Radio Show Highlights Social Work Response During COVID-19

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Social workers are essential workers.

Hospitals, schools, nursing homes, shelters… there is no agency or system that has not been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. As School of Social Welfare students, faculty and alumni have been responding to this unprecedented event, The Social Workers Radio Talk Show has been actively recording new episodes to highlight the work that is being done.

Co-hosted by Associate Professor Dr. Eric Hardiman and Alyssa Lotmore, recent episodes captured not only the critical work of our social work community as they respond to this crisis, but ways in which we can work together as a social work profession to make changes to the social inequities and injustices that have been apparent during this time of COVID-19.

 

  • Professor Loretta Pyles discussed personal wellness and disaster response from a social worker’s perspective as we journey through this crisis. She noted how unlike individual trauma, this is a collective trauma where we are all going through this experience together, meaning there is opportunity for us to come together during the healing process. 
     
  • Greg Olsen, the Acting Director for the New York State Office for the Aging, talked about how to care for and protect the senior population during the age of social distancing. He even discussed NYSOFA’s pilot program which uses animatronic pets to help older individuals living along combat social isolation. In part two of that segment, alumna Eden Hunter spoke about her experience as a recent graduate and now a frontline worker in an Albany nursing and rehabilitation center. 
     
  • The homeless population has been hit particularly hard during this outbreak. Alumna Kristen Giroux is the Deputy Director of IPH, previously known as Interfaith Partnership for the Homeless, and spoke not only about how the agency is responding to the needs of its clients but about what this pandemic has shown about areas of need for the homeless population. She stated, “Let’s just really continue this conversation that we’ve already started. Why are people homeless? What are the institutional and structural practices that are leading to homelessness and let’s do the work there. We can build programs and provide the services but why do we have to? Let’s get at preventing this from happening in the first place.”
     
  • Assistant Professor Sarah Mountz and the student Vice President of ‘Fostering Leaders of Our World’ (F.L.O.W.), Selena Snow, joined the show as well. Dr. Mountz is the faculty advisor of this UAlbany student group which is composed of students with foster care backgrounds and their allies. She, along with Selena, spoke about how COVID-19 has impacted the foster care youth in the higher education setting, creating even more barriers to the already challenging path to degree completion by foster care youth. 
     
  • Faculty members Dr. Mary McCarthy and Dr. Catherine Lawrence, both of whom are also involved with the National Child Welfare Workforce Institute (NCWWI), highlighted the conversations that are not happening on mainstream media, which is the major impact that this pandemic has had on the child welfare system and its workforce. For example, direct care workers in residential facilities are now with youth around the clock, as schools and home visits have halted and parental reunification is delayed due to the court system being closed for all cases other than emergency proceedings. Workers are trying to keep youth engaged with their biological families through technology, while also ensuing that these youth feel safe and loved. Not to mention the fears of workers for their own health and safety, while also grieving for colleagues who have become ill or lost their lives. 
     
  • Dr. Lawrence also spoke about the impact on tribal communities, a population that already has the historical trauma of genocide through the spread of pervious viruses like small pox. Aside from the mental impact from this trauma, there is a major economic impact on those tribal communities where the income from casinos, which are now shut down, had helped to support the community, workers, and the tribal government. 

 

These are just a few of the guests we have spoken to on The Social Workers Radio Talk Show, available on WCDB 90.9 FM on Thursday mornings from 10 a.m. to noon and via podcast streaming. 

Each episode can be found by visiting the show’s website. These segments provide a mere snapshot of all of the work that those in this profession are doing to ensure the health and safety of vulnerable populations, while also continuing to fight against the structural and societal injustices in our communities. 

Social Workers are essential workers. There is no doubt about that.