NASW Social Work Talks - EP 148 - The Movement to Build Social Work Political Power

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

What does it take for social workers to build political power and have a seat at the table where decisions are made? In this episode of the NASW-NY Power of Social Work Podcast, our guest Brian Romero, MSW, shares with co-hosts Gideon Mosse and Amanda Rodriguez (Pressly), NASW-NYS, insights on political engagement, advocacy, and the growing movement to strengthen social work's voice in public policy. Hear advice for emerging macro social work and social justice leaders and learn how NASW-NY PACE advances the profession through political action. Listen now and discover how to build a stronger political future for social work.

This episode of Social Work Talks is sponsored by NAMI Trauma Insight, a trauma awareness training designed for youth-serving professionals. Hello, social workers and allies. My name is Gideon Mossa, policy coordinator, and welcome to another episode of the NASW New York Power of Social Work podcast, hosted through the NASW Social Work Talk series, the movement to build social work political power. Our mission is to equip social workers in the nation and state

with tools to support vital and trending advocacy issues, Today we are sitting with Brian Romero, a social work advocate and candidate for New York State Assembly District 34. Brian has over five years of experience as a chief of staff in the New York State Assembly and Senate and served as former chair of the former NASW NYC Pace. He was the chief strategist for the Universal Schools Meals campaign and worked with the assembly member Gonzales-Rohas to pass over a dozen pieces of legislation, including establishing a state abortion fund, making initial asthma and support inhalers free and more. Brian, thank you and welcome to the NASW podcast. Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Yeah, and again, you know, as a person with asthma, thank you for that, because inhalers are expensive, I will say. And my name's Amanda Rodriguez. I'm other policy coordinator at NASW, New York, and we're proud to welcome Brian Romero and MSW, who has been a strong social work champion in the advocacy space. We're so excited to give social workers some tips and tricks on how to even engage in advocacy for people that, you know, haven't even stepped foot in this space yet at this point. And we do have a national audience as well as a New York audience. And we're so happy to have social workers tuning in from all over the nation and New York State.

And so to start us off, could you please just give us a quick introduction? Who are you? Where do you come from? and what do you bring to public service? Yeah, of course. Well, thank you again so much for having me. My name is Brian Romero. I use he and his pronouns. I was born in a basic apartment in East Delmers in Queens County.

When I grew up in an immigrant household, it was eventually a single parent household. And unfortunately, at the age of seven, we were homeless because we could not keep up with costs. So the reality of so many New Yorkers being one crisis away from being displaced or being unable to afford groceries, etc. is something that I have lived very viscerally and it informs all of my politics and really informed my wanting to go into social work to support families and individuals who are going through

these sorts of issues. So I did do that. I went on to again my MSW from Sublimin School of Social Work. I actually studied in the clinical practice. Tract actually, I think most folks think that I studied in committee organizing and policy, but I actually did a clinical practice. I did that for about five or six years, mostly working with LGBTQ communities, communities of color, low-income communities, and I provided psychotherapy in English and Spanish. But all throughout my social work career, I was engaged in advocacy as a student, in undergrad and beyond, right? That's how I got connected with NASW as a student board member for the chapter board of directors in New York City. And I got really engaged with the work that they were doing, even as a psychotherapist, on

banning conversion therapy, which we know is incredibly harmful. And it was exciting to be able to team up with other social workers, the staff here at the time, I think the chapter lobbyist, to go up to Albany to lobby elected officials, talk about strategy and how to really amplify the voices of directly impacted people, of course, but also practitioners and social workers who were working to ban this very harmful practice that had no evidence basis. So we did that for a couple of years. And throughout that time in New York City chapter, I went from student board member to board member at large, chair of the LGBT committee and then chair of pace. And then at some point, I was first vice president. So a lot of different roles in the chapter. But what was really exciting about it is just really understanding the legislative process, even as a practitioner. And then later on, being offered the opportunity to work in the policy department at GMHC or gay mental crisis.

which is the first organization founded in the country to serve and advocate for people living with and impacted by HIV or AIDS. So I did advocacy work at the city, state, and federal level, kind of zigzagging between D.C. Albany and City Hall, advancing a package of bills that were our legislative agenda, everything from health care access for undocumented New Yorkers, legalizing overdose prevention centers, which is a harm reduction strategy that allows people who use drugs, to use them safely while being resuscitated if they need to be cared for, but also things like providing prep access to survivors of sexual assault, ensuring that the Don't Ask On Tell policies were actually being reversed and implemented at the state level,

so that meant ensuring that the courts were providing benefits to veterans who had been dishonorably discharged, who were now being switched to honorably discharged, and so much more. But I really love to that work. And then I met Jessica Gonzalez-Rohas, now assembly member of Gonzalez-Rohas, and she was running for state assembly. And so I supported her. She won. She asked me to be her chief of staff. I agreed.

