Be Like Pinny

by Jennifer L. Nagel, LMSW

     I recently purchased Pinny the Bowling Pin, a children's book by Leah Ward (2014) that I will soon be reading with my almost two-year-old son, who is also my inspiration for many things. Pinny is a bowling pin with feelings. He just can't seem to understand why he is always the last pin standing. He feels different and awkward. He feels sad that he cannot do his job, which should be to fall down like the other pins. Always the last pin standing, he feels he is the reason children cannot get that strike. Pinny believes the other pins don’t like him.

     Pinny is different, but perhaps that is because he was made to stand out. Maybe Pinny was made for something greater or just something different…and that is okay. Maybe Pinny needs to come to this realization, and perhaps we all do when we have similar feelings.

     As a licensed social worker, one of my roles over the years has been to provide supervision to new social workers throughout their field practicum within the agency in which I work. If I could provide just one piece of advice to new social workers, I would say to be like Pinny.  Be the difference, no matter how difficult or awkward that may feel. You may be the difference that even just one client or future colleague needs.

     Being different can feel awkward, as Pinny would surely tell you. However, the word “different” should not possess the negative connotation that it sometimes does. Being different may mean that you are the new social worker whose heart is silently inspired by macro-level, community based social work, but your mind is telling you that you are just too introverted to engage in such a role. Perhaps being different means that you have fresh ideas to bring to the staff meeting every Monday morning, but you are just not feeling as if your new ideas matter, because after all, you are "just" a new social worker, right? Wrong! Maybe your ideas are the ideas that your veteran colleagues need, even if they don’t admit it (and sometimes they won’t…it’s a little thing called intimidation). 

     As social workers, we know that Ethical Standard 1.05 in the NASW Code of Ethics focuses on cultural competence and social diversity as an ethical responsibility to our clients, but I think we have a responsibility of embracing the diversity among our fellow colleagues, old and new, as well. 

     As for Pinny, let’s embrace his diversity. As social workers, let’s embrace each other’s diversity, while doing our best to disengage from non-acceptance and judgment. When we do this, it is easier to value the dignity and worth of one another.    

Jennifer L. Nagel, LMSW, is a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, and a licensed social worker who has worked for Southern Tier Environments for Living, Inc. (STEL, Inc.) for 17 years, providing social work services to individuals with mental health challenges.