you serve. Listen to the positive stories. I mean we, you know, if there's such a, him being social workers is the best, right? Like we, um, we are the receivers of gifts every day. You know, the gift of the stories that our clients share with us is so powerful. I think sometimes we get really caught up in the things that are missing in our clients' stories and all the huge gaps in care and the holes in service that need to be filled. And I think sometimes we're so focused on the deficits that we oversee or overlook the really positive things. I would really love for us to not only keep them, as we’re keeping the list of what's missing and what needs to be improved, but also [keep lists] of where things are going really well. As social workers we're in such a unique position in our community to hear those stories… But that's also a responsibility for us. And those positive stories are going to be just as impactful when we change legislation and we change systems and we push policy post-Covid as the negative things. Right? So we've got to have the balance of both.”
– Jennifer Battle (MSW '98), Director of Access, The Harris Center for Mental Health and IDD.
Conversations on COVID-19 | Social Work and Social Justice Perspectives featuring Melanie Toarmina Pang (MSW '12)
"What an obvious metaphor for how we could be thinking about everyday life…there’s just so many different ways to look at how, what my everyday actions are doing and how the ripple effect is going to impact everybody else in the world. One of the big opportunities that I see is there's a lot of government assistance going on right now. And it doesn't have to be assistance. It could just be the way that government operates, right? The way that our government and our economy or structure need to shift in ways that truly protect and support the very baseline of our, of our sustainability as a system, as a society."
– Melanie Toarmina Pang (MSW '12) Government Relations Officer, Houston Food Bank