NASW Social Work Talks - EP1: Social Work Month with Angelo McClain

Episode Date: March 6, 2018

March is Social Work Month, and we're talking to NASW CEO Angelo McClain about the importance of Social Work Month, NASW initiatives for 2018, and experiences that led Dr. McClain to become interested in the social work profession.

Welcome to NASW Social Work Talks. The National Association of Social Workers is one of the largest membership organizations of professional social workers in the world. NASW works to enhance the professional growth and development of its members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social work policies. With our mission in mind, the purpose of NASW Social Work Talks is to inform, educate, and inspire.

We encourage you to learn more about NASW by visiting www.socialworkers.org. And we thank you for joining us for this episode. Hi, this is Greg Wright, Public Relations Manager at the National Association of Social Workers. It's Social Work Month. Social Work Month has been around since 1963. We have here our CEO, Angelo McClain, to talk about social work and why it's so important. Welcome, Angelo.

Hello, Greg. Good to be with you. What does Social Work Month mean to you? And also, why should it be so important for our nation? Well, to me, Social Work Month means an opportunity to shine the national and the local spotlight on the good work that social workers do. It's very personal to me. I was a former commissioner of child welfare in Massachusetts, and that was always a time when we could go around to all of our area offices and really thank the social workers for the great job they do. It was always fun because the community would come together and would sponsor our luncheon or our breakfast

and really just give them a real big pat on the back and say, you know, thank you. And oftentimes social workers, you know, feel like they're working and no one pays attention or no one appreciates what they do. But during Social Work Month, it's just a reminder that society actually does appreciate what they do. What are some of the initiatives NASW will be working on this year? For instance, I've heard that we have a mental health bill that's out there as well as a social work safety bill. You know, NASW traditionally has worked on legislation that helps advance the social work profession, helps protect social workers, and also work to assure that we have the resources that our clients and communities need.

And obviously, we're always working on issues of social justice. Some of the things we're working on to sort of promote the social work profession and protect social workers, we're working on a Social Worker Safety Act. We're actually pleased that we got that bipartisan bill that we got filed in Congress. And there's also a Social Worker Safety Act that's being worked on within the state legislatures. We think it's important because social workers oftentimes are in dangerous situations, and if we can put more protections, that would be helpful. So we're working on something called the Social Work Reinvestment Act,

and that's an act that basically asks society to reinvest in social workers. You know, we do quite a bit to increase the quality of life for our fellow citizens, and we're asking the Congress to reinvest in social work to pass legislation that would provide funding for education, training, and research so we can do a better job doing what we do. but for the country to reinvest in social workers. Throughout the country in different states, we work on a social worker licensure to assure that the licensing laws within the jurisdictions are laws that help the profession do a better job in helping people.

And then we're working on something called licensed mobility, and that's the ability for social workers who might be practicing in different states or someone who might locate to a new state that their license would transfer over because it's a lot of time, energy, and effort to have to refile for licensure. This is also a big year for this association because we are planning a national conference that will be in June. I wanted to find out why should a social worker attend that? Well, the NASW national conference, which occurs every other year,

It really becomes the meeting of the social work profession. You know, we have people from every state in the country will be there. We even have, I think the last time we had folks from 12 different countries that were there. And we always make a big effort to have the top sort of keynote speakers there in our workshops. We have the best of the best in the profession who provide cutting-edge information about, you know, new ways of practicing, people who are involved in evidence-based practice, folks who are involved in working with seniors, with the elders, folks who are working in the field of child welfare, child mental health, and integrated health care.

So, you know, if you look across the spectrum of the practice areas, We've got the leaders in those practice areas here, and it's a fun time. The two times I've been involved at the national conference, I've really been pleased just being there and listening to people, hearing their conversations, and seeing the smiles on their faces. I think it's a time when people get refreshed and rejuvenated and sort of a reminder of why they came into the profession. Angelo, NASW has also been working on a modernization plan. I was wondering if you could actually tell our listeners a rationale for it and also where are we in that process at this point? The concept of modernization is a phrase we coined about four and a half years ago.

