InDepth SMITH COLLEGE SCHOOL FOR SO CIAL WORK
FALL 2023
IN THI S I SSU E MISSING FROM THE NARRATIVE THE CARCERAL STATE BARRIERS TO CARE
Este Orantes Migoya, adjunct assistant professor, enjoys the drag performance during SSW Pride 2023. They were the recipient of the first ever Laura Rauscher Memorial Teaching Award which recognizes an instructor who embodies the commit ments and values that Laura Rauscher brought to her teaching, specifically: ■ A commitment to universal access in the classroom; ■ A commitment to accessi bility, intersectionality and social justice; and ■ A commitment to collabo ration and collegiality.
InDepth is published by the Smith College School for Social Work. Its goal is to connect our School community, celebrate recent accomplishments and capture the research and scholarship at the School for Social Work.
During SSW Pride all were invited to share their stories, with prompts like this one. Others included: “Describe a moment when you found JOY in queerness,” “I feel liberated when…,” “Describe a time when you pushed back or stood up for yourself.”
EDITORIAL TEAM
Laura Noel Simone Stemper DESIGN
Lilly Pereira Maureen Scanlon Murre Creative CONTRIBUTORS
Kira Goldenberg Katie Potocnik Medina Tynan Power Faye S. Wolfe Megan Rubiner Zinn PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHY
Shana Sureck
S MITH CO L L EGE SCHO O L FO R SO CI AL WO R K
FALL 2023
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR AND ALUMNI UPDATES CAN BE SENT TO:
InDepth Managing Editor Smith College School for Social Work Lilly Hall Northampton, MA 01063 413-585-7950 indepth@smith.edu ©2023
F EATU RE S
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Missing from the Narrative
How mixed race clinicians are filling gaps in clinical experiences
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The Carceral State FO LLOW US O N:
Facebook facebook.com/ smithcollegessw Instagram instagram.com/ smithcollegessw YouTube bit.ly/SSWYouTube
Incarceration and the role of social work in the system
24
Barriers to Care
Addressing the challenges of mental health care access across the globe
DE P A RT M E N TS
02 From the Dean A note from Marianne Yoshioka
03 SSWorks
School News + Updates Faculty Notes
29 Alumni News
Alumni Desk Alumni Profile
36 Post Script An End Note
O N T H E COV E R
M.S.W. students Basma Jaber and Coco Montellano provided the musical backdrop for SSW’s annual Pride celebration. Photo by Shana Sureck.
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M ARIAN NE R .M . Y OSH IOK A, M .S.W., M BA, PH .D ., LCSW
Caring, Rethinking We are asked to not only understand how racism functions and manifests at SSW but to actively center communities that have been marginalized.
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As I write this, we are in the midst of our summer terms. I am so proud of the amazing teaching and learning that is going on! I am watching and hearing about deep discussions in the classroom and joyous conversations over meals. I know you all remember what a unique and powerful experience summer at Smith is! Our Deepening Clinical Practice Conference was a resounding success. The keynote by Dr. Autumn Asher BlackDeer and the plenary by Associate Professor Loretta Ross were extraordinary. Each of the sessions throughout the day were substantively rich and engaging. As I walked through the event, I could see folks in discussion with each other. I heard laughter and applause. We had a lovely alumni dinner and another reception. I hope you will all consider coming back to campus next summer for this day of learning, growing and connecting! I’ve been thinking a lot about the ways that this program is an important experiment in creating something that does not exist elsewhere. Our School started as an experiment in 1918 to push the idea that women could be trained to deliver psychiatric services. Today, we are once again a new kind of experiment to push the idea that it is possible for our program to bring our five Core Principles of racial justice to life in every aspect of our programs and operations. The School’s anti-racism commitment written in the 90s was at that time a bold and radical step. Our work today builds and extends that commitment. We are asked to not
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only understand how racism functions and manifests at SSW but to actively center communities that have been marginalized for their strength, knowledge and beauty in all aspects of the School. A caring accountable community is built in each interaction, in every email and in each administrative and managerial policy and decision. To bring this to life requires more than curricular transformation. It requires actively building and holding accountability for the administration of the School, for our programs and also for each other. It requires that we rethink and change the status quo because of all the ways that standard operations maintain the values of white supremacy culture. I am so pleased to share that we are on our way! This summer we have been putting our new Community Agreement and Classroom-Based Accountability Process into action. Each is the product of a large racial justice committee composed of students, staff, adjunct and resident faculty. We are exploring how to use these documents, learning when they are most helpful and also their constraints and limits. I hope I am conveying the excitement and the challenge of this work. It is important and I am fully committed to doing what I can to make it a reality. In these days when there are daily assaults on human rights, SSW is pushing forward to create a learning community culture that affirms, celebrates and centers the knowledge, wisdom and beauty of those same communities. ◆
SSWorks News from Lilly Hall IN THIS SECTION
SCHOOL NEWS FACULTY NOTES
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BY K I R A G O LD E N B E RG
An Accountable Community Creating an actionable framework of tools and practices
Janae Peters, M.S.W. ’15 and JaLisa Williams, M.S.W.
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I think it’ll make folks feel safer and that’s a huge piece. Whether that be the student or the faculty, they know that if things go left they have something to look at to process it going forward.” —JALISA WILLIAMS, PROFESSOR
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When Janae Peters, M.S.W. ’15, was a Sotomayor Fellow—a role that offers confidential mediation for ruptures in SSW’s learning community—she helped write the fellows’ annual report highlighting themes that arose on campus. The role gave her frontline knowledge about what was, and was not, working in the diverse community’s commitment to anti-racism. In summer 2020, she said—as the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted persistent societal disparities and the country saw a spate of police killings of Black Americans—the report’s theme centered around the need for some kind of process giving clarity to all community members on how to address relational harms. Now, as the coordinator of the expanded version of the Sotomayor Fellowship, called the Sotomayor Collective, and a member of SSW’s Anti-Racism Planning Group (ARPG), Peters, along with Professor JaLisa Williams, facilitated the creation of the School’s new Classroom-Based Accountability Process. It debuted this summer term and seeks to give students and faculty a roadmap to follow when community ruptures occur. “It’s a call to create the type of classroom community that can withstand conflict and ruptures,” Peters said. “What happens when we encounter harms in our spaces, particularly given we are in a field that is often dealing in tension and conflict and power dynamics?” The ARPG, led by Peters and Williams M.S.W., and consisting of faculty, staff and students, used SSW Professor Peggy O’Neill’s concept of taking a pause during “courageous conversations” as well as Smith College Associate Professor Loretta J. Ross’s notion of “calling in” as
foundations for their work building SSW’s Classroom-Based Accountability Process. They also drew on their own committee practices, which prioritized community building prior to moving on to any other work. “We were really intentional about a nice chunk of our agenda being connection and rapport building, which I think really made the work better,” Williams said. Similarly, at the broader institutional level, “how do you work to create a community of care in your classroom prior to your class even starting?” The ARPG ultimately created a framework delineating five “levels of harm,” from microaggressions up to physical violence, with suggested processes of who is responsible for stepping up and how those individuals might work toward healing. The Classroom-Based Account ability Process is both a vital part of SSW’s five Core Principles of racial justice and a useful set of guidelines in response to needs expressed by the teaching and learning community. “Over the years we’ve gotten feedback from students and instructors that when we do have ruptures in the classroom—they can feel really impactful and there was an ask to create something that instructors can use to guide these experiences,” said Megan Harding, M.S.W. ’07, associate dean for academic affairs. “Students have wished that instructors had new ways of addressing those ruptures in the classroom. Instructors have sometimes felt at an impasse addressing those ruptures and have been eager to get more support around it.” Though Peters and Williams note that the process will be modified depending on community response,
It’s a call to create the type of classroom community that can withstand conflict and ruptures.” —JANAE PETERS, M.S.W. ’15
it’s a vitally important starting place. “I think it’ll make folks feel safer and that’s a huge piece,” Williams said. “Whether that be the student or the faculty, they know that if things go left they have something to look at to process it going forward.” Alongside the Classroom-Based Accountability Process, SSW’s Strategic Visioning Group debuted a Community Agreement to build a passionate, accountable community. It includes that individuals be responsible for self learning, that they uphold the same standards in community that they extend to clients, that they are mindful of the amount of rhetorical space they occupy and that they remain open to community feedback. “There is a real desire to take our five principles and factually make them actionable. The community agreement is one way to begin imagining how to do that,” Harding said. ◆
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Tapping Each Other Nationwide alumni network of area coordinators builds connection and community
I find it’s really enriching and keeps me connected to people who are visionaries. And it always feeds me, because our work is really hard.” —KATE LESLIE, M.S.W. ’07
In Kate Leslie’s everyday professional life as an eating disorder psychotherapist in private practice, she spends a lot of time one on one with clients and much less of it commiserating with fellow clinicians.
