NASW Social Work Talks - EP34: What Is Library Social Work?

Episode Date: June 18, 2019

NASW member Debra Walsh Keane talks about why libraries need social workers, the kinds of services library social workers provide, as well as the rewards and challenges of the job. Debra is the social work coordinator for the Jefferson County Public Library in the Denver area. She's also a member of the Public Library Association's Social Work Task Force.  See the show notes for resources and a transcript. And if you liked this episode, please leave us a review in iTunes!

I'm Aaliyah Wright and this is Social Work Talks. A 2018 Chicago Tribune report estimates that more than 30 library systems across the United States now employ full-time social workers. We're speaking today with NASW member Deborah Walsh-Cain. She's the social work coordinator for the Jefferson County Public Library in the Denver, Colorado area. She's also a member of the Public Library Association's Social Work Task Force. Deborah, thank you so very much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Tell us about your social work practice. How long have you been working as a library social worker? Well, I am relatively new

to library social work. The field within the field, if you will, has only been around for 10 years. It started in San Francisco a decade ago, and I have been in my library for just over a year. I come to the libraries from a community mental health background, and that's where, you know, most of my experience has been, is working in that setting, which is a little more traditional for social workers, so it's really been fun to kind of transfer some of that work and that knowledge into a non-traditional setting for social work, which is the library, and it's been really fun to figure that out in the last year and, you know, be in touch with colleagues nationally to kind of help figure out what it can look like. Why do libraries need social workers?

Libraries are kind of the last public space that we have in society, and that it's where you can go without having to pay, and you can sort of just be, and everybody is welcome. And so when everyone is welcome, that means you get a big diversity of people and a wide range of needs that come up, And so we're starting to see that libraries aren't always equipped in the traditional way to meet the needs of people experiencing homelessness who might need help navigating resources. And a lot of times people go to the library when they don't know where else to go. And so to have social workers in those spaces to help navigate some of those more complex social service needs or, you know, resource connection issues has been really helpful to the patrons and the customers that are coming looking for answers. that library staff traditionally don't have any answers to, and so expanding what library staff means to kind of help encompass some of these more difficult questions,

more complex navigation questions. What kind of services are library social workers providing, and who are they working with? Library social workers have a number of roles. Kind of the most obvious one is connecting patrons or customers to resources, and so a lot of times it's thought of that library social workers are there to only help people who are unhoused or experiencing homelessness and we kind of nationally are trying to push back on that conversation a little bit and make it more expansive and say that we are here to help anyone experiencing a life challenge and how I you know talk about it in in my library

system is I am here to help anyone that wants help anybody that wants to chat with me about anything is welcome to do so. And so a lot of the work that we do is to help people experiencing homelessness navigate the really complex systems that are not really user-friendly. But I also work with folks who are housed and looking for medical care, folks who, you know, are stranded in my area, helping them figure out how to get back to where they want to go. And so we're trying to expand kind of definition of who we work with. You know, as libraries are welcome to everybody, I think library social workers work with everybody. You're on the Public Library Association's Social Work Task Force. What kinds of projects does the task force work on? So we are working on

coming up with best practices since we're sort of a new field within the field, trying to figure out what are best practices for library social workers? What are the standards that we're aiming for and so we internally in the group are trying to come up with that but also are looking to help support libraries and so we come up with recommendations for different areas some of it is you know how to be trauma informed and trauma sensitive what that kind of looks like in a library setting there is a blog you know every month or so one of the task force members will write on a topic that's relevant specifically to the library and so it

It can be how to navigate boundary issues with patrons or customers, incident report writing, you know, how to do that in a sensitive way. There's kind of two phases of it. We're figuring out what it is we're all doing, and then also how we can best support libraries. And even libraries that don't have social workers, we're coming up with some documents that identify some of those best practices that folks can implement, even if they don't have the capacity or the ability to bring on a social worker of their own. Do you foresee a time when most libraries will have social workers? Oh, boy, I hope so. I think it's a really great opportunity to literally meet people where they are. I guess I hope so. And I also hope not. I would love for there to be a radical shift in society where, you know, we started housing people and making it easy to navigate so that the need would fall away. But short of that, I think including social workers in the space where people are is a really great way to get people connected who otherwise might not be able to be connected. You mentioned that article that said there's about 30 library systems.

There was some informal tracking happening where there was about 100 social workers. That's hard because interns come and go and they were on the list as well. So we're seeing, it seems like every few weeks or every month or so, there are more social workers coming up in library systems. And I think we're starting to see the value of having specific professionals dedicated to some of these questions. And so libraries, you know, are pretty much getting on board as, unfortunately, we're not seeing society change, that those issues aren't going away and maybe are increasing. So I think it's a really creative and great way to meet some of those needs. Now, many children go to the library after school. It's also a place where adults with mental health needs might come to find services.

how do you address meeting the needs of everyone concerned? Since libraries are welcoming to everybody the answer is that as long as everyone's behaving and doing what they're supposed to do i.e following whatever policies for behavior are set in place at each library then it's all great you know so it's all behavior based we don't ever want to say that you know this person who might be unhoused is not welcome that's not true everyone is welcome the only time that someone is not welcome is if there's a behavior that is unacceptable that happens in the space. Someone coming in for mental health needs, that's absolutely great. They have as much right to be in the library as a kiddo who's hanging out after school. And so the kiddos, sometimes we have

behavior issues. It's the same code of conduct, if you will, across the board for everybody who's in the spaces. Sometimes it's just reminding patrons who might be upset seeing someone that they assume is experiencing homelessness or has some kind of issue going on explaining that the library is for everyone. Listeners, we'll be right back. NASW Press is the leading scholarly press in the social sciences. Our publications reach faculty, practitioners, agencies, and researchers in social work and related disciplines. Visit naswpress.org for scholarly books, reference works, brochures, and periodicals. And we're back. Deborah, your branch provides lunches for kids all summer. What are some of the other resources available? We have a Hard Times Writers Workshop.

