Day In the Life - Caeleb Goff, BSW, RSW

BY MEL PRIESTLEY

“YOU CAN BE A SOCIAL WORKER ANYWHERE,” CAELEB GOFF SAYS. “IT’S ABOUT THE WAY YOU RELATE TO PEOPLE AND THE WAY YOU SEE THE WORLD – IT’S NOT JUST A JOB TITLE.”

Goff (BSW, RSW) is a young social worker who just obtained her Bachelor of Social Work degree in 2020 from the University of Calgary. She was in the middle of her practicum as a Family Court Counsellor with Alberta Justice and Solicitor General when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Suddenly she was at home, with a lot of free time on her hands, and had to figure out where she wanted to take her career.

After a few months of job searching, she found a role in Enrolment Services with the University of Calgary, meeting her desire of giving back to students and working in the education system. This may sound like a nontraditional position for a social worker, but Goff feels that her social work background is a good fit for this area.

“This role has given me a lot of space to use my social work knowledge and bring that to the team,” Goff says. “Just last week, I did a great morning workshop with my colleagues about de-escalation and how we can reflect on our own positionality and use that to inform our practice.”

During an average day at Enrolment Services, Goff responds to various student inquiries about things like admission, registration, financial aid and fees. A large part of the role involves making referrals to appropriate resources, but Goff says they also need to be there to simply acknowledge and support the students. Many are first-year undergraduates who are in a very unusual situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“These first-year students didn’t get to go to graduation or prom and now they’re coming to university and it looks totally different than expected,” Goff says. “They’re sad; it’s a sad position to be in. We have to do a lot of de-escalation because people are quite upset when they call us. In our roles, we support main elements of the student experience like course registration and paying tuition and fees, but these topics can often come with emotions tied to them. Our roles are more about understanding motivation and emotionality than about the actual nitty gritty of things like paying fees. A lot of it is just sitting with them in that emotional moment and trying to get to a solution together.”

One of the things that Goff enjoys most about her role in Enrolment Services is advocacy. “I’m really lucky that I have the opportunity to use social work practice and focus on the advocacy piece, because a lot of what we’re doing is advocating for students,” she says. “This can involve connecting with other departments on the student’s behalf or understanding and adjusting our systems and processes where we hear student barriers exist.”

A lot of it is just sitting with them in that emotional moment and trying to get to a solution together.

Goff didn’t initially plan to be a social worker. Prior to her social work education, she got a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Queen’s University. While doing clinical research as part of her studies at Queen’s, she also volunteered as a mentor to at-risk students in their first year, as well as at the Peer Support Centre and on the Mental Health Awareness Committee.

Volunteering has continued to be very important to Goff. In early 2020, she connected with the Alberta Assembly of Social Workers (AASW), a new advocacy group of social workers working on social justice issues.

“Everyone has a skill set that you can bring forward,” Goff says. “When I started as a social worker, I was really informed by my background in psychology; I didn’t leave all that behind,” she says. “After I graduated, I realized I had this toolbox and just had to figure out where to put it to work.”

Staying connected with the social work profession is a key part of how Goff approaches her daily work at Enrolment Services. She meets regularly with a mentor, Cari Gulbrandsen, PhD, RSW, who works at the University of Calgary as the head of undergraduate student affairs for the Faculty of Social Work. They discuss Goff’s social work practice and how she’s still developing and moving forward while working within Enrolment Services.

“I treat this role similarly to my practicum,” Goff says. “When you’re in practicum, you set all these goals for yourself and I’m still doing the same thing. I don’t have to submit assignments, but I can be accountable to myself and what I’m trying to learn.”

When she’s not working, Goff enjoys reading, playing video games and hiking. “My best friend and I like to drive around and find random places to hike,” she says. “We never plan anything, which is very contrary to how I normally am!”

You can be a social worker no matter where you’re working

Ultimately, Goff hopes that her experience can be an example for other social workers, especially new graduates facing career prospects that look very different than in the past.

“Some people in my cohort have struggled to find employment and many have ended up in jobs that were very different from what they expected,” she says. “But the exciting part of graduating is being able to figure out new ways of doing social work.

“You can be a social worker no matter where you’re working,” she continues. “Even during a pandemic, or if you don’t have a job at the moment and you’re just volunteering, you can continue to evolve your practice and grow.”

MEL PRIESTLEY is an Edmonton-based freelance journalist who writes about local news and culture as well as theatre, food and wine. Find more of her writing and current projects at melpriestley.ca.