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But since 2016, Leslie, M.S.W. ’07, has had one consistent way to connect with fellow social workers in the Boulder, Colorado region: as an area coordinator for Smith College School for Social Work. In this role, she helps plan and host alumni gatherings to build SSW community, even when far from the campus. “The alumni networking opportunities are just really lovely,” said Leslie, who co-coordinates with Stephanie Small, M.S.W. ’04. “I find it’s really enriching and keeps me connected to people who are visionaries. And it always feeds me, because our work is really hard.” Leslie and Small are two of 10 area coordinators across the nation—in places from Richmond, Virginia, to Portland, Oregon—who volunteer to plan biannual gatherings for SSW alumni with the logistical and financial support of SSW’s Office of Alumni Engagement. Meetups have ranged from potlucks to more formal gatherings at local restaurants. According to Katie Potocnik Medina, the director of alumni engagement at SSW, “it was common for SSW alumni to graciously host potluck
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gatherings in their homes, particularly to welcome students who were completing their placements in the same area.” In addition to organizing regional events several times a year, area coordinators liaise between SSW and the alumni community at a local level. Support is provided by the alumni engagement office toward the goal of supporting volunteerism and building connections. Beyond building community and making room for a supportive space in a career that can be draining, alumni meetups also provide opportunities for networking and mentorship. “It’s been a great opportunity for peer consultation and for young recent grads to learn to open their private practices,” Leslie said, adding that the meetings also offer “a lot of opportunities to set up supervision opportunities or to find out ways to enrich their work,” such as clinicians with psychodynamic training offering insights to alumni in earlier-career agency placements. “I encourage anyone to sign up and volunteer,” Leslie said. “It is really a net positive in your life.” Anyone interested in becoming an area coordinator can email Katie Potocnik Medina at kmedina@smith.edu. —Kira Goldenberg
BRINGING HOME GOLD InDepth magazine has earned a gold award from the Council for the Advancement of Secondary Education (CASE) RADICAL Circle of Excellence. LOVE UNLIMITED CASE’s Circle of Excellence Awards are the premier recognition program for educational advancement. These peerselected and adjudicated awards honor colleges, universities and schools worldwide whose talented staff have advanced their institutions with resourcefulness and ingenuity. This year volunteer judges selected 521 exemplary entries for bronze, silver, gold, or Grand Gold recognition. Winners are recognized for overall quality, innovation, use of resources and the impact on the institution or its communities, such as alumni, parents, students, faculty and staff. From the award comments, “The judges were impressed by the publication, which boasted a well-designed layout that exuded a high-quality touch. The attention to detail and visual appeal of the publication contributed to its engaging nature, capturing the readers' interest and holding their attention. The judges recognized the commitment to excellence and their ability to create a captivating reading experience.”
InDepth SMITH COLLEG
E SCHOOL FOR
SO CIAL WORK
SPRING 2022
IN THIS ISSUE A LIFE FORCE BURNOUT
PANDEMIC YOUTH
SPOKEN WORD
“ Pride started as a protest. It was started by queer people, people of color, trans people, sex workers and bi people. There are people who will say that this kind of joyous party isn’t true to that spirit but I say, this is revolution! This is exactly the kind of thing we need to show right now because fascism is on our doorstep.”
—LORELEI ERISIS, Assistant Director of Admission, from her speech at Pride 2023
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More than 130 clinicians flocked to campus on June 23, 2023 for the second annual Deepening Clinical Practice Conference. Following the conference, alumni gathered to network and connect with final summer students and each other. Photos of the networking reception on page 31.
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. The 2023 Deepening Clinical Practice Conference: Decentering Whiteness and Celebrating Intersectionality brought clinicians from throughout the United States together for a day of deep learning. The air at the conference was buzzing with inspiration and throughout the day attendees had opportunities to share laughter and learning with other clinicians. The keynote speaker, Dr. Autumn Asher BlackDeer (facing page, top far left) challenged attendees to find ways to actively support tribal sovereignty and practice decolonizing social work through dismantling three key manifestations of coloniality: hierarchies, prioritizing of specific types of knowledge and the societal systems that are complicit in colonial agendas. The afternoon plenary, delivered by Professor Loretta Ross (this page, at left) encouraged attendees to reconsider how they approach conversations about accountability and discouraged the prevalence of cancel culture. A series of breakout sessions allowed for deep discussion and critical thinking around the ways the profession can identify and resist the insidious effects of white supremacy, colonialism and systems of oppression. Save the date for the 2024 Deepening Clinical Practice Conference on June 14, 2024! ssw.smith.edu/conference
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Faculty Notes Recent news and accomplishments
Simulation Gets Real
Sequence to Senior Director of Practicum Learning Katya Cerar, Ph.D. ’13, she recalls, “It seemed like a no-brainer. Why wouldn’t we do it?” Issues facing behavioral health providers—increased staff turnover, more demand, higher acuity, greater caseloads and added responsibilities for clinicians—may result in students getting less supervision, training and mentoring. “Students are being asked to hit the ground running versus learning on the scene,” said Cerar. “Simulation can fill these gaps.” A year ago, Asakura, Cerar and Director of M.S.W. Practicum Learning Arianne Napier-White, M.S.W. ’15 teamed up to include simulation in the practicum seminar. Adjunct
Professor Kenta Asakura, Senior Director of Practicum Learning Katya Cerar, and Director of M.S.W. Practicum Learning Arianne Napier-White worked together last fall to begin planning the simulation trainings that are being incorporated into practicum learning.
