NASW Social Work Talks - EP 134 - Strengthening Community: Social Workers at the YMCA

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

Join the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and the YMCA for an inspiring conversation about the vital role social workers play in strengthening communities. We explore how the YMCA's mission aligns with the social work profession to promote well-being, mental health, and youth development. Hear stories from the field, learn about innovative programs, and discover the many ways social workers are making an impact at the Y. Our host, April Ferguson, NASW's Senior Practice Associate for Children and Adolescents, chats with our featured guests, Anna Stindt, MSW, APSW – Mental Health Director, La Crosse Area Family YMCA and Diara Jackson, LCSW-C Senior Executive Director, Social and Emotional Learning, Youth Development & Big Brothers Big Sisters, The Y in Central Maryland.

This episode of Social Work Talks is brought to you by the National Association of Social Workers. It's that time of year again, time for the NASW Leadership Nominations. But first, here's our show. Welcome. This is Social Work Talks. I'm your host, April Ferguson, the Children and Adolescent Senior Practice Associate at the National Association of Social Workers. The title of today's podcast is Strengthening Community, Social Workers at the YMCA. And joining us today is Anna Stitt and De'Ara Jackson to discuss social workers and the why. Anna is a certified advanced practice social worker that joined the La Crosse area family

why team in December of 2022. Anna has over 15 years of experience working in a variety of settings as a social worker and community involvement in La Crosse. As the mental health director, Anna provides staff training, mental health awareness, and messaging to the why. and is involved in a variety of mental health outreach in the community as well, such as Mental Health Coalition, Partners with School Districts, and the United Way. De'Ara Jackson, LCSWC, brings over 15 years of dedicated experience in community-based mental health with a dynamic career spanning psychotherapy, clinical leadership, and senior executive roles. She has served as clinical director for multiple outpatient mental health

Clinics, and currently holds the position of Senior Executive Director of Social-Emotional Learning at the Y in Central Maryland, where she also leads mental health initiatives for Big Brothers and Big Sisters at the Y. In these roles, De'Ara provides strategic leadership and oversight to programs that promote mental health, emotional well-being, and trauma-informed care across diverse populations. Thank you both for joining me here today. And we're just going to hop right in because it's an exciting topic and a really great episode. Can you tell us about yourself and what interested you in the social work profession?

Yeah, I can go ahead and start. This is Anna. And I wanted to share, really, I think what ultimately led me to social work and the path I presumed or have done is really the ability to help others and really looking at things through a system. I really enjoy working with systems change and multi-levels and that has kind of guided and really realized where I've gone is not only looking at individuals, but also the administrative end of social work as well and how systems all come together in the end to truly help people or how we can make systems work together in the end result to help individuals. Hey, Diara. So I am, as you already stated, a clinical social worker. I came to social work because I think in a nutshell, because I believe in people and I believe in communities and I believe in social work's ability to touch multiple areas, to create opportunities for people to be people in communities, to be who they intend to be, to be what they want to be.

but they intend to be to actualize growth. Similar to what Anna said, I like that social work looks at multiple systems as a conduit for change. So social work just kind of was like all the things that I wanted to do in kind of one area. I love those answers. And I definitely agree that social work

is definitely all the things and we do a lot since that's why I'm glad we're talking about the fact that. We're also at the YMCA because in planning this podcast and talking about it, I talked to several social workers who didn't even know there were social workers at the YMCA. So this will be an insightful conversation. But what roles do social workers play within the Y and how does your work support and align with the YMCA's mission? Yeah, I think it's so often we don't think of using our skills outside of a typical social work job, you know, title or job description. and I'm hoping maybe this gives some light for some people to realize that is often when we start

after graduation and we have our degree in social work if that's a BSW or MSW or your LCSW you're looking for that specific title or that specific job description and we don't often look at the skills that we got behind that degree or behind that experience and how we can apply that forward. And that's ultimately what I did for myself here at the Y was looking at, okay, what have I been working in? What skills have I gained from my work experience besides my education background? I know at the heart of a lot of the work I do is my ethics and boundaries of that of social work and that NASW code of conduct, right, that we all have and instilled in us upon our education. But how can we ripple that out through the community like we talked about that

