Photo credt Pixabay TheDigitalArtist
by Marion DiFalco, MSW, LISW, PhD
“You’re too sensitive” was my family’s response when I informed them that I wanted to become a social worker. I assured them that I could handle it, and I did for a span of 42 years. In fact, I think my sensitive nature allowed me to be very empathic with clients.
My first job was as a “case aide” in a private child welfare agency in New York City. I had to prove myself with foster mothers who had difficulty accepting me as a mentor because I was young and single. I had to fend off the expensive gifts of an older set of foster parents who may have feared that I might remove the two children in their care. I had to prove myself with some children in foster care that I was to be trusted and wouldn’t leave the agency just as we were developing rapport, AND I had to learn to drive in midtown Manhattan and Brooklyn traffic.
I liked the challenges enough to apply to grad school for a master’s degree in social work. I wanted to become a therapist.
In leaving my job in foster care, I was haunted by the unendingly tragic life of “Billy.” He was a boy who was ill-fated from the day of his conception in a taxi. He suffered the slings and arrows of multiple failed placements, both for foster care and adoption, because of medical and emotional problems. He was 11 when I resigned, and reports from former colleagues indicated he ended up in one of the worst institutions in the city.
In grad school, I objected to learning casework from successfully resolved interventions. I thought we could learn much more through the study of cases that did not have good outcomes! Although my instructor thought there was some merit to my suggestion, to my knowledge, nothing changed in how skills have been taught.
After earning my master’s degree, I took a position in an outpatient psychiatry clinic affiliated with a major medical school. That was when a small female client threatened to “beat me up.”
In that position, I especially enjoyed leading and forming a couple of new small groups—one for older, minimally depressed clients, and one for parents of adolescents being treated by other therapists.
What I didn’t care for was Grand Rounds! This smoke-filled room with 95% male doctors was always an ordeal to get through because of the pipes, cigars, cigarettes, and testosterone.
During these meetings, the patients were treated like specimens, not people, and the social workers on staff were not regarded as competent therapists. On a positive note, I did receive some excellent training in group work from an enlightened male psychologist who appreciated women and the profession.
I had taken this job because of the higher salary and, given the male-female ratio, opportunities for dating. The dates didn’t materialize. And I had a gnawing feeling that I had “sold out,” because I really was concerned about the social action aspect of social work.
After two years, I resigned and moved to the midwest to take a position with a new medical school. It was formed to train physicians to see and treat the whole person. Wow, that seemed to be just what I was looking for. It was there that I learned that not everyone had a positive view of social workers.
The medical school used the student health center as a mini-hospital for their patients who were receiving palliative care. It was there I encountered an 18-year-old dying of bone cancer. He was angry. He had been in a maximum security prison and believed that his complaints about his leg went unheeded.
He was released from prison to the care of a hematologist on the medical staff when they decided his cancer was no longer treatable. I was the social worker on the floor assigned to this teen I will call “Roosevelt.”
My first mistake was to tell him to let me know if he needed anything. He did—he wanted me to get in bed with him! Since I couldn’t respond to this request, he had no use for me.
He had become combative with the staff, calling a nurse, a “skinny white b****” and throwing items from his tray at her. At one point, when I thought that I could do nothing for him, he looked at me with contempt and with his face contorted in anger, and he said, “Social worker!” Fifty-five years later, I can still see his facial expression and hear the snarl in his voice.
In those two words were likely his history of never getting what he needed and wanted, and disappointment in what he did receive. His tone of contempt created a lasting impression. It has finally occurred to me that if only I had just listened to him, to his story, I might have been more helpful. Was it my failure or the failure of society?
Why weren’t we, the profession, doing more to improve housing, education, health care, transportation, and penal institutions? Did we get so enamored of our mental health skills that we detached from the social action commitment of the profession?
Why didn’t we assert ourselves when other academic programs started taking over the mental health functions we had held since post World War I? And why weren’t we receiving the recognition, prestige, and compensation we deserved for our education and expertise?
The more years I worked, the more I saw all of the systemic problems of our nation. I didn’t want to be in an ineffectual, low-status field! Even the pay was low compared to other professions.
Over the years, when asked about my profession, I have usually said, “clinical social work,” because too many people thought of social workers as the people who work for the Department of Jobs and Family Services; few of whom have attended either a baccalaureate or a professional graduate degree program. There have been other times when I have been extremely proud of being a social worker. I worked in hospitals, outpatient clinics, and public schools. I learned so much about each area of human service and people. I got to know many people, my clients, who had incredible inner strength.
Later in my career, I began teaching social work because I wanted to pass along all that I had learned over my years in practice. Viewing my bright and mature students (many non-traditional), I became reinvested in the positive attributes of social work.
My students were “jewels in the crown” added to the tiara of the profession.
And my very last job after teaching was the epitome of what I had longed for in my other social work jobs—a prevention program! I worked with children and teachers helping children cope with school and with family crises. And I got to play games with all of my clients as I helped them with their social skills. In this role, I really listened to them.
Social work is a field that integrates the social, psychological, cultural, and economic aspects of our lives. It looks at systems, not just individuals. And for that, I am most proud of having been a social worker.
Marion DiFalco, MSW, LISW, PhD, began her social work career in New York City where she grew up. Her work and studies took place in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. She earned her MSW at Smith College and her PhD in Education at Michigan State University.