Assistant Professor Huey Hawkins, M.S.W., Ph.D., wrote the case study and worked with the actors (sourced from UMass Chan Medical School). Starting in January, simulation will give students opportunities to safely practice
When Kenta Asakura, M.S.W. ’07, Ph.D., joined the SSW faculty in 2022, he came with a national reputation for expertise in simulation-based clinical education—and eager to collaborate with SSW faculty and staff to put simulation to use. In a simulation, students interact with trained actors who play clients. Used for years in medical schools, this form of experiential learning has been more recently adopted by social work programs. “The world is more complex, client issues more complicated than in the past,” said Asakura. “You can’t continue to do what worked in the last century.” When he broached the idea of using simulation in the Practicum
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assessing, interviewing and getting to know a client. It may also help them develop the sensitivity needed to navigate differences related to race, class, gender and identity. Carefully created simulations encourage students to consider how their values, attitudes, backgrounds and identities influence their interactions with clients and how structural racism, for instance, affects a client’s “everyday realities,” in Asakura’s words. It’s a good fit with what SSW students want, Hawkins believes. “They tend to be passionate about recognizing the nuances of life for all types of people. They understand that these are things to think about and wrestle with.” Napier-White facilitated a series of simulation trainings for the practicum seminar instructors. “I was excited to see how the instructors came alive,” she said. “They engaged with the material, they asked thoughtful questions. It’s a pedagogical tool instructors can make their own.” Feedback, noted Napier-White, is a key part of the process, with instructors encouraging students to reflect on how it went, then offering their thoughts on the students’ reflections. Like Cerar and Napier-White, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs Megan Harding, M.S.W. ’07, jumped at the chance to work with Asakura. “We share an interest in extending the use of simulation into ongoing professional learning,” she said. “It was a very exciting process—it’s not as simple as it looks. There could be no better source than Kenta. He supplied the tools, the materials, the process, even the ‘pro tips,’ to get us started on thinking about integrating simulation into faculty support.” They added simulation to the pre-summer orientation for SSW instructors to give them practice using an accountability process for handling ruptures that arise in class.
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/ MORE / For complete bios of our outstanding faculty visit ssw.smith.edu/faculty
The designers of the process, SSW’s Anti-Racism Planning Group, provided two classroom conflict scenarios for the simulation. ARPG facilitators Adjunct Assistant Professor Janae Peters, M.S.W. ’15 and Lecturer and Chair of the Social Welfare Policy and Service Sequence, JaLisa Williams, M.S.W., coached the Smith undergrad actors, who drew on recent classroom experience. Harding was impressed by simulation’s advantages over role playing: “It’s cleaner. The actor has been prepared beforehand, and classroom dynamics are less of an influence.” Unlike the student who may hesitate to offer candid feedback to a classmate, an actor can speak freely. “I want to optimize simulation’s use to strengthen faculty’s pedagogical practice,” said Harding. “I can see so many ways to apply it—to practice giving more useful feedback in the moment or engage students with different learning styles. I’m a huge fan of simulation.”—Faye S. Wolfe Seeds of Peace
In another life, says Marsha Kline Pruett, Ph.D., she would have been Oscar Hammerstein. The Maconda Brown O’Connor professor loves Broadway musicals; over the years, she has written songs and poems celebrating family milestones. Now, as a poet and a peacebuilder, she has her own milestone to celebrate: writing the lyrics for a song performed at the United Nations’ General Assembly meetings. “Seeds of Peace” debuted in September, with Kline Pruett’s husband, Dr. Kyle Pruett, child psychiatrist, noted family expert, and professional tenor, singing the first two verses, which begin, “Welcome to our world, my child/Welcome to our world/With each new life we have a chance to plant the seeds of peace.”
Kline Pruett’s own conviction, that peace begins at home, has driven her career.
Then the Yale All-City Children’s Chorus joined in: “We need to repair the world/Let’s start with you and me/ We can repair the world/Together, you and me.” The audience was encouraged to sing the final verse. Being honored was the Early Childhood Peace Consortium (ECPC), whose 23 members, including Yale Child Study Center, Sesame Workshop and UNICEF, endeavor to apply early childhood development strategies to build world peace. The U.N. identified ECPC as one of four organizations who have made significant progress toward that goal. Kline Pruett’s own conviction, that peace begins at home, has driven her career. “My heart’s so deeply in it. I’m saddened and deeply troubled that violence in families and societies is perpetuated and tolerated. I’ve worked with families across the country and in Canada to promote co-parenting and fathers’ involvement in raising children to reduce the rate of abuse and familial conflict.” In creating the lyrics, she was inspired by a wide range of sources: ubuntu, a word in Zulu and the
foundation of an African philosophy of humanism; tikkun olam, the Jewish concept of the individual’s duty to “repair the world”; and Margaret Mead’s oft-quoted idea that “a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.” Over two years, she wrote several versions. “I had too many ideas and was focused too much on my feelings as a parent. Then I realized the song was not about parents but about children.” Composer Geoffrey Hudson wrote the music and helped shape the message. Having created “The Bug Opera”, a children’s opera, and the acclaimed eco-oratorio “A Passion for the Planet”, among other works, Hudson was the perfect collaborator. Kline Pruett noted his “stellar input” not only on the conceptual side, but also as she wrestled with syllable counts, line breaks and rhymes. Challenging, rewarding, exciting— Kline Pruett has found the experience all that, and more. But most important, she said, waving her hands like birds taking flight, is that “the song goes out into the world. It’s not about me; it’s about building peace.”—Faye S. Wolfe
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Mis_ing fr_m th_ Narr_tive How mixed race clinicians are filling gaps in clinical experiences
BY KIRA GOLDENBERG
Clockwise from top left: Ann Augustine, Simone Jacobs, Sarah Yang Mumma, EJ Seibert
When Sarah Yang Mumma was earning her M.S.W. in the late aughts, her academic studies felt disconnected from her experience as a multiracial person moving through the world. Most classic clinical literature either assumes clinicians and clients are white by default or attempts to grapple with race and white supremacy—but within and outside the consulting room, the multiracial experience has been largely overlooked.