And I did that for about four and a half years. And then in the last year, I've been working in the state senate. But that's who I am. It's the work that I've been doing. It gets me up every morning and it excites me. It's also what exhausts me. But it's really great work. And I want to take a moment to roll back to the.

conversion therapy, band conversation, because that's such an important topic right now. And NASW, at the national level, they just actually did a podcast, our last episode on the Childs versus Zalazar case, because, you know, we know that landmark case just just went out and obviously the result was disappointing. You mentioned it now and it is a trending topic. And if you wanted to just briefly expand a little bit on your work in that, I'm sure that our listeners would be interested to hear about that. Yeah, so that, I particularly got engaged in when I was chair of the LGBT committee. So we were a number of LGBTQ social workers

and trying to just understand how to hold community and space for queer and trans social workers. And because the chapter was engaging in this fight, this legislative fight, and it was part of our agenda day, very reasonably so, said, you know, who can provide voices to this issue? And they came to us.

And so I think I remember doing like the TV interview with, I think the ED at the time of the New York State chapter. And it was really helpful to have social workers say, you know, we as practitioners don't want to engage in this practice. There's no evidence behind the fact that it actually works. It's actually deeply harmful. It causes an increase in suicidality, substance abuse and depression and difficulty sustaining relationships. And I think it was really helpful to have legislators and their staff hear from the practitioners saying, we don't want to do this. This does not work.

It's actually really harmful. and antithetical to our ethics and our principles. And I think that that really helps to move that issue along for sure. It is really unfortunate what SCOTUS has decided to do with this. I think that it only means that states have a greater responsibility to ensure that we are passing legislation that will shield and protect patients and clients and in general our queer and trans communities. And social workers will be really critical to that effort.

Absolutely. Clearly, you can see through the experience that Brian's had. He knows what he's talking about. You're right. You've gone through all this. You've experienced the social work career, and thankfully, you're now doing advocacy and you're advocating. So just to get a little bit more into social work specifically, a lot of people know

social workers from schools, hospitals, clinics, agencies, or child welfare, but the profession covers a huge range of things. Can you talk a little bit about your own practice and background and where you've worked previously outside of also just that and the plethora of experience you've had as a social worker in your past. What are the hot subjects you were working on? Yeah. Yeah. So let's see. I think in the whole entire span of my career, so I'm going to say starting around 18 or 19, I started human services working with children who have autism as sort of a direct care professional. After that, I remember I managed an adult education program in Brooklyn, which was really an ESL program

for mostly Latino adults who were trying to learn English and adapt to the culture here. But it also spanned going into working in the foster care system with children who have co-occurring to health diagnoses and other behavioral issues. And then I decided to go back to social work school after having my BA in France's psychology. My first year internship was at Roberto Clemente Center in Alpatient Mental Health Clinic in the Lower East Side. That was great. We worked in a multidisciplinary fashion between psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and students across those professions to understand how to do talk therapy. But we had groups and I worked with patients who had all kinds of different presenting problems. It was exciting and was also really challenging and rewarding.

And then I went on to do my second year placement in Rikers Island where I would. was in the Robert Endeavorant Center, R&C, and specifically worked on providing dialectical behavioral therapy with young black and brown men. I was in grad school, and so we also had the Black Lives Matter movement. So we had even clinical students and community organizing students really trying to understand what that time called for and what it demanded of us as students in the profession.

And what it demanded of us was to really think about the macro in the profession and our obligation as students and as faculty and as professors to understand anti-black racism and what was happening in our country and in our city and our state. And so we engaged in a whole activism. I think we like did a die-in one time in the lobby. So what is it dying? Does that mean pretending to be dead? Yeah.

There's a way to really demonstrate what happens to communities because of police violence and an unjust criminal legal system. So did that. worked at different outpatient mental health clinics at the Jewish board, and then at a community school at one point, and then I ended up at JNHC. And I studied to do my case act. So my specific folk eye were LGBTQ communities impacted by HIV or AIDS, who also might have had co-occurring substance use disorders. But even then, like, whether it was Rikers or there, there were always systemic gaps that I saw with my patients, whether it was, you know, my trans patients who, you know,

didn't have health care or were not being provided gender affirming care because it's discrimination or because patients had different immigration status and were concerned at different times about leaving their homes and communities, which is something we're seeing today. But there were always systemic gaps that existed that I became increasingly frustrated about. But I loved that work. And I think he certainly learned how to listen as a psychotherapist. And that has been valuable for me, even in the advocacy and political space as well. Yeah, and you've really seen almost every element of the system. You've seen the result when individuals deal with substance abuse disorder. You've seen mental health disorder consequences. You've seen the consequences from

incarceration and the trauma that comes from that. So a lot of social workers also resonate with the fact that you're only as strong as the system that you operate within. A lot of social workers feel that frustration when their caseloads are too high and they're burnt out or their wage doesn't reflect their work that they put in or when they are unable to help their clients because that resource doesn't exist or perhaps that resource was taken away through recent federal legislation. And in that case, that really calls for social workers to get engaged politically because not only is, you know, affecting their personal life, but now their clients and their work are affected by different systems and policies that are enacted.

