Celebrate social work support and service
There was very little fanfare, but March is National Social Work Month, where attention is drawn to many of the essential activities of social workers in their communities.
A big shout-out goes to Leticia Plancarte-Garcia, the new director of County Mental Health who I met in the 1980s when we were neighbors in private counseling practices. Unfortunately, social work continues to go unheralded in the media and TV shows. My wife and I love medical dramas in hospital settings (Chicago Med, New Amsterdam, The Resident, ER, etc.), and of course nurses and doctors do frontline life-saving, but who helps with the family in the days and weeks after the death, cancer diagnosis or domestic violence repair? In hospitals, it is mostly medical social workers who are totally absent from any of our popular medical dramas. Social workers, if they appear on TV, are the people, carrying paperwork, coming to take the child away from parents. It is a common stereotype.
Most social workers help keep families together, find them housing and resources to support recovery from life’s tragedies. Both ECMRC and Pioneers have great medical social workers, and you would never know they existed, unless you were blessed with their help in your family’s medical crisis.
In nearly 40 years of professional social work, it has been a privilege to work with and volunteer with Valley social workers. We are fortunate that SDSU, in Calexico, offers a graduate degree in social work that has created a great crew of caring, talented and committed social workers. They work in the hospitals, schools, mental health clinics, county programs and the varied services for the disabled. Valley social workers also supervise and mentor young professionals and youth in church, foster care settings and other non-profit places. Their work is powerfully important, and often unnoticed, except by the hands that they help up. Our department of Social Services and Imperial Valley College, through social work energy, innovation and professionalism, have help thousands of single parents achieve economic independence and security. You would never guess that the person who just bought the house down the street, was once receiving Medi-Cal or temporary income assistance.
When a family faces challenging circumstances from job loss, divorce, a COVID diagnosis, aging, a disability or death, there is a well-trained support system available, woven into the fabric of our Valley community. Parenting, substance abuse and violence prevention classes and programs help people cope and cultivate skills for handling life’s dramas. Social workers are at the fronts of many fights but removed from the public eye because of confidentiality and the ethics in the profession.
One last shout-out is for the social workers in private practice, especially Peter DiManno, who moved down here from Del Mar, to serve our children and families full time. As a medical social worker, I remember referring child abuse survivors to his support group back in the 1980s when I worked at EOC Prenatal Family Planning Clinic, later a Pioneers Memorial Hospital clinic. Mr. DiManno has helped thousands of families and trained and supervised many of our beloved licensed social workers. He has helped me personally as a parent, husband and recovering person. Thank you Peter! Another private counseling service, the Son-Shine Counseling Center, with a history of providing some pro-bono counseling services, currently has five licensed clinical social workers willing to help those needing services and support.
February was Black History Month and March 8 was the International Day of the Women. Social workers cross all boundaries of race, sexual orientation, citizenship status and gender to reach out and grab the hands of those seeking help. Social workers serve all income groups, but a higher proportion of their clients are poor and people of color.
A very high percentage of our social work professionals are Christians and people of faith, who have Jesus Christ as one of their mentors, guiding them towards volunteer work, both in and outside the church. Christ, as the original social worker, reached out and touched the lives of lepers, the dying, the racially marginalized (Samaritans), widows, the mentally ill and the poor.
As a group, social workers are humble. If you have a moment, call or text the social worker who provided you with some support or service when you needed it. Some quiet communication can be the best way to celebrate this month and what it means.
Jim Shinn is a retired social worker who has taught graduate level counseling and social work seminars for SDSU and the University of Redlands. He currently volunteers for his church, the Alzheimer’s Association, Centinela Prison and a new support group for bereaved parents.