we want to help and help grow and be part of those changes. Yep. And I think for me and for my local Y, imagining the Y as more than just a gym and swim and to think about how the Y is fixed within communities, that is where social work gets to shine for me and our work. So while the why, or at least my local why, is not your traditional clinical social work setting. It gives opportunity for us to look at social work from a macro lens. And I even think that there are ways that we kind of sneak in some more clinical leaning components just in how we invest in people. When we think about the community care model that's coming out of the YUSA, how we are just now thinking differently about how we show up for community in our centers how

we show up in for community for people in the other program areas that we have the ability to touch and just having a um posture of caring and supporting and leaning in um is how social work shows up thank you both for sharing and i appreciate you talking about your path to get there, how you highlighted these skills you have and how they're applicable at the Y. But as a social worker in a non-traditional settings, what are some challenges that you face and what are some strategies to overcome those challenges? The only thing I can really identify for myself has been the continuing education and finding maybe realms where continuing education, when we look for that, we want it to be applicable right to the work that we're doing.

And so much of our continuing education is around, I would say, I'm going to say in quotations, a traditional social work model, some form of case management, maybe direct help of clients in that. And sometimes the continuing education I'm looking for is maybe more around that project management growth. And how can I find the community education that's going to help me grow not only in my career path, but also in my skill set that I can maybe challenge myself with and broaden upon. That has been most interesting platform is trying to navigate where community education can fit into the role and where I hope to grow and develop myself in further outside of that traditional social work lens. I would definitely second that and add that for social workers within the Y. You know how when you're just finishing your MSW and you're newly licensed and you're trying to figure out where you can go to get your clinical supervision hours and you're just trying to figure it all out so you can go to the next step of your licensure, if that's the path that you're on. um that is one of the major i think setbacks of not being a traditional social work setting but that's also because we're not a traditional social work setting that's that's also like all the opportunity it's like a blank canvas and we get to imagine all these different ways to your point and that social work can show up and it could be maybe not traditional but a new way of

imagining what it looks like. And so one of the things that I've done at our Y, because we just are the traditional setting, but because I'm a state board certified, I can give supervision hours. I forget what my certification is, but we just created a cohort for licensed folks to be able to get their clinical hours, just to try to address some of that. And so in the supervision of that, we're thinking about what is your clinical impression of something that's happening or what's your macro impression of something that's happening. So we just brought it in that scope. Yeah, I appreciate you bringing that up because actually I'm in that situation right now and I can shine some light too. And I'm based out of Wisconsin and I had a University of Wisconsin

Milwaukee student that is here at La Crosse, though needing supervision for an MSW program and wants more direct time with children before probably pursuing school social work. but hasn't built that up on the resume yet. And so we have been able to build in an internship for him. And then I can provide that supervision because I do continue to hold my license. And we're really then incorporating him around youth group work and our future leaders groups, and then also behind helping management of behavior matrices. And then I'm also involving him in our bigger public health campaigns as well, so that the student gets a well-rounded experience through a wide platform. And I love that you both are demonstrating the skill of,

you know, there's a certain need. We need CEUs. We need certain hours for MSW. We need these experiences. And you all are actively filling in those gaps and those needs for social workers in your role. And I think that's just a great demonstration of how we do our work and what we do. We find the need and we help fill that need and find the appropriate resources. The future of social work leadership starts with you. NASW is seeking committed members to serve at the national level. Open positions are available on the NASW board and the National Committee for Nominations and Leadership Identification, NCNLI, which reviews and slates candidates. National volunteer leaders help shape NASW policy, practice standards,

and program direction. Nominations are now open and the deadline is coming up soon. View vacancies and submit your nomination online at tinyurl.com forward slash two lowercase k five lowercase j u v v p. If you have questions, email governance at socialworkers.org or call 202-336-8270 Or you can visit our show notes on the Social Work Talks podcast page for details. Let's elevate the voices that will shape social work for years to come. And so the next question is, how does the YMCA engage with local communities and organizations to ensure that they are meeting the needs of diverse and vulnerable populations? So I think this can be so unique to each of our locations.

