NASW Social Work Talks - EP 112: Social Work is Everywhere Campaign

Episode Date: March 20, 2024

During Social Work Month 2024, the University of Kentucky College of Social Work is celebrating with the campaign "Social Work is Everywhere." The college is seeking to raise awareness that social workers help millions of people each day and work in a variety of settings, including many people may not be aware of such as sports and financial planning. NASW CEO Dr. Anthony Estreet sits down with Dr. Jay Miller, dean of the University of Kentucky College of Social Work, to talk about the campaign and the importance of promoting the profession.

Happy Social Work Month. I am Dr. Anthony Estreet, Chief Executive Officer of the National Association of Social Workers. Today, I'm your special host on NASW's Social Work Talks podcast. I would like to introduce our guest, Dr. Jay Miller. Dr. Jay Miller is Dean of the University of Kentucky's College of Social Work and an expert on child welfare issues and self-care for social workers and others in the helping profession. But today, Dean Miller is here to talk about his College's Social Work Month campaign. It's a campaign we think everyone needs to know about. Welcome to Social Work Talks, Dean Miller. Hey, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

So let's go ahead and jump right into it. So why did UK's College of Social Work decide to launch a campaign, Social Work is Everywhere? Well, so it's an interesting story. I was actually out walking around campus one day and, you know, on campus we have these group tours. Folks come on campus with their families and kind of go around and physically explore campus and all that UK has to offer. And I can never resist the opportunity to kind of run up to the group and start, you know, picking with them or talking to them about where they're from, what they're studying, all those kinds of things. and um there was a young lady i was speaking with and her mother was there and she asked me about social work and was sitting there talking about social work and her mom kind of chimed in and said

well you know where do social workers actually work and without thinking too much about it i just kind of responded i said like oh social workers are everywhere and i kind of kept going with the conversation. And she said, well, no, no, really, where do social workers work? And as I started to explain it, it was this funny thing that it was even occurring to me as I'm talking about it with her, that there's not a place that social workers aren't working or don't impact. And I think as I had the conversation with the mother, she was very surprised. She didn't realize, you know, people often think about CPS and social workers and that's where social workers are. But when we started talking about kind of say from womb to tomb, everything in between

policy and everything around is influenced, impacted, worked in around social work. And so I came back to the office. I said, you know, we got to do a better job at educating folks about where social workers are and what they do. And of course, somebody in the hall would say, well, where are they? They're everywhere. And so that kind of started this whole concept of trying to explain and educate folks about, you know, all that is social work and then all the social work is to be. No, you know, it's so important to have those conversations. And I think, you know, it certainly resonates with, you know, the current social work, my theme of empowering social workers. One of the things that I have been doing certainly is when I go around

and talk, it's really talking about this idea of social work branding. And, you know, it's interesting. So one of the things that I do, especially when I'm in large groups, is I ask people literally to raise their hand if they have social work in their title. And it's usually less people that have social work in their title than there are in that room. And so we really have to do this job of public awareness and public education around who actually is a social worker and what spaces are they in. I think one of the things that, and you mentioned it, yes, we started in child welfare, but we have expanded so broadly to include financial areas, IT, you name it, we are in everywhere. So I love the whole idea of social work is everywhere

because everywhere you look, it really does resonate to where a social worker can be. And then even to that, we're in an election year thinking about all the topics that are going to come up are going to be little areas where social work can address, whether it's from practice all the way to policy. And I think this is a great opportunity. So talk to me a little bit about some of the activities that you have planned for your campaign so i think um to your point one of the things that we're really trying to do is pick out places and spaces where you wouldn't typically think social workers are right so um i actually was having a conversation today with a couple students in the sports social workspace and we started talking about these social workers who