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“I just remember moving through my masters in clinical social work feeling like, when do I get into literature?” Mumma said. “The idea of race being ambiguous in any way— I don’t recall it being brought up.” After about a decade of post-master’s clinical work, Mumma ultimately decided to create the literature herself. She just completed a Ph.D. at SSW, penning a dissertation on how multiracial therapists experience, understand and navigate racial dynamics within clinical work. “It was a lot of self reflection and trying to engage with this with various supervisors, with colleagues,” she said, describing how she went about dig ging into the issue. “It was a process of acknowledging this is important and empowering myself to seek out that literature.” Along the way, Mumma has pub lished multiple papers on multiracial identities in clinical social work, including one, published this year in Smith College Studies in Social Work, that analyzed her experience of micro aggressions from a clinical mentor related to Mumma’s multiracial identity. In the paper, she recounted how she sought counsel on navigating “racialized transference and counter transference themes within the clini cal dyad,” but ended up in “a defense of my multiracial reality and a struggle for who has the power to define it.” Mumma is one of an expanding cadre of multiracial SSW clinicians working to create the inclusivity they
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felt was missing from their own grad uate studies and clinical experiences. “There’s a growing body of things that have been published but, when I was in school, there wasn’t a ton out there,” said EJ Seibert, M.S.W., Smith College’s Director of Disability Services. “There were so many frame works that didn’t make sense to me.” “It doesn’t really align with what I know that comes from my lived expe rience, which is largely influenced by being mixed,” they added. “I’m never white enough to be white, but I’m also not BIPOC enough to be BIPOC. Am I neither of those things? Am I both of those things? Am I neither and both?” Seibert noted that, in the absence of a dedicated body of research on multiracial clinical work, they found that Indigenous methods and monoracial theoretical frameworks were most helpful to guide their thinking, useful but incomplete fits for addressing unique and multi variate identities.
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That uniqueness formed the foun dation of a workshop that Seibert and Ann Augustine, M.S.W. ’98, co-facilitated at SSW in June focused on the issue. (They are running a second workshop online in October, through the Sojourner Truth School for Social Change Leadership, that is free and open to anyone who identi fies as mixed.) The June workshop, in Seibert’s words, served to “open the space for people to explore what can come up in clinical spaces due to the absence of more specific guidance in the training that we have had.” One thing is for sure, noted Augustine: what comes up is sure to be complicated. “To me, mixedness—being mixed— is so complex and nuanced, whether you’re a clinician or not,” she said. “I think there’s not a lot of spaces to talk through the complexities, and that’s what we were hoping for – to create a safe space for clinicians to explore.” This desire for communities of mixed-race clinicians—of fellow social workers, clinicians, and ther apists who understand the ways in which multiracial identities bring up unique clinical issues around selfdisclosure and transference in client work—became so clear to Mumma that she led the creation of an online directory of multiracial therapists with a group she formed through the biennial conference Critical Mixed Race Studies. “I didn’t feel like I was finding the spaces where I could explore this, and explore this more depthfully,” Mumma said. “So I just began to create some of those relationships and spaces for myself.” As Mumma notes in her recent paper, multiracial identities are uniquely complicated. Clinicians may be perceived differently depending on a client’s own ethnic or cultural background, creating ever-shifting relational webs in which some form of racialized disclosure may—or may not—be useful within the dyad’s clin ical work. “We all have different experiences of what it is to hold this unique space,” said Simone Jacobs, M.S.W. ’05, owner of a private group practice
in Takoma Park, Maryland, where she works with survivors of abuse, neglect and intergenerational trauma. Jacobs’s parents are a Black Oklahoman and a white Brit, giving her an identity that sets her both within and outside of the experience of being a Black or brown person in America. “One of my clients came to me at one point and said, ‘Well, you’re a Black woman and you understand.’ I said, “Well number one, yes, and number two, no, because I didn’t grow up here, so my experience isn’t the same as the average Black woman in this country.’” Is disclosing that difference—that the racialized assumptions Jacobs’ client made about their common identity was not completely true— beneficial in a clinical encounter, or do the shades and nuances of experience create unhelpful distance in a therapeutic dyad? Is it helpful to work with the transference inherent in the initial assumptions or to challenge that dynamic? What if client and therapist have more similarities than the client assumes based on their racialized percep tions? Or fewer? It may be complicated, but mult iracial identity can be an invaluable tool, subtly adaptable to every clini cal relationship. “With some clients, it can be really helpful for them to know my iden tity and for other clients across the racial identity spectrum it can be not helpful,” Seibert said. “When does the client need to be in the projection that they’re in to do the work that they’re doing and when do they need to be brought out of it?” Mumma’s dissertation findings, stemming from interviews with mixed-race clinicians, echoed Seibert’s observations. “There was this sense of strength and drawing positively on their iden tity to help them join with clients,” Mumma said. “A number of partici pants talked about this experience of duality as a mixed-race person and being able to draw from this experi ence to work with a person who isn’t mixed race but experiences ‘duality’
in other ways,” such as someone with an invisible disability or an LGBTQIA identity. The potential clinical advantages contained in a therapist’s multi racial identity as a resource are just beginning to be harnessed. But it’s a superpower that cannot be realized without community support, making it crucial to build and nurture those networks. “Every time we talk about these topics, it’s so healing and informa tive and I get insights every time,” Augustine said. “One of the things that I was realizing is, when I was newer, I was trying to fit myself into the theory. ‘Why can’t I fit in this box? Why am I not a blank slate?’ I had a therapist image in my mind and I wasn’t that person.” “Over time, I’m more and more comfortable with who I actually am, not with who I should have been,” she continued. “In my mind’s eye there were a lot of old white men, and I couldn’t quite be them, but I could be me.” ◆
“I didn’t feel like I was finding the spaces where I could explore this, and explore this more depthfully,” Mumma said. “So I just began to create some of those relationships and spaces for myself.”
“ To me, mixedness—being mixed— is so complex and nuanced, whether you’re a clinician or not. I think there’s not a lot of spaces to talk through the complexities, and that’s what we were hoping for— to create a safe space for clinicians to explore.” —ANN AUGUSTINE, M.S.W. ’98
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The Carceral State
Incarceration and the role of social work in the system
STORY BY TYNA N POWER ILLUSTRATION BY DAVIDE BONAZZI
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lose to two million people are currently incarcerated in the United States. During 2020 and 2021, the incarcerated population dropped due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the numbers are climbing again, and with them the number of individuals, families and communities impacted by incarceration. “When social workers think about intersectionality in the context of clinical work, they need to think about incarceration as one of those intersections,” said Jackie Cosse, M.S.W. ’16, who is completing a Ph.D. at New York University’s Silver School of Social Work. “One part of that is thinking about risk of incarceration—who is more likely to be arrested and prosecuted, who is more likely to benefit from the carceral state— but it’s also about incarceration SOCIAL WORK WITH INCARCERATED as part of family stories and social POPULATIONS “On any given day I am challenged environment.” to intervene on a micro, mezzo and/ or macro level and to be mindful of Whether or not they work directly person-in-environment and contextual behavioral factors while workwith people in prisons, social ing to support incarcerated people,” said Levin Schwartz, M.S.W. ’11, who workers play a variety of roles with works as the assistant superintendent of clinical and reentry services at people impacted by incarceration— the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office (FCSO) in western Massachusetts. and in a profession that is part of the “In the 1960s an erroneous perspective led to carceral envicarceral state. ronments being divorced from our care continuum—somehow people
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Amber Kelly, Ph.D. ’14
who are incarcerated were thought of as different than the people in the community, when in fact they have been, and most will likely be again, our neighbors and community members,” said Schwartz. “This divide has blunted the ability for carceral systems to stay up to date with modern treatment modalities.” Schwartz points to the Medicaid Inmate Exclusion Policy (MIEP), enacted in 1965, which prohibits Medicaid from being accessed for the care of incarcerated people, even if they otherwise qualify. “To manage treatment costs, many correctional facilities nationwide offer low-quality care that inadequately
follows established clinical guidelines,” said Schwartz. Another limitation is the use of protocols such as Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT) and Charting a New Course. “At best, systems that choose to use these outdated treatment protocols, choose a method of treatment that shames and blames people strug- gling with trauma and addiction, and at worst, these systems weaponize flawed and outdated ‘evidence based’ treatments to promote stigma and bias of people in the justice system,” said Schwartz. To measure outcomes, the primary metric is the rate of recidivism. “The more often a person has been incarcerated, the more likely they are to recidivate. The carceral system has compounded the problem by
inadvertently reinforcing institutionalized narratives and fusion with a ‘criminal’ self-identity in clients,” said Schwartz. “There are few people more fused with their self story than folks who are incarcerated.”
