Providing Care in a Land of Crisis: Alum Guides Program in Southern Africa
Barbara Staley (MSW ’95) works hard to provide a holistic program of care for the 127 children at St. Phillip’s Mission, a hostel for orphans in Swaziland.
The small African nation currently has the highest known rate of HIV infection among its adult population, at roughly 40 percent, and tuberculosis is also widespread. Staley is witness to the heavy toll this crisis is taking on the region’s clan and family structures, leaving thousands orphaned. Staley, a nun who is a member of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (also known as the Cabrini Sisters), together with a staff of 16, provides health care, nutrition, and counseling for the hostel’s children. The mission also pays the fees allowing them to attend school.
Mildred Otero: A Child Advocate’s Path to Congress
“I tell people all the time: the reason that I pursued an MSW is that your career opportunities become limitless,” said Mildred Otero (MSW ’03), Legislative Assistant to Senator Hillary Clinton since March 2006. As an aide to Senator Clinton, Otero has been working on issues that include education, child welfare and families, including helping to draft and analyze legislation. Earning her MSW enabled her to open many doors along the way to Capitol Hill: “The field of social work is making so many transitions now,” Otero said, that she considers an MSW “one of the more flexible degrees to have.”
NYU Social Work Graduates Willing Chin-Ma and Stella V. Pappas Honored as Emerging Social Work Leaders by the NASW
NYU social work alumni Willing Chin-Ma and Stella V. Pappas were among the honorees at the 2007 Emerging Social Work Leaders awards dinner, presented by the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) in New York City.
The Post-9/11 High School, Observed
Permission Slips (The Way It Works Press, 2005) is SSW alumna Jerry Sander’s edgy novel about students and adults navigating their way through the social, cultural, and bureaucratic minefield that is high school. “I chose the title for a number of reasons, but chiefly because ‘permission slip’ is a metaphor for control – it’s the illusion that adults have control, yet it starts slipping away when the students are adolescents,” said Sander. The novel offers a mosaic of viewpoints from students, teachers, and administrators, but eventually centers on the perceptions of a 9th-grade girl. The characters, he said, are composites of people and narratives observed over his years as a school guidance counselor and therapist.
Helping Women Navigate the “On-Ramp” Back to Business
Ferne Traeger, LCSW, has a plan, and it’s a good one.
Ferne Traeger (MSW ’98), founder of Beyond the Boardroom, has worked for more than ten years with mostly female professionals holding degrees from the nation’s top universities, people who have “off-ramped” from the traditional 9-to-5 mainly to raise their children, and have decided to return to work. Beyond the Boardroom combines Traeger’s skills as a social worker and the business savvy she acquired earning her MBA at Columbia (’80). She takes a proactive approach towards helping clients reenter their professional fields, facilitating the transition over to the “on-ramp” to continue their careers. She utilizes networking groups, executive coaching, and presentations from individuals who have successfully reentered their fields after a long hiatus. Yet Traeger, drawing on her social work training, wants to go deeper.
“The Forgotten Ones”: Adult Brothers and Sisters of 9-11 Victims
In the days and weeks following 9/11, many mental health professionals in the New York City area staffed crisis centers that provided counseling for first responders, as well as for spouses, children, or parents of those who had fallen. As the enormity of the tragedy became apparent, David Flomenhaft, LCSW, PhD, part of a Nassau County mental health team, saw that although resources were available to support surviving children and spouses, “I realized there was another group that hadn’t been served – sibling survivors.” Over time, the sibling counseling group his team established grew from five people to eighty. “They named themselves ‘the forgotten ones,’” said Flomenhaft, because in the months after 9/11 the public (and media) tended to rally around children and wives of the lost, while siblings’ grief seemed overlooked.
Homelands – In Nicaragua, and In America
Homelands: Women’s Journeys Across Race, Place and Time (Seal Press, 2006) is a collection of 28 stories by women describing what “homeland” means in the context of immigration, war, or exile. Claudia Narvaez-Meza’s powerful chapter, “Sowing for Lineage,” explores her Nicaraguan origins, her mother’s struggle for survival as a factory worker in Brooklyn, and the impacts of growing up poor in urban America.