are in uh or work around these uh pro or college athletic teams um and and so as part of this campaign and again we're looking at it as a as a year-long thing so so much longer than well i'll be honest to me i think every month is social work month so so that's kind of where we start is is where uh you know we want to celebrate all the time but around you know just kind of uh pushing sharing in the social spaces information and getting people to think about all of these different places and spaces uh so doing um celebration appreciation events and spaces particularly in the health space. I think I would say the quickest growing health care need in the country is mental health care, yet we don't hear a lot about it in the context of other forms of

health. So the campaign is about kind of informing and influencing the way that people conceptualize social work and then how they understand where social work is. I also think a big piece of it is understanding the impact of social workers so for example in the policy space uh knowing and understanding that just because a social worker by title degree license etc might not be working in a space does not mean that space is not influenced by social work i think you know again the policy advocacy space is a really good example of that so at the end of the day the campaign is always, in all the ways, highlighting and showing, celebrating where folks are in their social work space, and then educating, you know, future social workers about where they could be.

I think that's another big part of what we're trying to do. No, I appreciate that, and I think that, you know, as we think about, you know, where we are in this public awareness, public education space, especially around social work. NASW was fortunate enough to engage Ipsos to do a public opinion survey. And what we learned was that 86% of the public is aware of social workers and that they work in social services, but they also know that 65% of those social workers work in mental health and substance use, right? Less than half of those know that social workers work in any other settings such as policy, advocacy, and community organizing. And so why do you think there's such a narrow view of the social work profession right now um this might sound tacky

we don't do a good enough job of talking about and framing it and naming it i'll say folks say what what do you think social work needs the most and i'll say a really good pr person right like we we sometimes we get so caught up in the job or the impact of what we're doing that not only do we forget to celebrate it but we forget to share it um you know i was uh somewhere the other day and i saw a little sign and it was talking it was discounts for something and it had first responders and police officers and all and it i got halfway mad like why why why social work not there right like and it's because i actually asked the lady who was at the front desk and she said it never occurred to her like it's something that she never thought about it's not that it was

an intentional slight or we're going to leave social work out. It's just that it didn't occur to them, which to me kind of ends up in the same place. But I think, you know, it's up to us to do a better job of pushing, sharing, celebrating the narrative, naming and framing out in all these spaces. You know, that's the only way folks are going to learn. And I think even for some social workers that i talk to sometimes they might not realize that social work is in all the space that it's in so we just have to to push and talk about it more and i think at the end of the day it expands the concept of social work such that it includes other folks and you know you got some some people running around today thinking about what they're going to major in well if they knew

all the places that social work were or what social workers were doing i think that some of those decisions become a lot easier. You know, it's so interesting, as I think and hear you talk, it really does resonate, you know, just back to just how well these overall kind of concepts of empowering social workers and social workers are everywhere, how they connect dearly to the work that we do, right? And so, you know, when I think about empowering social, exactly what you're talking about, like empowering us to say, hey, we are here and we are in these spaces. And really, again, it's funny that you mentioned this because while you got halfway mad, I get full mad every time I go somewhere and I see a first responder discount and I don't get one. I'm like, we were

first responders and we were superheroes during COVID. And now it's like, we don't have that same level of benefit. And so I do, and I have been talking to my team here about how do we get more benefits for social workers? How do we bring that awareness to some of these things? And one of those things that always comes up is how come social work is not considered as a first responding kind of profession when we do respond. I mean, we're in a place now where, you know, some people are just now talking about it, but social workers are responding to police calls when mental health happens. Right. And so I think that the more that we talk about where social work is and where it has been and also where we're going, I think it does help people to understand that we are

literally everywhere. And so, you know, I want to get back to this conversation and really, you know, what do you think social workers and other supporters can do to raise awareness and really talk about how diverse our profession is? Yeah, so I think it's interesting. I would say two things. I think, number one, one of the reasons that we're not in those spaces, I would say words are really, really important. And I draw a distinction between first reacting and first responding. And I think in some of those spaces they're first reacting uh you know social work we don't think about them as first responders because we we've always been there we were there before the thing happened and we'll be

there after the thing happened and so it's kind of like we're almost a constant there and so a lot of times you know a lot of the attention or energy is spent around an event that folks have to react to and they're not thinking about what was there before what's there during and then what will be there after so i think again how we frame it and name it you know i i think right now we should start claiming the space around first responding in a way that's consistent, persistent, sustained, as opposed to these kind of reaction spaces. And I think that that would go a long way in getting folks to understand all that is social work and then, frankly, all that it could be. And, you know, I don't think it's as hard necessarily as we make it.