And so you talked a little bit about what you've done on the NASW New York City PACE Committee and the connections that came with that work as you were kind of an emerging student into the space. What did that experience teach you about the relationship between the profession and the political process? Yeah.

One, being a part of the chapter and the different committees that existed was really helpful in starting to understand even like in our professional association's basis, how we manage that. the politics of a profession that is diverse, right? We come in all shapes and sizes and from all kinds of different ideologies. So that, for me, was the beginning of starting to understand being part of something

where you were representing the voices of many individuals outside of just your own individual perspective, which is very much what an elected official does and staff do is they try to represent the needs and voices, concerns of constituents in their own districts. That was a great experience. Pace particularly was a really enlightening and really helpful experience in terms of understanding the electoral process, campaigns, how incumbents run for re-election, how to utilize that time, reelection year to really challenge them, hold them accountable and encourage them to become social champions, whether it was our work on closing Rikers, right, for city candidates or whether it was advancing the ban on conversion therapy, right? at the state level, we were really trying to think about the questionnaire and our conversations with candidates as opportunities to really, one, educate candidates and staff and others about the profession and how diverse it is and how it's not just ACS, it's not just caseworkers, it's folks who are community organizing, folks who are doing administrative roles, who are doing

grants, who are doing development, who are doing policy, who are in all kinds of levels. So that was really educational to me. I think it was really helpful for a number of those candidates, many who are still in office today, who have become really good vocal supporters of social workers and our issues. And then actually later on, I became co-chair of national pace. And that was an interesting experience entirely too, because whereas I was used to my New York City bubble and talking about our New York City races at the city council level and the state legislative races and the assembly and the Senate, I now had to manage conversations about campaigns happening across the country. And that meant Republican candidates, right, because we

are nonpartisan. And that meant also maybe candidates who were okay champions for social workers and our communities, but needed to be moved along a little bit more. And that meant building out further that infrastructure to our questionnaires to get them out far and wide, to invite candidates to also have the staff at the national level go and attend these events and fundraisers in D.C. to put NASW in front of decision makers and help them understand our role and how we could support them and how they can support us. So PACE, the chapter board leadership, national leadership has been really helpful in educating me on all this and starting my process in politics. Speaking of, actually, I'm going to briefly mention that obviously

Brian has a lot of experiences in advocacy in general. So I'll ask you this, but it is, in the NASW Code of Ethics for social workers to participate in social and political action. I'll briefly read it, but social workers should facilitate informed participation by the public in shaping social policies and institutions. This means being knowledgeable about political process and educating the public on how to exercise their political power. Voting is a key example of such participation, even though it is not explicitly listed as an ethical obligation. It operationalizes the profession's core values of service, social justice, dignity, and human relationships. And so with that in mind, what role do you see social workers specifically playing in advocacy

that can be storytelling, attending lobbying days, or checking in with the needs of their community? Obviously, social workers are such a crux in communities that are so necessary, right? So how can we and how can social workers in total and in general really get into advocacy and continue to get what needs to be done done. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, number one, if there are any non-NASW members, definitely join NSW. But, you know, I think about when I was a social work student at Rikers Island,

and that was a very clinical setting. It was a lot of diagnosis and assessment and planning and talk therapy and suicide assessment. But I also wanted to utilize the opportunity to do sort of more macro thinking. And so I had a great clinical supervisor, a psychologist, Dr. Kew, Black woman, and I said, you know, it feels odd to be doing this work in just a sort of clinical way when there's so many systemic reasons also why these young men are here. And she absolutely understood it. She was like, yes, for sure. And so while we did

DBT and did that work, we also then started a group on just talking about race and racism and the criminal legal system, I wanted these young folks to understand. and all the systemic reasons that brought them there and also just in general how the criminal legal system works and over-policing as a matter so that there wouldn't be just an individual perspective about it all and just focusing on their behavior, but really trying to understand the larger systems.

And so I think that that's sort of what started doing clinical work, but thinking about it from a sort of liberation psychological perspective. And I think that that is critical for all social workers, right? None of us do this work in a vacuum. None of us do it outside of a socio-political context, right? Like right now, there's so many conversations about foreign policy and our role in wars abroad and what that means in terms of Congress and the White House and where they are investing money, right, and where they're not. And I think that that is important for us all to be understanding and thinking about at all times.

I think there were so many social workers I went to school with who were like, you know, I'm not, political, I don't really do politics. And eventually time went on and I realized, you know, you don't have to do politics, the politics will do whatever it does to you. And so no matter what part of the profession you're in, no matter what specialty, whether you're doing clinical organizing admin, whether it's with older adults, young children,

communities of color, et cetera, religious communities. There are all kinds of actions happening at the city, state, and federal level every day that impact to these communities. And so it is our duty. to at least understand these systems and understand what our role is in that and what our obligation is there. At the very least, certainly education, right? Folks need to understand if they were denied insurance, why that was. They are not able to get assistance.

