What do you do as a Social Worker?
As a social worker I have the opportunity to work with individuals, families, organizations and communities all with the goal to help well being and to create change. That is what social work is all about. When I think about social work it is the opportunity to help someone that is struggling, it’s the opportunity to help an organization or a group of people who may not have their rights and are fighting for those rights.
What do you love about being a Social Worker?
I came late to social work. While pursuing my Phd in Sociology, we were learning about race, ethnicity, gender and social problems and I kept saying “I want to do something to change this, I don’t want to just study it.” That is when I found social work which is about the pursuit of change. That is my heart.
Tell us something unique about Daemen’s Social Work Program
Our program is unique in that most of our faculty are scholar practitioners. Each one of us is still actively practicing in the field whether we are doing clinical work, private practice, helping teens or people dealing with trauma, doing work in organizations, designing programs or working on systems change and community level policy. Each one of us brings that knowledge and real world experience to the classroom which is really exciting for our students. In addition, we are actively bringing our students into that work so they are actively helping us with projects, growing their networks, doing research in the community and helping with strategic planning.
It is a real opportunity to stand on our shoulders and go farther than we could ever go and that is what we want for our students, to take what we give them and run with it.
Tell us a little bit about Daemen’s Graduate program
Our graduate program is focused on clinical practice with children, youth and families. What we want to do is make sure our students walk out the door being really strong practitioners. This means knowing evidence based practices, knowing how to assess and diagnose and knowing how to provide appropriate treatment or support to those households in order for change to occur.
Tell us a little bit about Daemen’s Undergraduate program
Our undergrad program is designed to give you the foundational skills for social work, we call it generalist practice. What we are doing is teaching you the social work method, how to engage with people, how to access and find out what they need or want to work on and find their goals and strengths. This knowledge allows them to then intervene and help their clients. They use case management and learn how to listen to their clients and link them to services that can help them. Lastly they learn to evaluate whether what they’ve done has been effective. Our Daemen program is accredited by the Council on Social Work Education, which means that you can pursue licensure as a social worker. With this license, you can do many things such as private practice, work in the community, or lead organizations to name a few.
Tell us a little bit about the trip to Thailand
When we go to Thailand, we go to Northern Thailand right near the Myanmar/ Burma border which is a really challenging area of the world. There are a lot of people who are highly impoverished, people who are moving across the borders and may not have documentation, and are at an incredible risk for trafficking.
While there, we work with a local community initiative. We help young people learn english skills to develop their education and help them get ready for employment so that they don’t run the risk of being trafficked. We also help families, support them economically, and do some counseling. We built a therapeutic treehouse while we were in Thailand so that we can work with those students in a private space. The trip is focused on education, awareness, and supporting families so that they don’t have to move into a situation where they are at risk.
Tell us a fun fact about yourself
I had never been on a plane until I was 25 years old. Since then I have been around the world to Bangladesh, Thailand, Dominican Republic, Cuba and Rwanda among others.
Dr. Diane Bessel is an associate professor and chair of social work and sociology, as well as the MSW program director.