I always say we should we should sell the concept of social work the same way we sell shoes or clothes or anything else. Right. It's kind of getting it down into consumable information that folks can can take in. And sometimes the thing they love and hate it for the same reasons, meaning something that's everywhere. It's really hard to talk about what it is. And even even sometimes I find myself when someone was asking, well, what do social workers do? that i'm like take a seat that's not a quick quick thing that you can answer right and and again that becomes part of the challenge so so for us it's it's really naming and framing in a way that makes it tangible for folks to to reach out and grab and then really focusing on the impact i think we could talk about the task of what people do but focusing on the impact is what folks are going to

remember so um you want to you you want to uh celebrate this change in the community you want to celebrate these mental health uh wins etc thank a social worker um and then the last point i would say like we have to be unapologetic about the work that we do um i say all the time i uh some of our my colleagues you know they're they're teachers or or medical doctors or whatever and i always say That's cute, but none of it moves without social work, right? So you think about with a school, it's hard to teach a kid who's hungry or who's been abused or who's not there. You know, you can't perform that physical medical care if they don't have a way to get

to your office in a persistent way. The policies that we advocate for, that we work on around access to things, we have to get better at being unapologetic about the work and the impact that emanates from that work. No, I agree wholeheartedly. And, you know, you bring up a very good point, right? And it's really expanding that, again, expanding that scope of social work, right? And so you're talking about moving beyond just the clinical services that social workers provide to getting into those community spaces, those resources, those connecting people back to other providers, right? And really this interdisciplinary approach that we take to the whole human, right? And so one of the unique things that we've always talked about in terms of social work education and kind of this unique pedagogy of social work is that we take people in their

environment and we are working with them and walking alongside them along this journey to wellness, whatever that may be for them, right? And so one of the things that we have been focusing on here at NASW, especially around empowering social worker is this issue of workforce, right? And so workforce is a whole lot of things. But when I thought about this Social Work Month theme, it really was trying to rally the profession around this issue around social work pay, right? And so that comes in a lot of different categories and different things. And so one that specifically, you know, thinks about like the educational space, there's been a lot of talk about around pay for placement and

all that good stuff and how that relates to workforce. And I just want to hear your thoughts on pay for placement, how it relates to workforce, social workers being everywhere and all that. Yeah. So I think, you know, that's something I've told my folks for years. We have a running bet taking the over under on getting to a space and grappling with social work has this unique training model whereby you do these placements and such prior to graduation, which is a bit unique in the way that we have it set up. And I think that it's certainly something that the profession in general, but in the education space specifically, is going to have to grapple with and figure out a way to balance out the preparation piece of what that looks like

with the workforce space of what that looks like. One of the things that we do, a couple of years ago, I started an initiative, it's called Corp Collab or C2 for short. But I've said the future of academe, at least in my opinion, is going to be in much more structured community, corporate-leaning partnership models where we are training folks, preparing them, educating them in ways that they're ready for a job day one. I'm sure you you have a lot of examples across your career where you walk into a space and say, well, let me teach you how we really do that.