You know, healthcare is about to get cut in New York State. In July, we will see 450,000 New Yorkers lose their health insurance as a result of the big ugly bill. Social workers in the healthcare sector will have to, explain that to their patient and to their clients and consumers. And it will impact their jobs and it will impact their ability to be in these systems and hospitals will close. And so it is not enough to say, sorry, but care is being terminated, et cetera. It's care is being terminated because these decisions have been made in Washington, specifically by one party to cut health care, snap, student support, housing, and more so that we can engage in these wars that actually

benefit nobody. And so it is our role, it is our obligation. I think that we can't just say we don't do politics. We do by virtue of existing in these systems and working in these systems. Yeah, and I think the question is more so how do we use our roles as social workers in these different settings to educate at the very least so people understand why things are happening and how they are happening, but also at best to inspire. and mobilize communities to engage in action themselves alongside social workers, the profession, the association to push back on the worst of it and at best to really improve material conditions of people's lives. Yeah. And something I've noticed while working with social workers is that

they ask a lot of questions. I think that that can serve as a useful tool when dealing with these systems is first being that challenger. When an injustice occurs, first being that person to say, well, why did this happen? I think that that's a useful tool when dealing with these systems is first being that that that directly in the moment for people is advocacy on the ground because there are different levels to advocacy. So of course, social workers on the ground, you can educate, as you mentioned, and that can be more of a neutral form of advocacy where you're not really taking aside. So you can do more nonpartisan neutral items to first get engaged in your community as you kind of educate yourself about what your political priorities are. And then, you know, you mentioned

you worked in Rikers, and we actually are supporting a bill right now to end, care professionals complicity in torture that occurs at Rikers Island and in different correctional facilities in the state, especially after what happened at Marcy Correctional Facility with Robert Brooks. After that tragedy occurred, no one reported what happened. And so social workers working in Rikers Island, we recently had our Queen's Division Director shout out to Justina Risenski. She just got her dissertation, congrats to her. She actually whistle blue for Rikers Island and she gained a lot of respect in the advocacy space, in the Workers Island space, and her clients definitely benefited from it to not be in solitary confinement or in, you know,

a space where they're not receiving the best care. So on the ground, social workers definitely have that firsthand experience to intervene when somebody is being mistreated or an injustice is happening. So that was a great perspective to share just how social workers can get started, get involved not only while they're practicing, but then kind of venture into their communities as well. For social workers that have never ventured into macro work at all, what would you say would be the first step into starting a social justice journey?

Yeah, number one, sort of like myself, even though my intention was to be a psychotherapist for all of my life. You know, I saw myself like in a rocking chair as an older man doing psychotherapy with patients. But my life just went in a different direction and that's okay. I think number one, there are all kinds of actions. They don't have to be huge. You do not have to run for office to be a social worker in different work, engaging in macro work.

You could engage in voter registration, which is deeply valuable. No matter what state you're in, no matter what city you're in, it is always important to educate the electorate about their ability to register if they can, why that's important and where they can do that. And, you know, social workers now can, at least in your state, have voter registration cards in their nonprofits and their workplaces and offer that up to individuals to do. It may not seem like a lot, but it is quite a major thing to do at a time when voting rights are under attack, right?

We saw what happened with the VRA. That is helpful as a beginning step. But I also think for myself, I got very interested in mental health policy and just in general access because I always thought, you know, why is it that I can only write certain amount of sessions? Why is it that we have to build it this way and not that way? Why is it that they're being referred to an Article 32 clinic in New York, which are a substance use clinic as opposed to A31 in a mental clinic? So I became very curious about access and I became very curious about who had it and who didn't and why. And actually in New York City chapter, I remember we were actually just talking about

this. The health committee was the one. who brought Senator Gustavo Rivera, a state senator in the Bronx, who's the chair of the health committee in the state senate through the chapter because they were like, you know what? We've heard about this really exciting thing

called single payer health care, Nicar for all, actually, and we want to talk about it. We want to talk about what this bill is, the New York Health Act. And so Senator Rivera came and said, this is exactly what this bill is. This is what it does.

And I thought that that was great because we weren't all political people there. There were clinicians. They worked in different healthcare settings. They worked in hospitals. And they were like, you know, these conversations have been happening at work. And what is this thing that people are talking about? Even just being willing to go to educational spaces and understand these issues more, I think is really valuable.

But yes, certainly, I think all social workers should be an advocacy in some form or another, volunteering in campaigns, learning about these different bills and issues. Sometimes there's issue campaigns. We had Prop 1 to be a campaign here in New York State. where we were trying to ensure that the ballot initiative passed and really protected the reproductive rights in New York State. So what I would say is that we're all in this political process, whether we want to be or not. And I think it's not about doing it one way or another,

but really gravitating towards things that you're naturally curious about, naturally interested in and invested in, maybe even in the sector that you're working in, right? If you are working in the child welfare sector, you could be curious about what kinds of buildings, or issues exist out there related to the assessment of harm against children and preventive services, et cetera. So I think that we can engage in all kinds of ways, but what I do know is that given everything that is happening in this city, state, and country, it is not enough to do nothing.