CREATING SPACE FOR REFLECTION AND CHOICE WITH MINDFULNESS Schwartz has witnessed dramatic improvements during his time at FCSO. A study analyzing 10 years of data, in 3-year cohorts, found that people who were released from FCSO in 2011 had a recidivism rate of 53% three years after release, but that dropped to 32.2% for the 2015 cohort—a 39.2% improvement. Schwartz attributes this to the effectiveness of modalities that include mindfulness-based treatments, Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
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Kelly thinks it’s crucial to acknowledge the context of incarceration and the carceral state. “When we walk in saying, ‘I would like to teach a meditation course in prison,’ that means I’m teaching a meditation course in the context of state violence, interpersonal violence, community violence, economic oppression, and racial and gender oppression,” said Kelly. “If I’m asking someone to sit with the difficulty that’s coming up in their own bodies, minds and hearts, we need to be explicit about where some of those difficulties are coming from.”
Marian S. Harris, Ph.D. ’97
and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). Mindfulness, in particular, can help people during and after incarceration. “Put simply, being mindful is the action of creating space between stimulus and response. In that space there is choice—how do I choose to respond to this situation, rather than reacting impulsively,” said Schwartz. “Mindfulness based treatment is a transdiagnostic model, meaning that it is a helpful treatment beyond any one diagnosis and works to support the well being of people and to successfully navigate adversity in any form.” Amber Kelly, Ph.D. ’14, is an associate professor at Quinnipiac University and an adjunct associate professor at SSW, who also teaches
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trauma-informed mindfulness-based programs in prisons. “One of the reasons I went back and got a Ph.D. is because of what I was learning while teaching these MBSR classes,” said Kelly. “Women were using practices of mindfulness specifically to deal with symptoms around psychological trauma—interpersonal trauma that they had lived and dealt with prior ever to coming to prison, as well as the traumatization they experienced while incarcerated. They often didn’t have the resources and contacts to use available systems of help and support, like substance use treatment or psychological treatment or otherwise. Many didn’t have family systems and community systems that were able to support them and so they landed in prison—because often that’s the way we take care of people with problems in our country, unfortunately.”
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RIPPLE EFFECTS OF INCARCERATION Marian S. Harris, Ph.D. ’97, is a former adjunct professor, doctoral student clinical supervisor, research adviser at SSW, a 2015 Day Garrett Award winner and a professor at the University of Washington Tacoma. She has devoted most of her illustrious career to child welfare research, including studying the effects of incarceration on children and families. According to Harris, many children of incarcerated parents end up in the child welfare system—especially if their incarcerated parent is their mother. “This [separation] impacts a child’s attachment relationship,” said Harris. “It impacts the child’s development across the lifespan. One thing that’s very important for children when a dad or mom is incarcerated is to maintain that attachment relationship.” In her new book Children of Incarcerated Parents: Silent Victims, Harris captures many stories of people who have been incarcerated and their families—including the story of one grandmother who spent over $15,000 for her son to talk with family by phone via collect calls, in addition to the costs for her to drive his infant daughter to visit him in a prison located hundreds of miles from the family’s home. “Believe it or not, talking by phone via collect calls is a multi-million dollar business in addition to the billion dollar business of privatization of prisons in many states in this country,” said Harris. “These businesses are a
disadvantage to incarcerated parents, their children and caregivers.” Harris notes some prisons include child-friendly visitation rooms, which are more welcoming to children. Residential prison nurseries also are important, but remain rare. “I’ve met babies at the Washington State Correction Center for Women’s residential nursery and it is just phenomenal to see them with their moms, which is where a newborn should be: in the arms of their mothers. Because that’s how babies attach,” said Harris. Even after incarceration, the challenges of reentry include obstacles to housing and employment, which continue to destabilize families. “The Public Housing Opportunity Extension Act of 1996 specifically says that you cannot get Section 8 housing if you have been evicted and arrested for a drug offense,” said Harris. “To me that is just wrong and social workers need to be advocating for change.”
have to consent. For me, I’m typically going to want to write about research findings, therefore, in my consent form I ask permission to record responses to research questions and allow participants to review their responses after transcription is completed and to make any changes they feel are needed, and also get their consent to report findings in aggregate without any identifying information in journal articles, conference presentations, etc.” “What is the point of doing the research, if you don’t use it to inform others and make life better for people?” said Harris.
ADVOCATING FOR CHANGE The high toll incarceration takes on families has made Harris acutely aware of the circumstances that lead to arrest.