It's like, shouldn't we have been doing that in school? Let's teach them how they really do it in the academic space so that when they come to you, they're ready day one. And I think field education can be a really important part of that. But I do think, you know, there are a number of different issues we're going to grapple with. the pay in the field piece is certainly one of them. Thinking about these partnerships and how folks move through an academic space, accessibility to me is always really big. How are we ensuring that folks have access to high quality education, be it online, virtual, digital, on campus or otherwise. And I think that a lot of that we get to by, to your point, empowering social workers to know and to understand that they have a responsibility and then a shared accountability

for what does or does not happen in those spaces. So it's going to take all of us being everywhere to make it happen. And then in some of these spaces, you know, we're going to have to have some critical discussion amongst ourselves. Every day I meet somebody who says they're a social worker and I'll say, oh, well, what'd you study? Where'd you go to school? And they say, oh, well, I got a PE degree. Or I got it. I'm like, well, that doesn't make you a social worker. But that's not what the public would think. I mean, a lot of those we throw around the term too loosely in no other place. I couldn't walk into a courtroom and say, I'm an attorney and I'm here to practice today. That would never fly. Same thing with nurses. Same thing with doctors,

these other allied helping professions. Yet in social work, for some reason, we think that it can. And again, I'm not casting a judgment on that. It's just an observation that it does complicate the discussion, even amongst ourselves. So I think part of the empowerment is being willing to have the tough discussion, getting to a place that we can all rally around, and then projecting that out to say, here's who we are, here's what we do, and here's what we need to continue to make these communities well. No, absolutely. And it's really one of those things where, you know, I'm glad you brought it up, right? This whole idea of critical dialogue, critical conversations, I think we need to lean more into those, right? Because, you know, we are

definitely at an inflection point within the profession when we think about social work pay, when we think about the interstate compact, when we think about this whole conversation around the examination. You know, you asked me earlier how things going in the NASW world. I was like, they're going because all these things are happening at once. Right. And so these are big issues to tackle in the social work space. And there's a lot of different conversations that people are just not willing to have or not willing to address at this time. Right. And I think that for many of these issues that we're seeing in the profession, as we think about, you know, empowering social workers, as we think about social work, social workers everywhere,

we also have to think about how we are working internally in our own profession to address some of these needs, right? Because what I am seeing is that a lot of the proposed solutions are coming from outside the profession where people are trying to dictate how social work should be, what should happen, what are the standards, as opposed to social workers having these critical dialogues because, you know, sometimes we're just in such a space where we don't want to talk to each other. And the critical dialogues is where we find solutions, right? It's in those places of conflict where we will find the solutions to the problems that we have. And I think, you know, you bring up a very good point in terms of, you know, being just being bold enough to have those conversations.

And really, to your point, you brought up the issue of just title protection in and of itself. And why don't we say as a social worker, you need to have X, Y and Z to call yourself a social worker? Yeah, and that's that's like if you think about no other professional discipline, it's still having that discussion. Like it just it's been, you know, settled, dealt with, et cetera. And it's I think coming to a space, you know, I grew up in foster care and I always I live my life and I try not to make judgments. I just make observations. And what I observe is that we're still having these discussions year after year after year after year. And so you're right. I think, you know, it's not my I would say my way is a way and not the way. and so having the discussion and getting to a space that we can all live with but i think one

of the things i say this to my students a lot is social work sometimes we get so caught up in the fight that we don't think about what comes next right um i've been in places and there's a there's a rally or something going on and i'll i'll take out a pen and a piece of paper and i'll walk up to somebody like all right we can do exactly what you want to do right now what you want to do And it's crickets, right? Like they haven't thought past the fight of what they're doing. And so certainly, you know, the organizing, the rally, like that certainly needs to happen. But then after that comes the work of getting to the change, whatever that change may be. um let me ask you so what do you think in terms of in the academic space like what what what more can the academic space do in terms of getting to an empowered space or getting to how can we um more differently impact or or shape or contribute to having some of these

