Latest / Rise and Thrive with Dr. J. Nicole Podcast / The Women Who Hold Us Together: Social Work, Justice & the Power of Care

Transcript

The Women Who Hold Us Together: Social Work, Justice & the Power of Care · Rise and Thrive with Dr. J. Nicole Podcast

• 0:17
  What would happen if tomorrow morning every social worker in
• 0:21
  this country simply stopped working?
• 0:25
  Who would answer the call when a child reports abuse?
• 0:29
  Who would sit with a father navigating grief after
• 0:32
  unexpected loss? Who would support the teacher on
• 0:36
  the verge of burnout or the veterans struggling to
• 0:40
  reintegrate the mother battling postpartum depression in
• 0:43
  silence? Who would walk into hospitals,
• 0:47
  schools, courtrooms and community agencies and hold the
• 0:52
  emotional, psychological and social way that others cannot?
• 0:58
  Second, question historically, who has done that work?
• 1:03
  The answer is women. March is both Social Work Month
• 1:09
  and Women's History Month, and that intersection is not
• 1:12
  coincidence. And because the history of
• 1:15
  social work is not simply the history of a profession, it is
• 1:19
  the history of women as well as men.
• 1:22
  But today, we're going to focus on the women who have organized
• 1:26
  when they were excluded, women who built systems when they were
• 1:31
  denied authority, women who shape public policy while being
• 1:36
  denied full participation in it. Women have always held
• 1:42
  communities together, and often without recognition, without
• 1:47
  adequate compensation, and sometimes without rest.
• 1:51
  And so today's episode is about honoring that legacy, but it's
• 1:57
  also about understanding the moment that we are in, because
• 2:02
  if we truly value the power of care, then we must also value
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  the people who provided any meaningful discussion of social
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  works. Formal beginnings must start
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  with Jane Addams. She Co founded whole House in
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  Chicago. The whole House was not simply a
• 2:19
  place where services were handed out.
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  It was a site of research, organizing, and policy
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  development. Whole House provided child care,
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  education, employment assistance, public health
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  initiatives, and legal support to immigrants and working class
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  family navigating life in an industrializing America.
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  But what distinguished Jane Addams was not just compassion.
• 2:48
  It was the intellectual rigor. She and her colleagues
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  documented the living conditions of the communities they served.
• 2:55
  They studied sanitation, labor exploitation, housing,
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  overcrowding, and access to education.
• 3:03
  They gathered data and used it to advocate for legislative
• 3:06
  reform. Jane Addams understood something
• 3:09
  that still defines excellent social work today.
• 3:13
  Individual care without systemic change only produces temporary
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  relief, and lasting transformation requires
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  attention to the conditions shaping people's lives, housing,
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  wages, public education, public health, and access to
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  opportunity. Her work positioned social work
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  not as charity but as applied social science, and in 1931 she
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  became the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace
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  Prize, a recognition not only of humanitarian compassion but of
• 3:51
  policy influence and global thought leadership.
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  She demonstrated that care work could also be intellectual work,
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  that woman's leadership could shape national discourse, and
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  that social workers can influence how societies
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  function. And that legacy continues to
• 4:12
  shape the profession today. All right, beautiful people.
• 4:15
  If this episode has already blessed you in any sort of way,
• 4:19
  we ask that you like subscribe, follow, share and leave
• 4:23
  comments. Feedback helps this message
• 4:25
  reach the people who need it most.
• 4:28
  And if you're listening and thinking I'm ready to go deeper
• 4:31
  in my healing journey, we invite you to join our school community
• 4:34
  where we continue these conversations between episodes.
• 4:37
  And it's an opportunity to connect with like minded
• 4:40
  individuals committed the growth, healing and purpose.
• 4:44
  Also do not forget you can shop the merch and also explore all
• 4:50
  things evolve at Evolve with Doctor J nicole.com.
• 4:55
  If you love today's look and you're wondering about this
• 4:58
  hair, you can use my promo code with the link in the description
• 5:03
  to get 15% off with Uni's hair. That's UNICE.
• 5:08
  Thank you for rising with us. Now back to your regularly
• 5:11
  scheduled programming. But the story of social work
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  cannot be told honestly without acknowledging who was excluded
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  from early professional recognition.
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  Black Women Black women were practicing social work long
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  before the profession was formally named.
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  Mary Church Terrell stands as one of the most significant
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  figures at the intersection of race, gender and social reform.
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  Born in 1863 to formerly enslaved parents who became
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  successful business owners, she was among the first Black women
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  in the United States to earn a college degree, and she used
• 5:54
  that education not simply for personal development but for
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  community transformation. In 1896, she helped found the
• 6:02
  National Association of Colored Women, This organization.
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  This organization addressed the urgent needs of Black
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  communities at the time when segregation excluded them from
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  the many public and private services, and Black women
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  organized child care centers, educational programs, housing
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  support and advocacy initiatives, building parallel
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  systems of care where none existed.
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  This was a macro social work before a macro social work even
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  had a name, and Mary Church Terrell and her contemporaries
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  understood that social support could not be separated from
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  social justice. They confronted lynching,
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  educational inequality, employment discrimination, and
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  political disenfranchisement, all while providing direct
• 6:54
  support to families and communities.
• 6:58
  Her model, lifting As We Climb, capture the ethos of collective
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  advancement. Progress was never meant to be
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  individual, it was meant to be communal, and her work reminds
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  us that social work has always been shaped by questions of
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  power. Who has access to the resources?
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  Who is excluded, and who steps forward to fill the gap?