So it really relates to how can we look at our organizational structure, restructure our organization in a way that really positions us for more achievements in the coming years. And the way some people have looked at it is like our old organizational structure, because we actually did the implementation of modernization in July of 2016. But previous to that, the organizational structure we had had been developed in 1975. and it was a feeling that it was time for us to modernize organizational structure so we could take advantage of new technologies and we could create more economies of scale. And one of the things that the reorganization and modernization has been attempting to do is bring the association closer together. For about 40 years, we've operated with a national office in 50 chapters,

and the chapters worked pretty much independent. I mean, they collaborated some with each other, they collaborated some with the national office, but each chapter sort of did its own thing. And the modernization really seeks to say, let's come together as one association and let's all kind of move in the same direction because we can learn from each other, we can support each other, and we can do a better job. And one of the things we wanted to do through the modernization is look across the chapters and standardize, to the extent it made sense, the services and benefits that members get. Early on in this position, I heard from a number of members who say, I've been a member of two or three or four different chapters. In each chapter, I found different benefits. There was a benefit or a service in Chapter A that I really liked, but it wasn't available in Chapter B. And one of the things we'll do over time is we'll actually

have a standard sort of package of services and benefits that members will find at all the chapters. And then, of course, the chapters will have their own uniqueness. There has been a criticism that modernization effort actually takes away the voice of membership. Is that a true assumption or is that false? Any of us who have been involved in change management know that change is hard. This is probably the fourth sort of major reorganization that I've been through. I went through a transformation of the child welfare system in Massachusetts, went through a transformation of the child mental health system in New Jersey, and did some work and significant work in restructuring the substance abuse acute system

in Massachusetts. And all those change efforts were really hard because they were major. They weren't just small change in a program or something. They were changing the whole system. And you think about our modernization, it's akin to those large state delivery system transformations. And one thing that makes change hard, because there's never agreement. You know, you get 100 people, there's going to be, you know, 15 opinions on what the change should be. And even in our instance, there was quite a bit of agreement, yes, we need to change, and there was no one disputing that, but there was some disagreement about how we should do it, when we should do it, and what it should look like.

I have to give our national board credit for, you know, making a tough decision to move forward with it because this was something, a plan that had been talked about for 15 years before I came to an ESW five years ago. And during that 15-year period, no one was ever really quite ready to move forward with it. So all that being said, change is difficult, change is hard. And one of the things we're trying to put into place is that we want to always be constantly evolving. We always want to be constantly sort of this notion of continuous quality improvement so we don't get to a point, you know, 15, 20 years from now where we have to make another drastic change. We can make incremental changes over time. In terms of members losing voice, that's not the case.

You know, annually there's an annual election for members of the national board. Every member has an opportunity to vote for the national board members. And the national board is charged with the responsibility and authority for making the governance decisions of the association. Annually, at the chapter level, there's a vote, and every member has a chance to vote in those chapter elections for folks who would serve on the chapter boards. Then we have something called delegate assembly, and every three years we get together with delegate assembly, and that's where we decide the professional standards that guide the profession. And there's about 270 delegates that participate in that, and every member has an opportunity to either serve as a delegate or to run to serve as a delegate

and to also to vote for the delegates. So in terms of voice, that's still there. We've actually, through some of our use of technology, we have the ability for more of our members to weigh in on policy statements that we develop. I was wondering if you could let our listeners know how you first got involved in this profession. Yeah, I've been a social worker coming up on about 40 years. It's probably not quite 40. It's maybe hopefully it's closer to 35 than 40.

But I've been in this field for a very long time. My coming in as a social worker is sort of the convergence of football and family, kind of an odd convergence. But as a high school senior, a 17-year-old, I was playing my last football game. And we happened to be playing on a team that had an all-state running back. And I was playing football in the state of Texas. So to be an all-state running back in that state was a very, very big deal. And it was the last game of the year for us. And if we won that game, we would have been district champions.

We didn't win the game. It was 28-20. But there were numerous college football scouts in the stadium that night because of the Allstate running back. On that particular night, I happened to score three touchdowns. I played tight end. I caught three touchdowns, and I played defensive end, and I had about 20 tackles.

So after the game, I'm in the shower thinking, okay, I've just played my last football game. You know, I've gone with my life, and I didn't know exactly what that meant. And my coach comes in and says, these scouts want to talk to you. I said, they want to talk to me? And so I go out, and I talk to 15 scouts from Division I schools, and they were saying, we'd like for you to come play for us. And there was only one of those scouts who asked me what I would want to major in.