dialogues or empowering folks to at least have some of these dialogues Yeah, that's a great question. And so, you know, it's interesting, right? So when I was before this role, I was a professor at Morgan and we had a lot of these critical dialogues. And I would really say that a lot of these conversations are already happening outside of us. They're happening within the student circles are happening within the spaces of of of MSW, BSW and PhD students. And they're coming up with some great ideas. You know, I always say when we talk about political action and, you know, the social justice movements of the past, you know, they were always fueled by the quote unquote younger folks. Right. And so we just have to stop and listen, because a lot of the solutions to the problems are going to come from people who have the energy to carry that forward. But also, right, because I say it's also a caution, right? We also have to be able to have those critical dialogues, as in, you know, as the young people are moving us forward and being progressive, they also have to be able to listen to the wisdom and knowledge of the past, so that they can guide the future and not make those same mistakes. And so when we talk about, you know, how can social work be more progressive? How can social work do this? There's a lot of innovative ideas out there. I had the opportunity last week to be on a call with the pay for placement group. Right. And so, you know, when people typically talk about pay for placement, you know, people are like, oh, well, where's the money going to come from? But when I sat down and had a conversation with that group, there were so many different ways that they were thinking about pay for placement in terms of alleviating the financial cost to students or the burden to students.

And it's not just money. It's reducing the number of hours that that is required for field placement. It is, you know, if there's a stipend like through the the HRSA and SAMHSA grants that went through schools of social work, they're talking about a lot of different ways to alleviate the burden that social work students have to endure while going through their educational degree. And so, you know, having more conversations like that helped me to understand really what they were looking for. And now we're at a place now where, you know, I can now carry their message and then create a platform so that their message could be heard by more people. Right. And so I think this is all about leaning into those critical conversations, but then also creating space for those conversations to continue to be had and develop over time. Yeah, that's interesting, because I think that that does happen a lot where, again, I think it's back to having a delineation between reacting and responding. I think most time folks, you know, particularly if you're in an academic administrative space, you might hear a placement issue or a paper placement and you always have an initial reaction to that.

But then getting to the responding of it, you put yourself in a space to kind of hear some of these other ideas where folks, they might not be talking about just cutting checks all the time, although that can be a part of the discussion. It's just I think there are different ways to get there. do think at the end of the day and you kind of touched on this point earlier again i say it a lot we need to figure it out before someone else figures it out for us and i don't think people sometimes i realize i say you know you don't always want to ask for rules because you don't like them when you get them but on the other side of that it can be somebody's going to figure this out. And it would behoove us to do it first, meaning figure it out first. And I certainly hope that folks are willing to not just have the conversation, because I do think that when it

comes a time where you got to move beyond the conversation. But yeah, it's an important part, but it can't be the end. We got to get to some action eventually. No, absolutely. And I think one of the interesting things, and, you know, we talk about this a lot. If we're not at the table and we're not making space for these conversations that are happening outside of us, and then somebody is going to take a solution and pop it down. And we've seen examples of that where people have put a solution and it just didn't work out the way they thought to because they didn't, you know, engage with social workers in that solution making process. But I do want to switch gears a little bit because, you know, you have been at the UK School of Social Work for some

time. I remember when you were first appointed to the dean position. So tell me a little bit about your story and why did you choose the social work profession? So again, that's one of them take a seat type situations, but I'll keep it short. Honestly, seven years old, I get called to the principal's office. There's a lady sitting there. She lady has a manila folder. It turned out she was a CPS worker. Of course, I didn't know that at the time, right? Walk into office and, you know, she immediately starts asking me all these questions about what's happening at home and all these things. And I don't know about you, but when I was growing up, you didn't talk about what happened inside your house, outside your house.

That just wasn't a thing. But, you know, I remember I had so much I wanted to tell this lady. I mean, I had a very tough childhood. Home situation was not not good at all. But I didn't feel like I had the space to do it, quite frankly. And I committed to myself that day that I was going to do what that woman did. Again, I didn't know what it was at the time, but that I was going to do it a different way and that I wanted to create spaces for young people to share the things that they were worried about or scared about or what have you. And that's really, I mean, not to make it sound any kind of fairytale because it certainly wasn't that, but I knew at seven years old that I wanted to be, I actually named it to be a CPS worker. I got to college and they said,

what do you want to major in? I said, I want to major in CPS. And not knowing that that wasn't the thing, but I think it's really what kind of drove me to that space and then got me to wanting to do and be impactful. I think in the academic space, honestly, I never set out to go into administration. I got into it because I got mad about something one day. I said, It shouldn't be like this. It doesn't have to be this way. And so, you know, I've been fortunate enough to be at UK with a great group of folks. You know, we kind of go there at times and we're willing to have some of these dynamic discussions to get to a better space. And so it's been, you know, a fun ride ever since. I always say I want the first couple of years. I want to redo, though, because I had to go through COVID. Right.