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  You must also name Annabelle Burns Lindsay, a pioneering
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  social work educator whose leadership help solidify the
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  academic and professional foundation of the field.
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  Annabelle Burns Lindsay served as the Dean of the Howard
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  University School of Social Work and played a critical role in
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  shaping the professional training of generations of
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  social workers, myself included, particularly Black social
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  workers who face limited access to formal education during
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  segregation. I have benefited from her legacy
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  as a two time graduate of the Howard University School of
• 8:05
  Social Work and it was under her leadership, Howard University
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  School of Social Work became one of the most influential training
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  grounds for Black social workers in the United States.
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  She understood that if social work was to be respected as a
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  profession and if Black practitioners were to be taken
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  seriously within the field, required rigorous academic
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  standards, research, foundations and institutional credibility.
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  Howard was not simply educating practitioners, it was producing
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  leaders, policy shapers, administrators, educators,
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  professionals who would go on to influence public health systems,
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  child welfare structure and community development
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  nationwide. Annabelle Burns Lindsay's work,
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  reinforced as social work, was not informal charity.
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  It was structured research informed ethically grounded
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  practice. Her leadership ensured that the
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  profession would endure intellectually and
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  institutionally. And yet social work continues to
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  be undervalued across sectors. Historically, work associated
• 9:24
  with nurturing, emotional support and relational labor has
• 9:29
  been perceived as natural rather than skilled, something that
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  women can simply be expected to do.
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  But social work is not instinct. It requires critical assessment,
• 9:41
  ethical decision making, crisis intervention skills, policy
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  knowledge, and systems navigation.
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  It requires emotional regulation, cultural competence,
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  and professional judgement. Under pressure.
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  Social workers stabilize families before crises escalate.
• 10:02
  Social workers support students before academic failure becomes
• 10:06
  permanent. Social workers intervene in
• 10:09
  communities before instability becomes violence.
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  Care is infrastructure. Mental health support is
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  infrastructure. Family stabilization is
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  infrastructure, and women have built and maintained that
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  infrastructure for generations without proportional recognition
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  or compensation. Currently, we are navigating a
• 10:38
  national mental health crisis. Demand for services continues to
• 10:42
  rise across schools, healthcare systems and community agencies.
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  And at the same time, workforce shortages, burnout and funding
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  limitations challenge the sustainability of the
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  profession. Social workers are managing high
• 11:00
  caseloads while addressing increasingly complex needs.
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  Trauma exposure. Economic instability,
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  Educational disparities, Health and health iniquities.
• 11:15
  Many systems still prioritize crisis response over prevention,
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  but prevention is where social work excels.
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  When families receive earlier support, fewer children enter in
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  foster care. When students receive mental
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  health services, educational outcomes improve.
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  When communities receive stable housing and employment support,
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  public health also improves. Investment in social work is an
• 11:46
  investment in societal stability.
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  Yet for that investment to be meaningful, the workforce itself
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  must be sustained. The women who built this
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  profession did not wait for permission.
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  They organized, They educated. They advocated, they built, but
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  they also endured enormous pressure.
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  The next evolution of social work must prioritize
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  sustainability alongside service.
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  Compassion without boundaries leads to burnout.
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  Advocacy without support leads to attrition.
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  Social workers must increasingly occupy leadership roles and
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  policy, administration, research and media.
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  The profession cannot remain invisible while addressing some
• 12:37
  of society's most pressing challenges.
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  Visibility matters. Voice matters.
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  Leadership matters. The women who hold our
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  communities together rarely receive headlines.
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  They sit in offices after hours. They answer calls that others
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  cannot answer. They carry stories that would
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  overwhelm most people. But history reminds us of
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  something very powerful. When care is organized with
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  intention, community stabilize. When care is professionalized
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  with rigor, systems strengthen. And when care is LED with
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  vision, societies transform. This month, we honor the women
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  who built social work, and we commit to supporting those who
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  continue to carry it forward. Because of care, when paired
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  with justice, does not simply comfort individuals.
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  It shapes futures. I'm Doctor J Nicole, and this is
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  rise and thrive. Keep rising in faith and keep
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  thriving in purpose. I'll see you next time.