And so even outside of NASW, there are tenants associations, there are community boards, there's indivisible, there's New York City Democratic Socialist of America, there's the Working Family's Party. There's so many groups that are electoral, not electoral, work on issues, work on legislation or policy, but also could be involved in just sometimes talking to tenants and your neighbors about what it would mean to organize a tenant union in your building. And so I think we should be open to all those possibilities. But I think what matters most is do something, do something that's exciting to you, educate yourself, bring in folks, right, that are also and be curious about this and engage in that journey with your colleagues and peers together.

This episode of Social Work Talks is sponsored by Nami Trauma Insight, a trauma awareness training designed for youth serving professionals. Nami Trauma Insight is a virtual training designed to help youth serving professionals better understand the effects trauma has on youth. When working with youth and young adults, trauma awareness can help you create safe and secure environments for them. Through NAMI Trauma Insight, you'll learn how to identify youth who have experienced trauma, actions you can take to support them, how trauma impacts behavior, and more. This course is designed for youth serving professionals can be completed in three hours and is completely free.

Learn more at nami.org slash trauma insight. That's namI.org.org forward slash T-R-A-U-M-M-A-U-M-A. I-N-S-I-G-H-T. Okay, so with that, I just want to ask a little bit about your political background and what you've been doing, but you've worked for a number of years in the state legislature as Chief of Staff for the Assembly and the Senate. And what I'm most interested in is what would you say you're most proud of in your time in the political world?

So I was in the Assembly for four and a half years as Chief of Staff to the current assembly member for whom I'm running to succeed. During that time, what I was really excited about was working on universal school meals. So we have universal school meals free breakfast and lunch for all students in New York City. And during COVID, it was fascinating. One of the things that we did was

overall providing universal school meals across the country because, of course, we were on lockdown, we needed to ensure that folks could eat. That was very successful, right? No more means testing. It just meant if you were going to school, you got a free breakfast and lunch.

Not hard, not complex. And what we saw during that time was academic performance, improve, stigma reduce in the online classrooms and physical classrooms, and kids be nourished and eat and be able to do well. Unfortunately, once things got better during COVID, we stopped that at the national level. And so I remember actually I was talking to Emilio Tavares, who was a former president of New York City Chapter. I was working in the assembly. I said, I really want to work on food insecurity.

Do we have any ideas on things that we could be working on? And he said, you know, we just had university school meals at the national level, but we just lost it. And I said, well, what if we did a state campaign? And he said, oh, yeah, I think that some states are starting. How about that? And, you know, I was a student who I would not have been nourished if I had to have the food, breakfast, and lunch program in New York City. So I brought that to the assembly member.

She said, absolutely. And it took two and a half years, but we got full funding for universal school meals across the state. And that meant that hundreds of thousands more children are able to get meals. and that stigma is reducing overall in our school system, which is always great. I'm very proud of it because of just the issue being so near and dear to my heart, but also because I was just trusted by all these coalition members, the teachers' unions, the food insecurity advocates,

but also the health care advocates, the school system folks, to really manage this and move it forward. And we were able to build a very broad coalition that also included Republicans and Democrats in the Assembly getting on the bills. supporting it, and then eventually led to the governor fully funding it in the state. Thank you, Governor Hockel for that. But it also was an affordability thing. It saves parents and families $160 per child per month in groceries, which is a big deal.

So that is something that was deeply proud of. And then we also established a statewide abortion fund. Right after Roe v. Wade fell, we introduced legislation to operate the reproductive freedom and equity fund, which is about $35 million to ensure the providers who don't have the funding, because, of course, so much of that is being cut, can get the care that they need across the state. And so that has supported Planned Parenthood and other groups. I just got Planned Parenthood's endorsement, actually.

So that was really meaningful. And then as I just talked about, there's been another number of other bills. But one of them was ensuring that your initial asthma inhaler and supplemental inhaler are free of cost because I grew up in Astoria, which is known as Asthma Alley. And for folks in the Bronx,

they know that even more so. So asthma rates are really high up there. So we were able to advocate for that too. And so those are top three, but there's so much more that I'm looking forward to getting done. Yeah. And so food is a human right. Healthcare access is a human right. Of course, social workers know all too well how poverty affects how people do in their career and in their educational journey.

Especially, you know, if you're coming to school and you haven't eaten for the whole night before, you haven't had dinner, you haven't had breakfast and you're coming to school and you're ready to learn, you know, you're not going to absorb any information as well as you. would off a full meal. So that was great work that you did. Talking about asthma, I actually had one of my inhalers denied my steroid inhaler, but I was able to get like an off-brand version, but luckily they're free. So thank you so much for that. My insurance did cover a big section of that, but I'm excited to hear about the reduced costs, especially with, you know, you see the parallel with insulin, with the diabetes community. Having that accessible information for people and resources for things that people will not ever run out of demand for is amazing. In the Senate, and you all know this, we were working on this together.