So I can obviously speak of mine. like I just mentioned, I'm based out of La Crosse, Wisconsin. And so our Y is actually one of our branches is right in our downtown area. And I would truly say like almost central in our city, so the heart of our city. And so we are a hub for many different things. And I still hear on almost a daily basis where somebody walks in our doors and they're like, oh my gosh, I didn't know the Y provided all this. So out of our Y, we have food programs, we have a clothing closet, besides the child care that we provide, and then what other traditional things that people think of a Y for, gym, workout, gymnastics, all of our typical programs. But we also have a wide range of

those social services as well. And so we are engaged in different community groups to be able to provide those services. So for myself, I am an active member and on our board for our mental health coalition in our area. I serve on our school district mental health advisory board Because after school, where do kids go? They go to that third place, if that's a Y or BGC or other maybe youth serving agency, if they're not involved in maybe traditional sport or choir or something like that through the school. So we partner quite a bit too with our school district as well to provide that space and that connection for our youth. And then like for our food programs or other things, we do partner then with like a wafer or maybe your Salvation Army, different partnerships there to be able to execute out the work we do and be, you know, I always say like one piece of the puzzle or one piece of the service base for people in our for our community. So it's all about us as well being involved in those different things. I feel like too, I want to mention like where you find that, right? And it is my past experience working in traditional social work role, right? Through a county or through, I did a managed care organization for a while too. And so you're aware of those services. And then when you come into that non-traditional Y setting and working for that nonprofit though, you're able to still know about those services and find opportunities to partner and grow this area so much. And that's what really ultimately I feel like I do on a regular basis is I still reach out to the colleagues I worked with for the 10, 15 years before this and say, hey, I'm at the Y now.

However, could we partner on this or could we make this work for people or how can I come now help support you through this work and just that different lens? Our local Y is very similar in that we have a food pantry. We have several different programs that our community facing that provides resource support. We have community health workers that are fixed in our family center that meets with community and assess what individuals or families need. I don't want to leave anybody out. gosh, we also have a housing program for women and children who have experienced homelessness and helping them to get back on their feet. They can come in, even if they don't, even if the child isn't born yet, even if she is pregnant. We also have partnerships with University of Maryland.

We have several actually partnerships with them. We just act as a hub. So even if it's not, So I guess there's two layers to it, right? So there are the programs that the Y has, that the Y provides to community, but then there's also communities that are in Baltimore City and surrounding counties that look to the Y for space to hold what they have going on, because they know that the Y is a place where you can come to, to use the space that's going to be welcoming and will support what that organization might be trying to do. For instance, we have a rights of passage group that uses Y facilities in the city that works with SAD children and provides services for them.

So there's just a myriad of ways that the Y acts. And I think you said it, Anna, like L-Hub is the best way to put it for different organizations. Yeah, Diara, you're making me feel bad because we do have community health workers as well so I want to mention that like so here we are based out of right very much different geographic areas but still doing that same type of work and that outreach in our area as well as when you talk about those partnerships so we have a unique platform at our Y building here where our health system actually has some of our space so when you look at that we have Amplify Gunderson that utilizes it has PTOT as well as groups out of that. But then it does bring that wraparound service for those people to continue to, on their

journey of recovery or whatever that may be, rehab, different things, continue to use the Y space. So it is unique how each Y has it integrated to meet the community needs. But that's also where social work, I feel like, comes into play, right? We're assessing for that. We're looking at that and where can our space be utilized to help members or our community or individuals on their path to whatever it may be wellness really and ultimately yeah i feel like social work is always helping me to think about what my training as a social worker is always helping me to think about what's possible so you know and i've spoke with my team about this but whenever we hit a barrier and it helps that i work with like two or three other social workers but whenever we come up

against something it's like okay well if that's a no then what other way is yes what other route can we find to take to do the work that we need to do? And I feel like that's a very social work thing. Yeah, thank you. Those are great examples of the community engagement, collaboration, all the resource building and capacity building you all are doing. Would you both be willing to share and describe any success stories you can think of and any data that demonstrates the impact of these programs and the impact of this community engagement? Yeah, I think of kind of on micro-individual level has been, my office is strategically placed right after, right off our lobby entrance of our Y. And I've been able then to meet sometimes with individuals that need

assistance and referrals. So I know I had a father come in looking for further services and options for his child. And I found out later just as that access point for him was able to get into a therapy-based treatment, you know, downtown for us within the week. And so it's also knowing that and right to knowing what's in my scope of practice and what isn't and how I can be of a connection though, right? They felt like a safe place they could come in and at least talk about that. In our social-emotional learning, we have at all of our school-age care sites throughout our community, which is up to 15. And it's an after-school program for our elementary schools. We have used a little spot of emotions. And so I know by Diana Albers, the author, and I know kids have started to use that and they actually go grab the book now to have the conversation with the teacher about maybe friendship or some emotion they're struggling with.