“A large percentage of women go to prison for some type of drug offense,” said Harris. “And it’s not them out on the street selling drugs. It’s not them using drugs. They’re either married to or partnered with a man who is involved with drugs.” “We’re sending people to prison because, even though we have a large number of states where marijuana is legal, federal drug laws have not changed. Social workers need to be advocating for changes in drug laws.” Jackie Cosse is focusing her Ph.D. research on another group of unjustly incarcerated people: survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV). According to Cosse, survivors are often criminalized as a result of mandatory arrest/prosecution policies and Jackie Cosse, M.S.W. ’16
LIMITATIONS ON RESEARCH Limitations on research with incarcerated populations can pose challenges for social workers. This results in both less existing research about efficacy— especially defined in ways beyond “recidivism”—and fewer opportunities to conduct research. “My whole dissertation topic ended up being a trauma-informed version of the MBSR program based on the modifications we had made in the prison, but the research was in the community because, with the levels of bureaucracy, it would have taken 20 years to research any intervention,” said Kelly. “On one hand, there is a very good reason: people who are incarcerated are a ‘protected population,’” said Kelly. “Because people are vulnerable, we want there to be extra sets of protections around being able to do research, especially intervention research. On the other hand, there’s the state bureaucracy of any prison system. It’s always very complex, very hierarchical.” “In the past, there has been research that’s been done on prisoners—on people of color—without their consent,” said Harris. “Human subjects’ consent to participate in research is to protect the prisoners. Prisoners
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“What we are trying to do is work ourselves out of a job. I would love to see a day where the interventions we have implemented have taken root in the community in a way that ‘catches’ people when they fall—well before they end up in jail.” —LEVIN SCHWARTZ, M.S.W. ’11, pictured above
systemic injustices that determine who controls the narrative and who is perceived as a victim. “If I am a deaf person in a relationship, and my partner is hearing, when the police get called, my partner has
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control over the narrative,” said Cosse. “The same thing is true if I’m Black or if I’m a person of color.” Cosse has found that there is a surprising amount of resistance within the field of social work to the idea of
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abolition—especially when talking about IPV. The end of the 20th century saw a surge in attention paid to domestic violence and using the legal system as a means to protect women, but that movement primarily served women who were white, cisgender, heterosexual and upper or middle class. When victims don’t match that image, there’s a greater risk that they will be criminalized themselves. “Studies have shown that up to 90% of women imprisoned for killing men were abused by those very same men,” explained Cosse. “In one study of 150 women incarcerated at Bedford Hills Correctional Center in New York State, 94% reported severe physical or sexual abuse during their lives, 75% reported severe physical violence from an intimate partner—and over half of this group reported that their partner threatened to kill them.” For marginalized populations, the relationship between incarceration and experience of violence is especially apparent. “Of the 172,700 women currently incarcerated in the United States, twothirds are women of color,” said Cosse. “Black/Latine women and Black/Latine transgender, intersex, and gender
nonconforming (TIGNC) people are the most criminalized for survivorship in the United States. Then if you look at the largest survey of TIGNC people in the country, with over 27,000 people surveyed, more than half reported they had experienced some form of IPV.” “Many people don’t understand that safety for some is coming at the price of the incarceration of many, many other people,” said Cosse. Social workers have a reason to be invested in systemic change. “Social work is an extension of the carceral state,” said Cosse. “We serve as an extension of criminalization. As an example, think of mandated reporting. In some states, it’s a criminal offense if you don’t protect your children from domestic violence. If I’m working with a survivor or if I’m working with a kid where there’s abuse happening, I am mandated to report it. What does that mean? And what does that action end up leading towards for the survivor or the child?” “We have to think of the ‘whatever to prison’ pipeline in any institution that we’re working in—that is part of abolition,” agrees Kelly. “I was a medical social worker in pediatric intensive care for a long time and noticed that the way the child welfare system functioned, they were working as an arm of the police. If I wasn’t careful, I could have been also. Instead, I chose to act as an advocate for children and families. You really have to think about the policies and protocols that are followed and why, and be skillful in advocating for changes to some of those policies and protocols along the way.” “Even if you are not an abolitionist, you probably don’t want all social problems to be handled by prisons. We know policing and incarceration are not the best solutions to social problems,” said Kelly. Even for those working within the prison system, the ideal is to find better solutions. “The reality is what we are trying to do is work ourselves out of a job,” said Schwartz. “I would love to see a day where the interventions we have implemented have taken root in the community in a way that ‘catches’ people when they fall—well before they end up in jail.” ◆
MACRO TO MICRO The impacts of social work in carceral spaces Social work for Brianna Suslovic, M.S.W. ’18, is about both the macro and the micro, the structural and the personal and changing systems for the benefit of many individuals. Currently a doctoral student at the University of Chicago, she describes the focus of her studies as “courts, prisons, policing, jails and the role of social work in all of those spaces.” Through her courses, she’s adding to her theoretical understanding of the relationship between policy changes and social change—the macro perspective—specifically, in regard to incarceration and decarceration. When she arrived at SSW, she recalled, “I had a very vague sense of how systems work, about policy and the constraints it places on social work, how it restricts clients’ access to housing, public defenders, mental health services. My favorite SSW classes were policy classes.” During her internships, Suslovic witnessed the micro effects of policy every day. “The folks I was seeing had either prior or current experience in the criminal justice system,” she recalled, and their lives were precarious. After getting her M.S.W., she was a forensic social worker in Brooklyn. “I kept seeing the same problems,” she said. “I recognized patterns: people being released from jail to go to a shelter, not getting there, ending up in the hospital. The goal has to be to address problems at a systemic level—to develop a coherent, comprehensive plan for assisting people in these situations.” More recently, Suslovic has taught courses on transformative justice at the University of Chicago; she also tutors at Cook County Jail for the high school equivalency exam. With members of the Chicago nonprofit Prison + Neighborhood Arts/Education Project, she’s developing courses for incarcerated students at Logan Women’s Prison. “As I’m teaching, I’m thinking about how to account for participants’ lived experience, finding parallels between the interpersonal and the structural. These women may have had a violent intimate partner or been isolated by a partner from friends and family, and now incarceration isolates them from those same sources of support,” Suslovic said. “It’s not a therapeutic setting, but I’m drawing on my clinical understanding of trauma and oppression. The teaching pulls on the same skills I’d use in group therapy.” “It’s generative, exciting,” she added, “to see students progress from not talking much in class to feeling capable, claiming a degree of ownership and authority over what they’re learning. So much of their experience is dehumanizing, it’s very moving when a student says, ‘I’m good at math,’ ‘I’m interested in history,’ or ‘I have skills I can put into practice.’” As moving, said Suslovic, are their motivations: getting their GED, for instance, to set an example for their kids. “I’m so impressed by how focused and invested the students are in their classes, how they’re prioritizing their professional, educational and personal goals, taking advantage of the chance to be in a classroom to revisit ideas and goals they’ve had to put aside.” As Suslovic’s students work toward a larger life through hard-won victories, she is right there with them. “It’s egalitarian,” said Suslovic, “There’s a lot that I’m learning, we’re teaching each other.”—Faye S. Wolfe
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[Barriers] [to} Care] Addressing the challenges of mental health care access across the globe
BY MEGAN RUBINER ZINN
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Smith College School for Social Work (SSW) has a rich international community of faculty, students and alumni who bring diverse experiences with mental health care to the School, and who take the SSW’s innovative approaches and perspectives back across the globe. As practitioners, researchers and residents, Ora Nakash, Fareeda AboRass, Anne Ford M.S.W. ’88, Aquila Vera M.S.W. ’12 and Shveta Kumaria all have firsthand experiences with mental health care outside the United States. When they talk about mental health in their part of the world—especially barriers to accessing care—it becomes clear that while there are some roadblocks specific to their countries, most of the roadblocks are universal and most could be resolved with significant investments in mental health resources.
[ ] Fareeda Abo-Rass, M.S.W., Ph.D.
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Ora Nakash, M.A., Ph.D., professor and director of the SSW Ph.D. program, and postdoctoral researcher Fareeda Abo-Rass, M.S.W., Ph.D., work together to research barriers to mental health care in Israel and to determine how the country can improve quality, equity and access to care among historically marginalized communities. Since completing her M.S.W. degree, Anne Ford has worked in England. She spent 29 years with Oxford University’s Counseling Service, where she developed a peer support program,
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[ ] Anne Ford, M.S.W. ’88
training students in such topics as listening skills, suicide prevention, crisis management and psychoeducation, before starting a peer support training consulting business in 2017. Aquila Vera is a social worker in Harare, Zimbabwe, working in a psychiatric hospital with children and adolescents, and she is a junior lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, teaching clinical social work to undergraduates. Shveta Kumaria, M.A., Ph.D., LCSW, is a SSW assistant professor who specializes in scholarship on pedagogy of clinical social work and research on clinician wisdom and effective influences in early therapist training. Her research has included one of the first studies of psychotherapists in India. Nakash, Abo-Rass, Ford, Vera and Kumaria all describe mental health care systems in these countries as under-resourced and facing significant challenges. Israel, the United Kingdom and India have universal health care that includes mental health care, so in theory, every citizen has the opportunity to access mental health care. But in reality, many are unable to do so. In each of these countries, the barriers to care are an interplay of factors like economics, culture, education and geography. The primary issue is an acute lack of providers. In India, there are only 0.75 psychiatrists for every 100,000 people (the desirable number is above three), and individuals may have to wait in line for hours to see a psychiatrist for a prescription and then wait hours to get medication. In her research, Nakash found
Professors Shveta Kumaria and Ora Nakash are both conducting research that explores access to care and the challenges individuals face.