So stepping into the role and then immediately hitting COVID and having to navigate that from an administrative standpoint was tricky. But it's been fun. And it's it's I say it's to me, education is social work practice. It is a form of social work practice. I think sometimes we separate it and we talk about the well, the practice world or the real world. there's only one world uh we're all in it in a different way and i think i try to approach social work education as an arena of practice to think about it from a standpoint of you know you're a student of the thing you study you learn you regroup you make mistakes you do all of these things in the practice space and so i think and we try to try to mirror and mimic that in the academic space well empowerment you know the concepts that that you're talking about that's

something that we we want to do not just in the student space but to faculty and staff and these other stakeholders and get them to understand that um you know that there's enough social problems for everybody and we need everybody to help to help fix them and so there's no need for us to get territorial or worry about yours and mine no if you got something that will help ours come on we we need you and we'll try to contribute where we can to the other ones but uh that's that's the concept, at least to me, every morning I wake up that keeps me going is to know and understand that we're all trying to get to the same place and there's enough of that problem for everybody. There's no need for us to waste energy fighting about it. We need to put our energy in finding

some solutions and getting beyond the discussions. And so, yeah, I think you bring up a lot of great points, especially around just, you know, figuring out this, this collaboration, this connection between practice and education and that we are, we are one social work profession, right? And so from education to retirement and beyond, right? We, we are all in the same kind of profession doing different things and at different spaces, right? So I do think that, you know, being able to celebrate all aspects of social work is one of those things that really, really highlights your theme of social work is everywhere. I think the other part too is, and you're speaking to it, is really just this idea of the workforce again, right? And really how do we leverage our workforce,

but also protect our workforce, right? And so you mentioned the idea or the CPS worker, right? And that comes up a lot, right? In terms of CPS, what does that workforce look like, social workers and all that good stuff. And then we also hear this narrative around large caseloads. And so I know that you're one of the leading experts on self-care. And I see behind you, you had the self-care lab merchandise going on and all that good stuff. So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about, give me some thoughts about self-care and why is this an important issue to the social work workforce? I would say it is the most pressing issue. You talk about grand challenge. there's no bigger or more grander challenge than the concept of wellness among the people doing

the work period full stop and so you start there and again it was funny how it struck me one day you know i was i had set out once i got into the academic space i was a child welfare researcher i did all my research funding etc was in the foster care space um and as i was doing the work you know one day it struck me like, well, maybe I should be trying to do something about the workers and supporting them because that's how we're going to get to the outcomes for these young people. And, you know, ever since then, I kind of joke, I've been trying to run away from self-care ever since then. And I have been able to do it because you start to realize that it is truly the thing you talk about everywhere. It transcends your practice space, your practice locality,

et cetera. And so, you know, starting from a place of understanding that it is a necessity, it's not a nicety, it is a necessity. And myself and some colleagues, we've actually argued that there's an ethical imperative related to doing and practicing self-care as it relates to whatever arena of practice that you're in. You think about, we often talk about impaired practitioners, But we talk about it from the perspective of substance misuse. You don't hear folks talk about it from the perspective of burnout or being jaded or, to your point, you know, too many cases that lead to these other inimical consequences. So with the self-care lab, I kind of set out in this space to really focus on the science of self-care and wellness. So did a lot of research and, you know, wrote papers and such around different spaces and places, looked at a lot of different things. Interestingly, maybe to you, one of the things that I've written about and found in several studies is that if you're, you know,