Now, of course, I didn't know what a major was. And I said, well, what's a major? And he explained to me, and I said, well, if I were to major in anything, I'd want to major in something to help people. And the reason why I said that, my mom, from the earliest age I can remember, She always said, whatever you do in life, make sure you do something that helps people. So that kind of came together. And given that that was the one scout who said, asked me what I wanted to do, I felt like they had a personal interest in me.

And that's the school I went to. And I majored in social work. And the rest is history because I get a BSW, MSW and a Ph.D. in social work and work in the field for, you know, 35 plus years. Could you also let our listeners know what areas of social work? As a youth, as a 13-year-old youth, my mother had to make the difficult decision to place me in what most of us would think of as a residential group home, a place called Cal Farley's Boys Ranch just outside of Amarillo, Texas. And I was there for five years from age 13 to 18. And when you're that age, you want to be home.

You don't want to be in a residential group home. And it was a big place. It had over 400 kids there, boys. It was a boys ranch. And, for instance, in my dorm, there were 36 kids in the dorm, six kids in a room. It was a very big dorm, and we had sort of first class of everything. You know, there was nothing we lacked for it. We had every kind of experience you could imagine, a really good experience, but we weren't at home.

But little did I know that that kind of prepared me for my social work career. I worked in child welfare for a number of years throughout my career. I work with families, trying to help families keep their children, work with families to get their children back home, work with kids in residential treatment centers. I used to go visit the programs, and the staff would ask me, how do you know where to look? It's like, well, I spent five years in a residential treatment facility, a group home. I know where, I know, I know what goes on, and I know when it goes on. And then I worked in mental health and behavioral health and those fields of trying to help. Most of my career has been worked on trying to help families do a better job nurturing and protecting and raising their kids.

And then working with folks who have a mental illness or a substance use issue and helping them through that. and had the good fortune over the last 20 to 25 years of working, having the responsibility of managing large statewide delivery systems and working to improve those systems and being able to understand that there's a lot that goes into being able to provide the services that are needed in our communities, and a lot of the different parts of the system have to be working together and people need to be talking and communicating to get the best outcomes.

A final question for you. These are challenging days for social workers. We have a president in office. Several of his policies have actually been anti social work. Here we are in Social Work Month. I was wondering if you have an inspiring word for social workers during these times. You know, I had the good fortune of meeting with the Pioneer Steering Committee and the social work pioneers. They're basically the all-stars, the hall-of-famers of social work. And I met with the Pioneer Steering Committee about four days after the election and was lamenting to them the results of the outcome of the election. And they gave me some pearls of wisdom.

They said to me, this is not the first time we've been here. We were here in 68. We were here in 81, and to a lesser extent in 2001. And they said, we've faced these battles, and we've been able to deal with them. And they say, you know, you have to stay woke, W-O-K-E, stay woke. And the basic saying, you know, stay vigilant, stay watchful, and be ready, because there will be opportunities. When those opportunities present themselves, you make sure you seize the moment.

And these are challenging times for us because it feels like the values The values and principles that we stand for are being challenged. It feels like that, you know, people aren't being treated with dignity and being treated with respect. It feels like, you know, marginalized populations are somehow being disrespected and forsaken. I guess that's a word. And it's up to us. And there are victories we've had over the last 15 months that we probably don't realize. But the things, you know, standing up, you know, for immigrants, you know, standing up for getting a budget that puts the resources we need for the families and communities we're concerned about, you know, standing up for women's rights, you know, standing up for transgender troops.

I can remember when, you know, we put some information out about transgender troops and our outrage that there didn't even be any thought that they somehow, you know, weren't worthy to serve. That got some of our biggest response. But I think those times when we stand up, you know, people are listening. Oftentimes we think they're not listening, but they're listening, and it does have impact. So I think we have to stay woke, keep fighting, and there will be opportunities. We'll seize those opportunities. And if we think about the 2018 midterm elections, we know we need to do everything we can to empower voters, get people to register, get people to vote.

And really our voter registration efforts are bipartisan because we want everyone to vote. The best form of democracy is when people participate. So we want as many of our community members and clients to vote. I've seen personally just how empowering it can be when we get someone who could be in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, or even 60s who registers to vote for the first time and just how empowered they feel. And so, you know, social workers, we have an obligation to be active in our communities and getting people to register to vote. Angelo, thank you.

We also hope to have you as a guest here at a future date. Greg, it's my pleasure to join you, And I just want to give a shout out to all the social workers out there and say happy Social Work Month. What you do is very, very, very much appreciated.