I spent the last year working for State Senator Kristen Gonzalez, who's the chair of the Senate's Committee on Internet Technology, where we are working, and she is working really seriously, on regulating artificial intelligence. So the AI therapy ban bill that we're working on together to ensure that AI cannot be utilized to impersonating, essentially psychotherapist and provide those services, I think is also very critical. And so that has been exciting to work as well. SAD-484.

Contact your legislator. Support the initiative. Yeah, and we just had AI week in the legislature. That was really great. And we were able to welcome Dr. Maria Rain. She's in LCSW. So, you know, that social work perspective on what she's gone through that horrible strategy, but also now supporting the work as a strong advocate.

It's been amazing to see. We partnered with Common Sense Media on that. We've been making some great tries. and you really set the ball rolling on a lot of that. So thank you for that. Then another important issue that social workers have been facing, of course, we're in a workforce crisis in the state, also the nation. And something that we've been seeing is that there are consistent barriers to entry to the profession,

as well as to gaining licensure. And the social profession has fought so hard for licensure. It's something that is incredibly valuable that is core to the profession, and the authenticity to that licensure will never be deterred by anything. And so when you look at barriers to licensure, what is some big options and topics coming up in that world? Yeah, absolutely. I'm too glad you mentioned that. So I remember being part of the NASW near city board of directors, and we were talking about how great it was that we had gotten the LMSW and the LCSW.

And yet, we also understood that we needed data to understand where all this was going. Where social workers getting licensure? Were they not? which social workers were entering the profession, which were not, and that meant also in terms of identities and cultural competence and language accessibility, et cetera. And so what we have now understood is that the ASWB has come back and said, in fact, per their own data, that many in New York State, social workers of color,

social workers who are older, social workers who speak another language as a primary language that is not English, are failing that exams proportionately. And there are states where they don't have two licenses, right? They had just one. And so because of that data, because we heard from so many social workers throughout my career, but also time in an ASW, who grew up in their communities, wanted to serve their community, wanted to serve their communities in their own language. And as clinicians or as supervisors in different industries, they were saying they were just not able

to pass the test. And that's not because they're not working hard enough. It's not because they're not studying hard enough. It is simply because this exam is biased. We understand that now. And so that's why with everything happening across our country, city and state, you know, the mental health crisis and the homelessness crisis and the addiction crisis and so many more, we really need to expand the workforce and lift whatever barriers exist for social workers to be able to do the work they do and stay live. So we draft the Social Workforce Act, which will eliminate the requirement for the LMSWQ. in New York State. It doesn't get rid of the exam, but it does say if you have gone to

a social work school and a credit program, all you really need to do is then pay your fee, and then you'll be able to get your LNSW and go on and do that. But it shouldn't be an exam that doesn't really determine whether you're a good social worker or not is a barrier to all these diverse social workers entering this profession, right? What does it mean when we know in New York State that we have an aging population, a rapidly aging population, we need the workforce in gerontology to be able to work with this community. And older adults are failing this exam more than their younger counterparts. And as older adults have told me, you know, it's one thing being a young person working with older adults. And it's another thing being an older

adult who is going through those same things. And it's like, yes, I understand what you're going through and why you need these services and why you need this advocacy and why I need to ensure that I'm getting you those things. You know, what does it mean when we know that there's a youth mental health crisis, yet we don't have enough social workers from different cultures who can do psychotherapy in different languages. And what does it mean when individuals who have just different lived experiences are not the one sitting across from these communities? And so for all those reasons, we drafted the social worker first act. It is moving forward or long, building support in the state legislature. And other states have done this too, right? We saw Washington to do this. It was fine. They got

3,000 more social workers, I believe, or more, just in the first two years. And I think that really the question here is, what do our people need? They need services. They need care. How do we get that to them? We build the workforce that can take care of them. What is getting in the way or what are the challenges or barriers and how do we address them? And the LMSW exam requirement is one of those. And so I look forward to being a champion for it when I get in the assembly. And I'm grateful to the movement of Gonzalez Rojas and her Brooke and others, y'all, of course, for advocating for its passage because it should not be that a provider was really the only vendor, I'm sorry, for that exam is blocking social workers from doing the things that we and only we do really well.

Yeah, and it's so important to have culturally humble social workers dealing with diverse populations that they do. And we know that a lot of NESW chapters actually have taken on this initiative as well. So this is something that nationally NASW has been advocating for. And with licensure, of course, you know, we've been working with social workers for justice, Latino Social Work Coalition. So shout out to the Licensing Coalition. They've done a lot of great work on that. And we hope that it continues to move along in New York.