One grabbed one time I heard anxiety, right, and experiencing that emotion and how to help have those conversations around that with their teacher. And that's work I am doing, you know, in an indirect way with that staff to give them the tools they need to be able to serve those kids. We all know emotions are real for all of us, right? They're all there. But how do we help navigate that, especially for our part-time staff? So I support our social-emotional learning portfolio. One of the, I guess I'll raise up the work of one of the newest programs in that portfolio has now come to be known as the YGEMS program.

That program, it has a couple of different mental health-facing, evidence-based practice strategies that it uses. when, and it just finished its first year in July of this year. So when we first started this program, we felt like, oh my, I think we were slated to impact maybe 600 children. And we were like, oh my God, how are we going to impact 600 children? And by the end of the program, all in, we were able to impact close to 800 children with the work. So it's something that I'm very proud of. I'm very proud of our associates who are directly doing the work. I'm super proud of the associate executive director, who is also a social worker that

directly supports and oversees operations of that work. But one of the things that I think, and not but, and one of the things that I'm most proud of is that we were able to kind of normalize social work for middle schoolers, well, normalized mental health for middle and high schoolers. And we were able to use evidence-based practices and approaches to heighten awareness of mental health, the children's ability to respond to a mental health need within themselves and within their peers. We were able to address some trauma related struggles that children were having in schools. We were able to affect attendance. We were able to affect academic performance. So as well as just have wellness sessions that were driven by youth voice, the children also were able to put

together their own space at one of our centers that's now known as the teen center and they put tvs in they got the walls the color that they wanted they have a chair and like a sofa it's just like their dedicated space and what they said was they wanted the space to feel good for their mental health for their emotional health even for their social health um but they were able to curate that themselves for what that what that needed to look like so just that's like it warms my heart you know to see it go from something that was just an idea all the way through to being able to impact that many children and for children to have their voices heard in that project. Oh that is amazing and I thank you both for sharing those opportunities and those

successes. And it sounds like you really are impacting the community as far as reducing stigmas around mental health, engaging families where they are, collaborating. It almost sounds like social work at the YMCA isn't non-traditional. It sounds like we're supposed to be there and we should be there. And I'm glad that you two are the examples of what it looks like when we are there, when we are in the space, the kind of work we can do to support our clients and uplift the community. And so we're wrapping up. Are there any other final thoughts you think our listeners and audience should know about social work at the YMCA? Listeners should know that social work is at the YMCA. I feel like that's it. It is a space where your skills are welcome, where your skills

are needed. There is space for all that we learned attaining our MSW and various licensures that come with that there is certainly a need i think in all the spaces and places where there are people there should be social work and social work is either there directly or indirectly um but i mean it's kind of in the name is our social work as we are um people who serve other people and why is the space there that where that can happen no i agree completely and i just think really do not belittle or don't be creative, right, with the skills that you obtained from being a social worker and how that can have a greater impact and a greater reach or maybe just a different reach through the Y as well. And I do, I agree completely social work should be

at YMCAs. It does, it fits so well with the missions, the values that we're all executing note on a daily basis. Yeah. Thank you both. I love that. I'm probably going to steal that idea that if there's people there, social workers are supposed to be there. I agree with you. Yes. That means we're supposed to be everywhere. There is no non-traditional setting. If there's a human there, we should be there. I think that's just a simple way to put it. So thank you for that. I'm going to steal that, letting you know now, so it's on record. But thank you both so much for being here, for your insight, your transparency. Thank you for the work you're doing to shape communities. And thank you for inspiring other social workers to step out and

advocate and show up in those spaces that we may not traditionally be thought of as being there, but we absolutely should be there because there's people there. And we thank you for tuning in to this episode of Social Work Talks. We hope you enjoyed our conversation with Anna and De'Ara, and hopefully you learned something new. Again, thank you so much for listening and join us again next time.