It's a collaboration with Lighthouse Writers out here in the Denver area. And so that is where once a week we have the opportunity for patrons who are looking to engage in some writing opportunities to help process some of their experiences and really come together as a community, that workshop is really incredible for them. We have social work drop-in hours, which is where folks can come in and meet with me with their questions, and we kind of brainstorm next steps and some opportunities. We also have legal aid that comes in a couple times a month as well at our different branches, where folks are able to ask lawyers questions that they have, And I'm sure if we're getting a lot of things, too, we're really working on meeting the needs of our community.

And so as those needs come up, the library has always been a place where we're able to meet those needs through different programs. And it's really, really a cool place for everybody. And, you know, you can come in for a book club or a yoga group. Or if you need some of those more kind of social work services, we have some other opportunities available as well. how do you think library social work will evolve in the future i would expect that it will continue to grow um i think we will come up with some pretty pretty good standards that that would sort of be the way that that we recommend that libraries approach expanding social work stuff and i think the partnership between social work and librarianship is really kind of a no-brainer

in a lot of ways because we're all doing the same thing just with a different approach where libraries, library staff are helping with resource questions and social workers a lot of times are helping with those questions as well. And so it really is rounding out what a library is able to do. And so I expect that we'll just see it continue to grow as we continue to get good responses and the benefits are seen as there are more of us. So you think it'll be a normal occurrence to find a social worker in a library? Yeah, I would say 10 years, 20 years. It won't be such a surprise when I go around and introduce myself as a library social worker. It'll be more of a norm as opposed to an outlier, and there'll be less confused faces and more smiling faces,

I think. And what are some challenges and rewards of the job? I think some of the challenges are trying to figure out how to do social work in a non-traditional space. And so a lot of us nationally will talk about how we do outreach or in-reach in the libraries. And so how to let people know what services are available in the library. So I go around and introduce myself to everybody who I see. And it's really important to not just introduce yourself to people that you think might need services, because that's not a super friendly approach. And so that's one of the challenges, is figuring out how to get the word out that we're here and able to do these non-traditional resource questions. And other challenges are just, you know, coming up

with the infrastructure, figuring out that like, oh yeah, I might need a cell phone because I go to a bunch of different branches, those kind of more administrative pieces, figuring out how to explain it to the library in a way that they're receptive and on board with it. It just takes come time. And rewards? The rewards are really incredible. The best days that I have at the library are when I'm in the right place at the right time for someone who is in crisis and really needs help. It's kind of like the universe aligns and I'm there when someone needs me. That's always incredible because that helps the patron, it helps the staff because they have someone that's able to take on that crisis and hopefully manage it in a way that

doesn't end up you know meeting police or becoming a big sort of distraction those days are really the best days and also it's just so wonderful to be able to help influence where libraries are going so I'm working on helping my branch become more trauma sensitive and you know we're coming up with a lot of trainings right now so to help help with the narrative around working with the public is a really awesome thing that I get to do as well. What advice would you give to social workers who are interested in working in libraries? I would say reach out to the community that already exists because there are so many resources that we have created. And so the Public Library

Association, the task force, we have a lot of great materials that are being developed. If you do a simple Google search of library social work, you'll come up with a bunch of names and typically some email, go ahead and reach out to those people and we can get you plugged in to the communities that are happening either formally through the PLA and other organizations or informally where we've got a bunch of folks that just kind of call in and it's a great way to be supportive. And trying to tap into those, I think it'd be great. It can be a pretty lonely start for social workers in the library because typically you start with one and you're the only one until you're able to grow your team if if your library is able to support that and has the need for it and so really connecting

to the library social workers that are already there and already have kind of worked through some of that loneliness and how to figure out the boundaries and explaining social work values to a profession that is closely aligned but doesn't have exactly the same language there's already so much happening i think really not feeling like you're an island and connecting connecting all the different islands that are already together and in communication Are you working in a library by yourself or are you working with a team? I am the only one right now. So I was brought in to sort of assess what the need would be and then hopefully be able to expand the team.

Because it is too much really for one social worker to cover a whole, you know, a whole 10 branches in my case. So I'm alone with the idea of expanding. So I am in touch with Colorado has a lot of library social workers. And so we all get together about once a month to chat about what's happening, come up with some best practices, seeing some trends that we're seeing. And then, you know, nationally, I'm connected with other folks as well. Lastly, Deborah, what's the one takeaway, the one thing you hope people will learn today? I would love for people to come away with an understanding of the incredible power that libraries have in bringing people together and being being there as a resource for anyone and

everyone in your community that is what has been so mind-blowing for me working in libraries I grew up going to libraries I'm a huge fan of libraries but now working in them I really see just the incredible work that the library does merely by existing you know that you can come and get books for free use the internet for free it's a really incredible democratizing force where everybody has access the library is a really it's sort of the best resource that we have including social workers in that resource is a win-win in my book thank you deborah thank you And thank you, listeners. Be sure to leave us an iTunes review. You have been listening to NASW Social Work Talks, a production of the National Association

of Social Workers. We encourage you to visit NASW's website for more information about our efforts to enhance the professional growth and development of our members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social policies. You can learn more at www.socialworkers.org. And don't forget to subscribe to NASW Social Work Talks wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for joining us. We look forward to seeing you next episode.