that among the Hebrew-speaking population in Israel, the gap between the number of providers available and the number of individuals in need was 50 percent; among Arab-speaking populations it was 70 percent. In the UK there are long waits to see NHS providers—however, there are plenty of independent therapists for those who can pay and who know how to access them. In Zimbabwe most providers are in urban areas, making care inaccessible to rural populations. Quality of care is also an issue. According to Ford, the UK government’s current approach to mental health care is early intervention and quick fixes, except in cases of severe mental illness. Poor cultural competency among some providers further weakens quality of care. In their research, Nakash and Abo-Rass found that marginalized populations who are able to access care, specifically Palestinian citizens in Israel, have higher rates of negative experiences with providers, reporting high levels of microaggressions and misdiagnoses. To some extent, in any country, stigma plays a role in keeping people from seeking care. In some places, this has lessened. Ford noted that when she first arrived in the UK, mental health wasn’t something people discussed, and while there is still some cultural stigma, there is much more discussion and acceptance. But among some populations, like ultra-Orthodox Jews and Bedouins in Israel, where mental illness can have an impact on a family’s social standing, it remains hidden and untreated. A lack of mental health literacy can further limit access. Nakash and Abo-Rass look particularly at mental health literacy among Bedouin communities—their understanding of mental health issues, ability to identify problems and knowledge about how to utilize services. “It’s a huge predictor of access to care,” said
Nakash. Vera also identifies a lack of understanding of mental health as a key barrier in Harare, although that has been changing since the COVID-19 pandemic. “People are starting to say, ‘We’ve always known how to take care of ourselves as communities, but we didn’t put it as mental health care.’” In the face of these barriers, practitioners and educators around the world employ creative interventions to help clients and communities as much as possible. On the macro level this has included anti-stigma and mental health literacy campaigns, with sports stars and other public figures talking openly about their mental health struggles. India has launched life skills trainings in schools and has set up health lines to address suicide, which is a huge issue among young people. In recent years, Ford has seen a new and growing activism in the United Kingdom’s therapeutic community. In particular, she’s seen increased demands from providers for better funding and holistic care from the government and more awareness among providers of their own biases.
On a micro level, there have been concerted efforts to find ways to supplement the inadequate numbers of providers. One of the rare silver linings of COVID-19 has been the broadening of telehealth. India, for example, has launched 23 telehealth centers with 900 trained providers. Kumaria also spoke of efforts in India to integrate mental health into training programs of allied professions. Physicians, nurses and staff of not-for-profit organizations, among others, are being trained in basic
[ ] Aquila Vera, M.S.W. ’12
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mental health assessment, treatment and referral skills. The incorporation of lay people into mental health care can also be an effective intervention. Vera has worked with The Friendship Bench, a program that trains community members to provide psychoeducation, teach problem solving skills and provide referrals for further care. This works well in Zimbabwe, given that care has traditionally been communitybased, and because meeting outside of a therapy office removes the power dynamic, which can often be an issue. Ford also emphasizes the role that peer support can have in navigating barriers: lessening stigma, helping people to feel seen and providing education and referrals. “Because the sense of community here has dissipated, there is such a high level of people feeling lonely and disconnected. And peer support is about making those connections.” Given the limited amount of time they may have with clients, providers will look to brief but effective interventions. Vera has found eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy to be particularly useful. “Stabilizing techniques have been of paramount importance in my work because I can help increase the resilience of someone who I know cannot get out of the situation,” she explained. The ways to remove barriers to mental health access in their countries are clear to these practitioners and researchers, but they know it will take systemic changes to approaches and funding. “I would like to see the discourse around mental health issues rise at all levels,” said Abo-Rass. “There is a need to build a holistic intervention program that works on removing the barriers related to stigma, the barriers related to attitudes and the instrumental barriers.” It is not simply that many more practitioners are needed—practitioners are needed who are culturally competent and who understand intersectional pressures on individuals. Practitioners are also needed who are representative of marginalized communities, who can develop more culturally-appropriate
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[
“ There is a need to build a holistic intervention program that works on removing the barriers related to stigma, the barriers related to attitudes and the instrumental barriers.” —FAREEDA ABO-RASS, RESEARCH FELLOW
approaches, and who can help build trust in the therapeutic community. “One of the things that I want to impart to students is that they can understand human beings and come up with their own conclusions, which is what theory is, in an Indigenous way,” said Vera. There should also be more recognition in government programs of the value of community and lay interventions, not as stop-gap measures, but as part of a broad, holistic approach. “In India, people are cured in a certain context of family,” Kumaria said, “but I don’t think that context is talked about enough, except as a burden. If we can find ways to support caregivers and families, I think that is definitely a step ahead.” Nakash and Abo-Rass also call for concerted efforts to improve mental health literacy. This would include creating targeted, culturally-sensitive and linguistically-appropriate psychoeducational programs to change misconceptions about mental health and to teach about causes, treatments, coping methods and how to access information, professionals and services. Finally, Vera, Kumaria, Ford, Nakash, and Abo-Rass agree on a key aspect of mental health care. As important as it is to have broad and thorough
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preventative and acute mental health care, to see significant improvements in mental health, governments and societies must also better address the socioeconomic factors—housing, employment, health and food insecurity, racism, misogyny and violence, etc.—that underlie them. ◆
[
Alumni News I N TH I S I SSU E ALUMNI DESK ALUMNI PROFILE
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/ Alumni Desk /
KATIE POTOCNIK MEDINA, L.M.S.W. Director of Alumni Engagement
Immeasurable Impact Ever grateful for the incredible work of our alumni
You are the voices amplifying the stories of those who have been silenced, advocating for policies that promote equity and social justice and challenging the oppressive systems that perpetuate inequalities.
In a world where systemic racism perpetuates violence, specific identities are being attacked and social inequalities persist, your dedication to challenging these issues and advocating for justice is vital. You have chosen a path that demands courage, empathy and a deep understanding of the complexities surrounding racism and injustice. Your work provides critical support to individuals and communities facing the daily realities of discrimination, marginalization and harm. Your presence and impact are felt in a wide range of settings, whether in schools, healthcare organizations, community centers, advocacy groups or other spaces where you actively strive to dismantle systemic barriers and create meaningful change. You are the voices amplifying the stories of those who have been silenced, advocating for policies that promote equity and social justice and challenging the oppressive systems that perpetuate inequalities. We want you to know that we are here to support you as you navigate the challenges and triumphs of your professional journeys. The Smith College alumni community is a powerful network of like-minded individuals who share your passion for social justice and equity. Lean on this network for support, mentorship and collaboration. Together, we can
Save the date for the 2024 Deepening Clinical Practice Conference on June 14, 2024!