Yeah, absolutely. Having social workers that represent your community is key, right? And that the exam does not allow for that. So that's the issue. Moving on, many of our members work directly with families navigating housing instability. child welfare and poverty, often all at once. What role do you see the state and city government playing in addressing those interconnected issues? Well, we know the number one housing is the number one affordability issue, right? We know in New York City that a lot of New Yorkers are spending about half

or if not more of their income in rent alone or their mortgages. We know that there are many New Yorkers leaving our state because they cannot live here anymore. They cannot raise a family here anymore. They cannot survive here anymore. And so there's a lot that we could do at the state level and the city level, but I'll speak about to state. There are voucher programs. One is called the Housing Access Voucher Program. It is very successful in decreasing displacement, but it wasn't funded at the level that we had asked for. So I believe a pilot program was passed last year in the last state budget, but that was only funded at $50 million.

That coalition, which includes social workers, Andrea Shapiro, is a social worker at Med Council. give her a shout-out because we always talk about social workers and advocacy. They have been advocating for $250 million to really make a dent in this. And why that program is also really helpful is because it's accessible for undocumented communities, which we know that intersection is very real in terms of housing instability. Yeah, so she requires social security number. It's like, okay, now that might be unaffordable for people or even just restricted at all. Right. So voucher programs are important. We obviously need to continue to build housing and build that housing stock that is available. So I'm a full supporter of legalizing basement apartments in New York State because, again, I lived in one.

It's housing stock, but they need to be brought up to code and made safe. But that is housing thought that is available there for us. And then the other thing that I would say is this is a little bit newer, but there's legislation in New York State to develop a social housing development authority. It's really modeled off of Vienna and what they're doing there and in different parts of the world, where it's not up to real estate developers to sort of come in and say, hey, we're going to build this development and maybe 10% or 15% will be affordable.

There is a state authority. It's their responsibility to build affordable housing in neighborhoods that need it, and it's capped at about 25% of someone's income. So it really models after Section 8 or Public Housing or NYCHA here in New York, and it's just much more affordable. So there's a lot that we can do on housing.

There's certainly more, but I think that those are at least three things that I am focusing on, certainly on my campaign, but will once I'm elected to the assembly. Yeah, and holding real estate developers accountable will definitely help with displaced community members that are outpriced their communities. You know, I'm looking forward to seeing your work on that once we get you elected into office and you can begin doing a lot of this groundwork. And then the next issue that we have been faced with as we have conversations with our members and different social workers around the state and the nation is that the majority of the

social work population are women and also members of the BIPOP community. And actually 86% of social workers in New York are women. And so they're largely a female dominated profession, largely led by the BIPO community and people of color. And so what are some large barriers that you see particularly for those communities in social work, i.e. wage equity, you know, what are their salaries compared to their white counterparts, and what other barriers are they experiencing as they try to work with their communities? Yeah, so number one, I think what we're seeing with the Big Ugly Bill is just an erosion of support for students, period, which I think is really dangerous and harmful for us to be able to continue to educate the next generation of social

workers. So that is a major issue, and that obviously disproportionately impacts women and communities of color who want to be able to have the resource. to go to school, become social workers, and serve their communities. So that's number one. There is obviously wage inequity, including in New York State, New York City. And years ago, we talked about a salaries campaign. That became a little bit difficult because to legislate salaries for nonprofits and state agencies and different institutions, you kind of can't do it all in one, per se.

But we certainly can mandate for state agencies to pay social workers a lot more. And I think for me, my affordability agenda at the top includes a living wage for this reason. Once we increase wages to a livable wage, as opposed to a minimum wage, we can start talking about all these different professions, including the social profession and whether they're being compensated adequately or not, which or not is the sort of spoiler on that. That's deeply important. I think loan forgiveness continues to be really important, of course. I think the COLA is something, you know, cost of living adjustment is something that every year in your state and the legislature, the human services sector, the social work sector has to advocate for. I honestly think that it's time for us to move towards baselining that and indexing it to inflation, period, just so that anytime inflation goes up, cost of living goes up and catches up with us, as opposed to having this reactive conversation that we have every year.

So those are some things for sure at the national level. it would be great to talk about a livable wage and finally have that conversation and push that forward because, again, while we're doing really good in New York State in some respects across the nation, there's still a lot of work to be done. And I'm excited for hopefully an ASW

taking that on more and pushing that. And for us to elect more social workers to Congress, who can also advance that issue. Thanks. Yeah, just to touch on a couple of things that we've been working on. We recently had a great town hall with 1199 at CIU who's recently partnered with us to work on the salary disparities.

And, you know, we had 10 social workers that work in hospitals on the ground do a panel. They really shared their raw and real experience about the frustrations that they're experiencing, not to mention any specific hospital, but at a specific hospital in New York. The difference between the starting salary for a nurse is actually $130,000 compared to the licensed master or licensed clinical social worker that is at $80,000. That big gap in the salaries, it's, you know, extremely noticeable. And social workers end up training a lot of other professions in their duties and their responsibilities.