folks who participate in professional member organizations tend to have higher levels of self-care compared to those who don't. And we've actually published papers about that. But I think it's one of those things where we all have to be attentive to. For many reasons, we're not. You know, I call it the helping profession curse, meaning we're socialized to think about the needs of everyone else and not ourselves and particularly social workers. I remember the first time I got up to do a self-care talk and it was in front of a group of social workers. And I said, hey, I need all y'all to understand that your needs are as important as the people you seek to serve. Now, I said as important so people would feel good about it. I thought they were more important, but I was going with as important, right, to help people. And folks were like, you can't say that.

Like, you know, we're here for our clients and we're here for this. And it's funny to me how the very thing, the mission, the passion, the thing we want to do, sometimes we're not able to because we don't take care of ourselves or we don't invest in ourselves. And so to me, again, there's no bigger challenge to workforce than having a dynamic, vibrant, healthy workforce. That doesn't mean it's not stressful. It doesn't mean it's not hard at times. It just means that it's manageable in a healthy way. And I think even if you think about recruiting people into the workforce, I was with a group of child welfare workers. um i was traveling and i was listening to them talk about the job and i just kind of started laughing they said dima what are you laughing about i said listening to this like who would

ever want to go in to this job it sounds like y'all talking about prison time is what it sounded like and they kind of laughed because i think it's one of those things where you know we don't we wonder why people think a certain way about the job well sometimes that's what we project and not to say that that's not real it's a very real thing but we can address that self-care is both the intervention and the prevention and so if you're going to be a sustained practitioner dealing with the things of today you're going to have to take care of yourself and self-care lab we try to do a lot of research provide services and help and resources around doing just that no thank you i appreciate that and i think you know what you're saying resonates a whole lot

Because one of the things that, you know, as we're doing and talking about empowering social workers, I often tell people, especially when I do my talks during this month, is the more you take care of your social worker, the social worker will take care of everything else. And so what I mean by that is when we're talking about social work pay, you pay your social worker good, they will be there to do the things right when you are having good benefits and, you know, vacation, all that good stuff. All those things will lead to job satisfaction, longer time in job and, you know, just overall happiness in the role. Right. And that stops the the the leak that we see when we see people leaving the profession. I think the other thing, too, and I just want you to talk about it a little bit, because there's this kind of a misnomer in the field that the remedy for burnout is somehow taking a vacation. And that has always been kind of what we hear. Oh, you know, to prevent burnout, take a vacation, go get a massage. Those are parts of taking care of yourself, but that is not the solution to burnout.

So you can talk a little bit about that. Yeah, so I think, and again, this is one of those things where we could talk for days about the problematic framing around self-care. And there's a lot of, again, these myths and misnomers. And one of them is that it's some kind of emergency reaction to a crisis. I kind of joke with folks. if I hear that whole mask airplane analogy one more time, I'm going to lose it, right? Because if you think about it, you know, they always like, well, put your mask on first and

take care of yourself and you can take care of others. But if you think about it for a second, if you fly out on a plane and those masks come down, something's already wrong. It's already too late. Like something has happened and it's not good, right? And so like, why do we have to wait for that? Self-care, it is a way of being, it is a way of approaching your work. It's a vital part of your work, and we view it as separate from, and that becomes the fundamental foundational problem of how we think about it. So viewing it as an integrated thing that you must do to sustain your work is important. I think, too, we often muddle together self-care and self-care practices, and those are two different things. You'll see folks, no, not to my mindfulness people,

but you'll see folks talk about mindfulness, self-care. Mindfulness is a self-care practice. Yoga is a self-care practice. Medication is a self-care practice. So what can happen is if we're not careful, I like to, I go to the gym. That's my self-care. I go to the gym. And if I'm not careful, if I say, hey, Dr. E, do you go to the gym? And you say, no, I say, oh, you don't practice self-care. Well, that's not true. You might garden or book, you know, do a million different things so we often confuse practices with self-care as a concept and we kind of get sideways from ourselves i think another piece is this i always say self-care is a form of empowerment and and what i mean there is when you think about i tell practitioners all the time

