Three and a half hours north of the University’s main Pitt campus, Stephanie Eckstrom directs the Pitt-Bradford (UPB) master of social work (MSW) program, now in its 20th year. The Pitt-Bradford MSW program offers the same educational rigor as the Pitt main program; sharing the same mission and goals and held to the same accreditation standards. The pandemic has had at least one tremendously beneficial effect: the need for a 3.5-hour drive became zero, and distance became no distance at all once Zoom meetings replaced in person meetings, which permits Pitt Bradford colleagues like Stephanie an easier way to connect with and participate in main campus initiatives, committees and events.
A distinctive feature of Stephanie’s Zoom presence is a map that dominates the wall behind her desk; it is covered with dots representing how graduates of the UPB MSW program are now situated as social workers throughout the catchment area – which is large; approximately the size of Connecticut. As Stephanie says, “People don’t move here to go to graduate school, rather, we draw from who is already here. Our graduates are working in multiple agencies, in private practice, in hospitals and schools; not just making a difference for individuals but making a difference for the wellbeing and health of the community as a whole.”
The MSW program at Pitt-Bradford offers a specialization in direct practice with individuals, families, and small groups, and the opportunity for a certificate in children, youth, and families. A new cohort of accepted students begin every two years; graduating cohorts have been as large as 28 and as small as 7 students in past years. The program is particularly well suited to working adults, as it is part- time on an all-evening class schedule. The cohort structure provides a valuable benefit to the students as it helps them forge connections and friendships that sustain them throughout their careers.
Carl McGowen and Glenn Smith both graduated the program in 2019 and became firm friends during their graduate experience. Aside from the natural affinity of being two men in a field populated by women (according to the NASW, 90% of new social workers are women) having had previous careers in, respectively and among other things, roofing and cable installation. Carl says “social work chose me” when he talks about his journey from recovering alcoholic in 2011 to practicing social worker today. Glenn came to social work following a long rehabilitation after falling from a pole where he was installing cable. While in the program, Carl did not have a driving license, and this is rural PA with no public transit. So Glenn and other classmates and teachers including Stephanie made sure that he had a ride to class or to his internships, or home. Both men credit Stephanie’s influence in making sure the program is “warm and welcoming” to all students, intentionally building a cohort of students into a cohesive group that share resources and information, has a “can do” attitude and who look out for each other.
As a licensed social worker in Biloxi, Mississippi, Carl sees up to 9 patients per day and counsels them using a variety of evidence-based practices. He sees clients with substance abuse disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder and other mental health issues. His clients include many veterans and active-duty military who struggle to adjust from the hypervigilance needed in war zone experiences to the completely different skill set needed to succeed in civilian life. Carl regularly uses cognitive behavioral therapy and is certified to administer eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). He loves his work because of “the satisfaction of helping people calm down enough to reconnect with themselves, take pleasure and joy in life again.”
Carl says of his military clients: “They don’t know how to come home. First thing is to just get them to settle down enough to talk through irrational beliefs, helping them notice how they may see themselves negatively. Helping them realize that they cannot control the world, but they can control themselves. In the office visit we talk through these issues and then I ask them to do some homework. To take just 5 – 15 minutes a day to slow down, breathe, write in a journal, learn to refocus their attention in a mindful way on something pleasurable, like really being present and enjoying the moments when the kids come home from school. Then we build on that.”
As the map behind Stephanie’s desk reminds her daily, social workers go out and make a difference in individuals lives, and this in turn improve life for everyone whose lives touch theirs and vice versa. As she will tell you: “The community is made up of individuals, and the healthier those individuals are, the healthier the community as a whole.”
Similar to Carl’s experience, Glenn’s journey to becoming a social worker also started with an adverse experience and began to change with the caring mentors, teachers and counselors along the way who helped him re-envision his life. Both Carl and Glenn so appreciated the support and guidance they received in their respective rehabilitation experiences that they realized that providing support and guidance for others was the direction they wanted to go.
Glenn says: “I was interested in pursuing a psychology degree, but then my case manager suggested that social work would offer a faster path to doing what I really wanted to do.” For both men, despite a couple of false starts and rushing to apply as plans changed and deadlines loomed, the UPB-MSW program proved the key to their ability to make an asset of past adversity and then to pay it forward. Glenn says that he finds so much satisfaction in his work “because social work is a growing, living field.”
Glenn’s first field placement as a student intern was in a women’s shelter, where he had to figure out how to be aware of his own body language, style and speech patterns in order to come across as non-threatening to women and children who had not had the best experiences with men. Again, he emphasized: “Being a social worker is an opportunity for personal growth. From learning to model healthy, non- threatening masculinity to being the only man on the premises and helping out with plumbing issues (!) - social work is about doing what’s needed in the moment, and meeting people where they are at.”
In contrast to Carl and Glenn’s circuitous path to social work practice, Mandy Reese completed her degree in psychology before applying to the UPB-MSW program.
However, she also chose social work because she had a mentor suggest that social work would be a path to life-long learning, which appealed to her. A 2007 graduate of UPB, Mandy has directed the children’s resource program for the McKean County Department of Human Services for 14 years. She oversees foster care and kinship care for children under 18 and independent living (IL), which is care for youth aged 14 –23. She says “We are incredibly proud of the significant increase in the number of kinship homes that we currently have. Kinship homes represent almost half of our current open resource homes.”
Kinship care is preferable because research shows that living with relatives is better for children. It can minimize the trauma around being separated from a parent, allows for continuity of school and community, strengthens family relationships, preserves cultural identity, and provides a bridge for older youth who may be transitioning to self-sufficiency. However, despite the strides made in providing support for kinship care in McKean County, at any given time, Mandy says there are about 20 – 25 youth that her agency hope to place with qualified foster care parents. Ultimately, Mandy notes that “The core of what we do is ensure that resources are in place to support children and youth through trauma; ensuring that somebody is there to provide a connection, a relationship that can sustain them over time.”
There are over 1,000 youth in McKean County receiving some level of care that is funded through county or state dollars and for which Mandy’s team provides administrative oversight. For youth who do not have family to provide support as they approach adulthood and self-sufficiency, resources are available through the Independent Living program for youth. A typical caseload in the McKean County IL is 50 – 60 youth, serving approximately 110 youth per year. Mandy says “It’s a unique set up that we’ve built with foster care, kinship care and IL. These are supplemental programs that support children and families in need.” Stephanie says of the work Mandy does in the county: “She may not be a household name, but the work she does makes the community as a whole a much better place for everyone.”
It’s easy to see that Carl and Glenn’s work with individuals and Mandy’s work advocating for resources and managing multiple agencies and providers to children, youth and families has deep and lasting effects throughout community. As Glenn notes, “One of the things I most enjoy about being a social worker is the requirement to keep learning and growing yourself, to be certain you are using the best evidence-based and culturally appropriate practices with clients.” All licensed, practicing social workers must complete at least 30 hours of continuing education each year.
It’s reassuring to know that people like Stephanie, Carl, Glenn and Mandy are educated and trained in a field that constantly adjusts to new research and fields of inquiry and holds itself to an established code of ethics and rigorous professional practice standards. Like Carl and Glenn, Mandy has only the highest praise for Stephanie and the UPB-MSW program, and loves being a social worker. She puts it like this: “What I love about social work is that you can apply its core beliefs and values, it’s framework - to any system you are working in. The goal is always to seek to understand, to support, and to build on the good.”