Social workers honored during appreciation month

By Rose Hooper

March has been officially designated as Social Worker Appreciation Month and DSS Director Bob Cochran said Jackson County is blessed with caring effective professionals in a variety of capacities.

Like Carol Ann Cope, a DSS social worker supervisor for the past nine years, who ended up with a 10-year-old "throw-away" child nobody wanted. He had been tossed from relative to relative and neighbor to neighbor until Cope tracked down his biological mother in another state who released custody of him. Cope placed him with committed foster parents who cared for him until he was legally adopted by a "special family who dearly loved him.

Over at Harris Regional Hospital Lyn Wolf helped an elderly patient on social security get his monthly prescriptions payments reduced from $135 to $5.

Her co-worker Kathy Collins assisted an 82-year-old woman with a hip fracture in receiving support services at home so she wouldn't have to go to a nursing home.

Then there's Debbie Allen over at the Family Resource Center, who helped a young mother in "total crisis" receive safe temporary shelter from REACH, connected her with legal services to gain custody of her two children and helped her feel more positive about her life through counseling from Smoky Mountain Center.

Teamwork

"Not only are they great workers in their own fields, but they work great as a team, too," said Cochran, who coordinates much of that teamwork.

In many cases, Jackson County utilizes One System of Care - a teamwork of professionals using a wholistic approach to "wrap the family with care" coordinated through Smoky Mountain Center.

Strive for the positive

"At HRH, our job is to assess a patient's needs. As part of the screening process, we tell them all of the options available. But the patient makes the choice; we simply make the patient's choice happen by connecting them with the services," said Wolf.

"We are the ones who say, ŒYour doctor has referred you to a nursing home, or to Hospice.' The patient doesn't get upset at the doctor; they get upset at us," she said.

"If they vent that anger on us, it can be a good thing. It helps them work out their feelings, keeps them from bottling up. We're a safe person to be angry with," Collins described one of a social worker's attributes.

Hospital social workers are also "carriers of information," said supervisor Luanna Easton, noting Wolf and Collins are in constant training to keep updated on the latest news, procedures, laws and services available.

"If a patient or a family lacks knowledge, that limits them," said Easton.

"We are generally the ones families call to find out about their relatives in the hospital. ŒTell me what's happening with my mom,' they might say, or ŒWhat are mom's options?' Our job is to help calm any fears and uncertainties," said Wolf.

Look for glimmer of hope

"We can't change the world, but we can change lives on a case- by- case basis," said DSS social worker supervisor Carrie Bryson.

"You have to believe there is hope; that people can change. Even in the saddest of situations you have to look for that glimmer of hope," said Bryson, who supervises those in child protective services, adult protective services and emergency services.

"When you see a parent struggling with alcoholism put down that bottle and think of her child first, you witness those glimmers of hope," Bryson said.

FRC's Allen goes into the home to work on activities that strengthen the family.

"I see what they are doing right, what is working and I build on those positives. My job is to help families in trouble realize that their situation is not hopeless," she said.

Lessons to learn

Social work requires many skills.

"I'm not sure there's any profession that allows you to do so many tasks as social work does. I like that versatility," said Allen, who has "always, to some extent, been a social worker. I've always tried to help my friends in crisis."

Social work has taught Allen "you can help, advise people in a situation, but you can't run their lives for them, you have to let them make the ultimate decisions for themselves."

But social workers can intervene. In fact, in some situations they have to demand change.

"Often it's hard to find the right motivator to prompt change," said Cope. "But in working with families, I will tell you one thing I have learned and that is that every family has something to teach me, something to inspire me, not matter how sad their situation is," said Cope.

Concern for others

A concern for and a desire to help people motivates many into the ranks of social work professionals.

"You have to have that passion for people," described Bryson.

But those concerns and desires can turn into a double-edged sword.

For instance, no matter how much they teach you in college to "leave it when you close the door," it's hard to shut the door on caring for another human. It's not like paperwork that you can leave behind at the office at night, said Allen.

"You might go home at night and sit down to a nice supper but you are still thinking about the little 4-year-old boy you met with today who told you that he is always Œhungry,'" Bryson agreed. "My job is my job. Because of confidentiality I can't talk about it at home. I know families that tell each other about their day, bounce ideas off each other, but I have to leave mine behind at the office."

But that turn-off valve is not easy to come by, agree most social workers, who spend many a night laying in bed, unable to sleep because of concern about a particular client.

It's not an 8-to-5 job, social workers in any field will tell you. And forget about holidays.

Ready for anything

"At DSS, we always have a supervisor on call, along with the social worker," said Bryson, noting "the scariest time is in the middle of the night when your pager goes off, waking you from a dead sleep. You never know what the call is going to be and you always imagine the worst." That's why a social worker must have "a lot of knowledge in a lot of areas," according to Cope, who supervises DSS's family intervention unit for abusive and neglective families, foster home care and foster home licensing and adoptions.

"You also have to be energetic because you are on the go all the time and have to do 100 things at once," said fellow supervisor Bryson. Both find social work "a richly rewarding profession that's never routine, dull or boring, but always something different, something new."

The system does work

Perhaps the most rewarding part of the profession, according to retired social worker Martha Queen, is "when the system works for desperate people in critical need."

Like young frightened wives, abandoned by their husbands, who are receiving no child support for their children.

"I've seen women whose husbands told them they weren't going to give them a penny. Then the husbands moved out of state and the ex-wives didn't know how to track them down - and many times thought it would be useless if they tried," Queen said. "But these young women working a minimum wage job struggle every month just to make the rent and pay the utility bills. If they don't receive child support from absent husbands, they don't have money to buy the proper food their children need, and they can't afford new clothes as rapidly as the children grow into a bigger size."

Most don't want to depend on public assistance, and they shouldn't have to, said Queen, who achieved a die-hard reputation in tracking down "dead-beat" dads and, through the court systems, making them financially responsible for their children.

"Being able to use the system to help those women at the point in their life when they really needed it and watching them grow into self-reliant, independent women - that's what makes social work so rewarding," Queen said.

The downside

While social work can be rewarding, the paper work can "bog you down," the social workers agree.

"Most social workers are people-oriented; they like being out in the field. But with all the new regulations, you have to spend more time filling out forms than you do with the clients. That's frustrating," said Queen.

Invaluable in helping families

But despite all the paperwork, social workers in Jackson County "are committed to their job and do the best they can, above and beyond the call of duty," said DSS director Cochran.

"Their caring, their talents and their resourcefulness are invaluable in helping people help themselves," Cochran said.

Back to Archive: 03/21/02.