So not only are they being paid less, but they're also taking the time to train other professions in their responsibilities because they don't have enough staff to perform the social work responsibilities. And so it's great to have champions, you know, like yourself, that are social workers being in the room where these conversations are taking place because that. really makes all the difference to just communicate the value of social work. And that I think is the piece that the state and the city government in general is missing is to just continually communicate that value. And then that would translate eventually into what the plan would be moving forward. Absolutely. It's so on. Wrapping it up a little bit here. What do you want social workers across New York to know about why this work matters to you personally? And how can they get involved with you, with what you're doing with your campaign. How can they support you? Yeah, let's see. Well,

the truth is, I don't think that any of us become social workers because we've had the most ideal upbringing or living situations. So many of us are called the profession because of our own live experiences and struggles, whether it's in housing, whether it's in health care, whether it's in the immigration system. What feels really important here is we all have a duty to do this work. It's never too late start to do this work. There's no one way to do this work, but we are in a time that is very fragile in terms of our politics and in terms of in general, what Americans are and are not receiving from their government, right? Again, big ugly bill is slashing Medicaid, SNAP, student support, it will continue to do that probably for another

a couple of years. So there's more important than ever for social workers to mobilize. I know it's more things to do and we're already strapped and burnt out and exhausted. And yet it is more critical than ever for social workers to go to D.C., to go to Albany, to go to city halls and say, our patients, consumers, clients, our neighbors are really struggling. These are not the decisions that need to be made. In fact, we need to fully invest in healthcare, fully invest in food access. We need to tax the rich and increase revenue so that we could pay for these different needs. It doesn't have to be this way. And so I think it's really critical for social workers to be engaged now more than ever.

There is a way that we are able to communicate these needs in a way that other professions can't. We have the person and environment context and lens. And so we understand that, yes, we are going to provide those direct services to individuals as much as we can. and we have to go to the halls of power to advocate for Congress and the White House and these different legislatures to provide our constituents and our clients with what they need, period. That's the work ahead of us, and we've been doing it for decades and who better than us. And so I think my message is just engaged now and whatever makes sense and whichever way makes sense. And no action is too small or too great, do what feels right. but we need each other.

Our clients need us. Our communities need us. And now more than ever, it's a time to act. Yeah. And as you've heard in our discussion today, it is imperative for social workers to get engaged politically and also ensure social work as a profession is in the room when it comes to policy decisions. As we've heard in our discussion, the system directly impacts how social workers care for

their clients and how they interface with the systems that they work within. And to talk about how social workers can get more involved in advocacy at the NASW, the National Association of Social Workers New York chapter, we have the advocacy and government relations committee or the AGR committee. They develop the chapter's legislative agenda. And so we are member led. We hope social workers lead our movements, lead our advocacy, attend our lobby days, tell their stories and really amplify what they are doing on the ground to then advise. and guide policy decisions that NASW is presented with. And then when we move into electoral power through social work, Brian Romero, he's a social worker. He's running for office for Queens and Assembly District 34. And NASW New York has endorsed him for the June primary.

So yeah, shout out to the NASW New York-based committee. We're looking to engage social workers in Queens and in the surrounding area to put boots on the ground, get involved in Brian's campaign. We are hoping to have some social workers, get to some doors, start doing some door knocking, and also get engaged in our political action through candidate election committee, the NASW New York Pace. So please reach out to Gideon and myself and also Brian's campaign. You can reach out to NASW New York staff at info. nasw-N-A-SwN-Y at socialworkers.org to get more involved.

And you can visit our website at n-ASw-W-N-Y. social workers.org slash advocacy to learn more about what we're working on, what we stand for, and who we're supporting. Brian, do you have any final thoughts on how social workers can reach you and find you? Ah, absolutely. Thank you so much. So you could find our website. It's www. Brian, B-R-I-A-N-R-R, the number four, n-Y.com. You will find our endorsements. Pace is there. You will find our policy platform. We're actually about to roll out our regulating AI platform. You can volunteer there, engage there. You can totally contribute there.

It is tough to run for elected office. I think sometimes especially as a social worker where we struggle with money in different ways and asking for it. So that is very real. Please do it to bin. No amount is too small. And definitely sign up to volunteer with us. Follow us on social media.

We are on Instagram, X, Facebook, Blue Sky. The candles usually Brian B-R-I-A-N-R, number four, and Y. Follow us and, you know, follow our journey. We also have a MSW field organizer. She just graduated, Neil Wallace, who was studying at Fordham and Ria is our campaign manager. So they do incredible work. They manage all the volunteers and everything. And so reach out, contribute, volunteer with us, and looking forward to winning this.

Thank you so much for being here today. And thank you for our listeners to tuning in to our fourth episode. We are so excited to have you join us on this political journey that we are in in New York that is affecting all of the nation as New York often sets a precedent for other states as well. And so thank you for following us on our journey and we hope to engage you more.