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continue to make a difference in the lives of those experiencing racism, inequalities, injustice and harm. I want to express our gratitude for the incredible work you do every day. Your dedication and unwavering commitment to social work exemplify the five Core Principles of Smith College SSW. As alumni, you are a source of inspiration and pride, and we are honored to celebrate your achievements. Thank you for being compassionate champions of equity and justice. Your impact is immeasurable, and your work is transforming lives and communities for the better. As I celebrated my one-year milestone at SSW, I took a moment to reflect on the past year and consider how we can further develop our alumni community. I have been fortunate to receive numerous ideas and insights from alumni, and one particular concept stands out: the creation of clinical consultation peer groups based on shared identity markers, location, client population or sector. I am excited about the prospect of making these groups a reality. Stay tuned for more updates on initiating and organizing them. If you are interested in taking the lead in organizing an in-person or Zoom group, please don't hesitate to reach out to me at sswalum@smith.edu. ◆
Following a day of deep learning at the Deepening Clinical Practice Conference, alumni gathered with final summer students to share their advice, experience and more than a few laughs.
JUNE 2023 ALUMNI RECEPTION
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/ Alumni News /
BY ME G A N R U B IN E R Z IN N
Tracye Polson
Navigating the intersections of social work and political engagement In 2023, organizations including the NAACP, the Human Rights Campaign, the League of United Latin American Citizens and Equality Florida issued travel warnings, asserting that Florida state laws hostile to LGBTQ+, BIPOC and immigrant communities make it dangerous to visit. Clinical social worker Tracye Polson, Ph.D. ’05, who lives and practices in Jacksonville, has firsthand experience helping clients navigate life in this frightening climate.
Polson has an unusual perspective on the political climate in Florida. In addition to maintaining a private practice, she has twice run for political office as a Democrat. In 2018, she ran for a seat in the Florida House of Representatives, losing by a small margin, and in 2021–22 she ran for a seat on the Jacksonville City Council, winning the general election, but losing a close runoff campaign.
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She remains active politically, recently helping fellow Democrat Donna Deegan become Jacksonville’s mayor. Polson works with people who have experienced some form of relational trauma, and although her clients come from across the political spectrum, “I don’t think there’s one person who hasn’t been impacted in this,” she said of the Republicans’ agenda. “So many of
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them are suffering from various forms of trauma—now they’re triggered not just relationally but with what is happening politically as well.” What can a practitioner do to help clients cope with living in this threatening environment? Polson takes the same approaches she’d take for anyone in a traumatizing situation. “I ground them in the reality that their concerns are valid, and that what is happening is really disturbing,” she said. “We’ll talk about how they can calm themselves and get more regulated, as well as using their relationships to find some sort of peace and solace.” If clients ask directly about what they can do to change the political environment, she’ll then focus on helping them find ways to get involved in local groups, engage in activism and find community support. In the midst of all this, Polson is careful to take steps to take care of herself as well. “I have a really good therapist. I have some phenomenal colleagues and friends in the area. I try to walk at least five miles a day, and I try to listen to podcasts that are both inspiring and calming.” Thanks to her social work education, Polson feels well prepared to deal with this historical moment. It has helped
/ Alumni Profile /
her understand the bigger picture and why Republicans are enacting such damaging legislation. “Everything that I learned really has helped me make sense of what I’m seeing, which doesn’t necessarily change it, but it allows me to try to understand it,” she said. “I think about Smith SSW’s work around anti-racism—really thinking about it through the lens of white supremacy and the patriarchy and a systemic, intentional way of maintaining control and power, particularly for white people. Now we’re seeing it unfold.” Polson’s training also helps her make sense of individual politicians’ actions. “I’m really aware of my training, particularly my Ph.D. at Smith, and all of the ways the mind works,” she explained. “I think about Melanie Klein’s work around envy and spoiling and people who just want to disrupt and destroy for pleasure.” Until the political winds in Florida shift and it becomes a safer place for marginalized people, Polson is glad to have the tools and experience to be an advocate for her community. “I’m so grateful for my training around the impact of policy on very vulnerable populations and our role in that. I’m grateful that in this remarkable time, we do have a voice.” ◆
Everything that I learned really has helped me make sense of what I’m seeing, which doesn’t necessarily change it, but it allows me to try to understand it. —T RACY E PO L SO N , PH . D. ’0 5
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/ Alumni News /
’23
COMMENCEMENT
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Our students are powerful—finding ways to raise change. As you find your voice, you help me find And when unified it is powerful. It can change a
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/ Alumni Profile /
collective voices that shape this School and provide a vision for mine. And that’s how voice can work. It empowers. It clarifies. School, it can change the world. —Marianne Yoshioka, Dean of the School
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/ Post Script /
The Seeds of Peace Marsha Kline Pruett, Kyle D. Pruett Music by Geoffrey Hudson Lyrics excerpted from their original song “Seeds of Peace” as presented at the United Nations in September 2023. Welcome to our world, my child Welcome to our world With each new life we have a chance to plant the seeds of peace. Holding your tiny hands, Nestled in our own, We hold you close throughout the night ’til the morning sun returns Feeling safe at home sows the seeds of peace. Feeling safe at home sows the seeds of peace. We need to repair the world Let’s start with you and me. We can repair the world Together, you and me.
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The world needs clinical social workers. Smith was the only school I applied to. Now being in the field, I know that SSW one-hundred percent prepared me, and in a better way than any other school could have.
‑ TAYLOR HAAF, M.S.W. ’22
Haaf works as a full-time therapist at a group practice. They use an integrative, client-centered, relational approach to treatment and particularly love working with couples/relationships and queer/trans youth.
We can help you become one. ssw.smith.edu
NON-PROFIT ORG. US POSTAGE PAID PERMIT #5860 SPRINGFIELD MA
Lilly Hall Northampton, MA 01063 ssw.smith.edu
CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED
In the early 1900s Mary Jarrett created a proposition for a laboratory and social research program that would eventually become Smith College School for Social Work. In 1943, when Florence Day was appointed director of the program, she treated Jarrett as a font of wisdom. We imagined what Day might have written to Jarrett seeking suggestions for how she might solicit more class notes from alumni. We, too, want more!
RECTOR WORK OF THE DI R SO CIAL OFFICE HO OL FO SC E EG LL TS ET SMITH CO US MASSACH MPTON, NORTHA
Dear Ms. Jarrett, for Social Work, l oo ch S e eg oll C h it Sm As the founder of the able to suggest how to encourage our I hope you might be submit class notes. You have no idea marvelous alumni to made of all the things you told me. how much use I have I want more! ork they are doing, w e th t ou b a e or m We would love to knoweir lives. their families and th Please advise. Very sincerely, tor Florence Day, Direc
Miss Mary Jarrett 59 W. 12th Street ork New York 11, New Y
Submit your class notes by January 30, 2024 to be included in the spring edition of InDepth! ssw.smith.edu/classnotes
