“Elevate” Others: Sharing One’s Pride in the Profession of Social Work

by Stephen P.. Cummings, MSW, ACSW, LISW

     When I started out in the social work profession, I disavowed “social work.”

     I was working at a community agency for people with disabilities. The mission of the agency reached out in all directions: family therapy, support for community living, and employment coaching. It was compelling, this targeted, multi-faceted approach to meeting community needs. I would love to convey here what drew me to this work in the first place, but at the time, I wasn’t putting thoughts into words like that. I was barely 20 years old, and to be blunt, I was looking for part-time work while I was working on my undergraduate degree, and the nebulous concepts of “empowerment” and “helping others” appealed to me. I took the job and was off and running.

     The job title “social worker” wasn’t in my vocabulary. If someone said I was engaged in social work, I’d refute it. I’d reassure that person (and myself) that, no, that’s not at all what I was doing. I had no basis for this opinion, of course. What I had was a series of unfounded notions. Social workers don’t work in careers. The profession is made up of good intentions…they force biased values onto others…they hurt more than help.

     It took just one person to disabuse me of these fallacies. My agency’s direct supervisor took the duration of one conversation to educate me, providing an overview of the study and practice of social work, from the micro to the macro level.

     This was 1998. Our work team had been engaged in a discussion on our future plans, and I declared my plans to earn my graduate degree. I just didn’t know what I wanted to study yet. Later that month, my supervisor, having worked with me for just a few months, talked about social work in real terms. She described how this is a profession rooted in a strong ethical code. She illustrated how social workers engage in and rely on research and evidence as a cornerstone of practice. She clarified how social workers advocate for people in need, while seeking to eliminate dependence. She talked about how social workers connect and empower people, groups, communities. We not only influence policy, we write it. We lead.

     Every year, I thank her.

     I believe in social work, and I think attempting to circumvent the profession’s title and mission does us all harm. Ever since I actively pursued social work as a profession, I’ve been aware of the desire among students and colleagues to keep the very profession at arm’s length. I’m aware of the budding micro-focused practitioners who state, “I’m a therapist. What I studied doesn’t matter.”

     This is the opposite of elevation. To truly embrace the profession is to strengthen it. I do not hide what brought me to the profession. I acknowledge the ways social work has developed over the years, and I take pride in where we are going. And I share that pride.

Stephen P. Cummings, MSW, ACSW, LISW, is a clinical assistant professor at the University of Iowa School of Social Work, where he is the administrator for distance education. He writes The New Social Worker's "Social Work Tech Notes" column.