hi um my name is marielle and i am a social worker currently working in denver colorado um i've been in the profession for about 12 years now and i love my job so i'm excited to share it with you guys today um i chose social work kind of based on my values based on the things that made me feel good in the way that i felt rewarded um as a professional growing up giving back to the community was always something that was important in my family whether it was volunteering being involved in different programs in
school or different clubs and activities um that's kind of where i got my start i always felt like i was drawn to a helping profession um and i really believed in being an ally and social justice was important to me and most importantly i valued relationships with others those were things that were kind of my own culture and my family and my friendships and so um going into high school and even college i kind of always had it on my radar um but it just kind of felt like the natural path for me um i
would say that kind of general characteristics of social workers um they're pretty caring um empathetic people definitely need to be organized you need to be a good listener be okay with a lot of paperwork and be creative in finding solutions to a wide variety of problems definitely being open-minded and value focused because there's a set of core values that's regulated by the national association of social workers like a lot of other um professions that's important to stick to and so it's a commitment to your ethics and values and the people that you serve and that's
really important when you are a social worker so um like i said it just kind of felt natural for me um so when i graduated from high school i actually attended a four-year university and got my bachelor's in science and social work it's actually a bsw similar degrees that people have that are social workers are bachelors of sociology or bachelors of psychology the difference is that a social work specific degree um really focuses on some of those ethics and values like i talked about the history of social work and some actual practical um skills like
interviewing um crisis intervention that sort of thing um in my undergrad in addition to the normal coursework we were required to do a full-time internship our senior year what that looked like was about 20 to 30 hours a week at a community service agency of your choice so i did that as well and then i moved to denver colorado to pursue my masters in social work and so i'm currently doing that part time at university of denver graduate school of social work um one thing that a bsw sets apart from a bachelor's in science and
so sociology excuse me or a bachelor's in science is psychology is that you're able to be in accelerated master's programs um like i said before there's specific courseworks coursework and um certifications that you don't get in sociology or psychology degrees that you do in a social work specific degree therefore it kind of crossed off some of the classes that i needed to take or that some of my peers needed to take and so i'm in a one year program i'm doing it part time but most graduate school of social works or msws masters of social
works are one to two year programs um other master's level degrees that some people get in order to pursue a social work degree or a social work excuse me career um are marriage and family therapists or masters in counseling um and again there's just some kind of specific things that um pertain to each of those degrees um let's see here my ultimate goal in becoming a social worker is to be a licensed clinical social worker and what that means is that i've gotten my master's degree and i have finished over 3 000 clinical hours of
supervision meaning working as a master's level social worker with someone higher than me who i'm also getting supervision and feedback from on a regular basis and signing off on those hours much like teachers nurses or doctors there's continuing education that's required and that's one of our values as well as ongoing education and commitment to staying up to date on most current practices so once i'm done with my degree that's something else that i will be pursuing it does involve exams in passing those exams obviously but as lcsw you are allowed you have earned the right
to do a lot of different things um which is really why i chose social work i didn't want to be um stuck doing the same thing forever so as a social worker you have an opportunity to work in schools in an educational setting hospitals medical clinics government agencies or politics obviously social services like housing um welfare uh child protective services that sort of thing some people are therapists and focus on mental health some people are case managers and they like to focus on kind of the little tasks to help people stay on their feet um
or other sort of tasks that require a little bit of extra support um checking off did you go to therapy this week things like that um basically someone to help manage their lives um there's addiction counselors um you know there's a wide array of social work jobs program coordinators or managers and you know even having a private practice lcsw is the only profession that can build third party meaning they can bill an insurance without having a doctorate degree like a md so having an lcsw is kind of the ultimate goal in social work um because
you can do a little bit of everything and you know if you get bored of something you can switch or you can become an expert in your field um right now i am working as a multi-disciplinary team coordinator it's kind of a mouthful and a family support coordinator which basically is a victim advocate um i'm working at a child advocacy center in denver colorado we serve a entire judicial district so one of the districts in colorado meaning multiple law enforcement agencies multiple departments of human services or in california cps that's what it's called there um
and then as well as the district attorney's office of different um counties so what we do at my job is um forensic interviews so we serve the community by assisting law enforcement and department of human services and interviewing children who have been victims of crime that can be kids who have been abused themselves physical abuse sexual abuse neglect um they may have witnessed a homicide witness domestic violence between their parents perhaps dad got in a drunk driving accident kid was in the car and could attest to the fact that you know dad had this much
to drink before basically a kid that's involved in anything illegal and there's an ongoing investigation we talk to the children we've partnered with different agencies in the community to make sure that they're using our services as experts and talking to children so that we talk to them one time so that not law enforcement the district attorney and the caseworker are all talking to them about the same thing three or four different times so my job is making sure that everybody's in the same place at the same time and that we all have the best interests
of the child in mind um in addition to that i'm just a regular conversation we are providing coordination of services so that families can begin the healing process of these different types of crimes obviously when something like this happens in a family it's pretty traumatic both for the kid and their caregivers and so um we're linking them up with services um linking them up with funding whatever it might be that they need um and then we're also doing prevention in schools so talking to kids about how to talk to this stuff or to how to
talk about this stuff how to report this um how to protect themselves against abuse um and so we're working with school districts as well and then it's a lot of parent coaching um and support groups my role specifically is working with the multi-disciplinary team and kind of guiding them to play nice together in the sandbox and then kind of being that point person for the families um if maybe they don't understand or they have a question or they need a little bit extra support i'm that person for them we are open 24 7 365 days
a year um because as you know crime never stops and sometimes it's in a child's best interest to have that interview done immediately and not wait um just so much to make sure that they're safe and to make sure that um other people aren't talking to them first so we also partner with children's hospital also we're we'll off often excuse me called to children's hospital um to do a forensic interview right on site um my job doesn't sound as bad as it is because we get to focus on kids and families um creating hope and
change with families sometimes when they're at their very worst and i like that i get to use my ability or my clinical abilities in combination with my administrative abilities so i'm not always just in the trenches talking to kids about trauma i'm also making relationships with community agencies um to be an ally and to educate and train on um power and privilege and oppression and that sort of thing so there's kind of that social justice piece that's tied in um i really like being able to create relationships both with the people in the community um
and then the people of power um law enforcement police officers like i said district attorneys it's kind of a cool spot to be in and i think that we're creating change and ultimately that's our goal as social workers we get to work on a micro meso and macro level meaning with individuals one-on-one with families meso or groups and then also like i said macro in the community as a whole we're also working on human trafficking councils and um you know laws about changing those policies so i really value my job as a social worker um
i think people hear social work and just think oh you're poor or you're people that take kids away but that's not necessarily the truth there's a lot of different social workers um in a lot of different fields and so it's really a versatile career um and you can make really good money at it just depending on the agency you work for or the private practice that you run um yeah i think i mean i said a lot um i hope that that's what you guys are looking for um i think with what's going on in
our world right now we need more social workers we need more social justice activists and allies um and people who really can work from the bottom up and create those changes from the inside out so um i hope you guys take this into consideration and see it as as much of a valuable career as i have thank you