if you are waiting for your organization to somehow come around to the idea of wanting to take care of you, good luck because you'll be waiting, right? Like we often put it off as if it's someone else's responsibility. And that is not to say we definitely have to be mindful of these larger systemic things, caseload, work policies, et cetera, that are related to our wellness and self-care. But we must be empowered to know and understand it is self-care for a reason. And that as an individual, you know, you have some power and authority that you should exercise around caring for yourself in whatever way that looks like to you, whether it's taking a nap, sitting out on your porch, spending time with your loved ones, then you do that because

that will help you to be a better practitioner. I also think it's really important to point out a couple of years ago, I kind of started writing about this concept of pernicious practices. what I mean there's a just because it soothes you does not mean it is good for you uh so you think about um uh now we'll often talk about uh they got this thing what they call it um um retail therapy you know you're feeling bad about yourself go shopping you know like and that could be all good if you got money in the bank right like if you if not you're into these pernicious practices or You know, if you if you go to happy hour every day that, you know, you might be in a toxic relationship or something like just because it makes you feel good or soothes you does not mean it is good for you. I used to, you know, I was a big cigar smoker. I love to smoke cigars.

I don't know where I picked up. And I had actually convinced myself and I know better, but I convinced myself that somehow in moderation they were OK. No, they're not. Right. So that's a pernicious practice. And so self-care is about what you do, but it's also about what you don't do. And I think really understanding, you know, particularly for a lot of social work practitioners, just because it soothes you does not mean it's good for you. And so sometimes you really got to think through your wellness and self-care in a critical way and assess it. I would say you got to have some critical friends around you, some folks who keep it real and tell you what it what it is and tell you what it's not. And I think through several of those spaces, you get to a place where you can sustain a professional career in a way that can be impactful in the way that you want to.

No, definitely. Thank you for that. And really, you know, this conversation has really been great. It really has reminded me that social workers are everywhere. You know, we want to continue to empower social workers to really advocate for themselves on behalf of themselves and really to practice good self-care. I think that is, you know, if we're going to really talk about the profession and the workforce, we have to talk about how people are entering the profession, but also how they're maintaining and remaining in the profession. And so, Dean Miller, I want to thank you for joining us today.

The conversation has been very, very insightful and really open it up for any last words you want to say to everybody and then we'll close out from there. No, I just, you know, always a reminder for folks to engage in self-care, take care of yourself. If you don't do it, no one will. Again, I always say social work was built for this, whatever this may be. I think, you know, moving forward, the key to a well-functioning society is and can be found in the social workspace. And so thank you, Dr. E, for having me.

I think as well for the stuff that you all are doing in the professional association in ASW space, you know, I was telling you earlier, I've been able to engage with some of your folks and I really appreciate their willingness to engage in discussions and to think about things that maybe we were talking about a concept and they said, well, we haven't, we haven't done that before, but it doesn't mean that we can't. And I think that's always the best way to start a conversation. So I appreciate you all in the collaborative spirit to, again, kind of advancing some of these ideas down the road.

No, I think that's definitely one of those places where, you know, we continue to innovate. We continue to listen and try new things and see what we learn. Right. It could be something that takes us to the next level or either way we're going to learn from it. And so I want to thank you. I want to thank everybody for listening to the Social Work Talks podcast. enjoy and have fun and we will be posting this on the podcast as an audio and youtube as a video thank you so much you have been listening to nasw social work talks a production of the national association of social workers we encourage you to visit nasw's website for more information about our efforts to enhance the professional growth and development of our members to create and

maintain professional standards and to advance sound social policies. You can learn more at www.socialworkers.org. Don't forget to subscribe to NASW Social Work Talks wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for joining us. We look forward to seeing you next episode.