Teaching (toward) the Beloved Community

The right question(s) to ask about communities

Earlier this week I was walking around a part of the city that I don’t spend much time in, and as I was meandering down a side street, a building caught my eye because of some of the graffiti on it. As I got closer to the building, I saw that one of the windows was broken and the glass was still on the sidewalk. Getting closer still, close enough to put my hand through the hole in the window, I saw a “to rent” sign in front of the building. A Google search tells me the building used to house a small business selling t-shirts with local flare. (It looks like the business is still in operation, just online and in “pop up” stores and at festivals rather than a brick-and-mortar store.)

Anytime I see a broken window in a neighborhood, I think of “broken windows theory”, which I learned about in a criminal justice class in the early 90s. The theory was interesting to me then, because it seemed so beautifully simple. (This was around the time I was also learning about Occam’s Razor so it makes sense that the simplicity of the theory was appealing to me.)

If you are unfamiliar with the theory, it is basically the idea that when signs of deterioration or decay in neighborhoods (like broken windows) are left unaddressed, it can be interpreted as a sign that no one cares about the neighborhood. This signal of disinvestment would, according to the theory, lead to even more crime and disorder.

The theory emerged in the early to mid 1980s (based on research from the 1960s) and in the 1990s it became the guiding framework for zero-tolerance policing, including the problematic “stop and frisk” policies of the NYPD. While the theory was being implemented in ways not envisioned by academics, politicians touted its success. However, it wasn’t too many years before there were indications that broken-windows policing wasn’t actually the reason that crime was declining. There is also evidence indicating the discriminatory impact and racial bias inherent in this type of policing. Another criticism of broken windows theory applied in this manner is that it is reactive, and isn’t addressing root issues in a community, particularly poverty.

Albert Einstein once said, in response to a question, “If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes.” I share this quote with classes sometimes, as a way of emphasizing the importance of a good assessment process, whether on a micro level or macro level. When I give students an assignment to do a neighborhood visit as part of a community project, I give them some guiding questions to ask. I have tweaked these questions over the years from various sources, primarily the Asset Based Community Development Institute and the section on community assessment from the Community Tool Box

What individual strengths do you see on display in the community?
What collective strengths or assets do you see present in the community?
What groups do you see represented? How are they represented?
What signs of transition do you see?
What signs of hope do you see?
Who do you see “out and about” in the community?
Where are people spending time? (Where are the green spaces? The public spaces?)

I think these types of questions help us understand a community more than the presence of shattered glass on a sidewalk. Every community has strength, whether broken windows are present or not.

Basics of engaging with elected officials

For most years I have been teaching social work students, I have taught policy classes. There is an expectation of political engagement for social workers, and this aspect of our Code of Ethics is something I teach within the first week of policy class. But political engagement is something that is (should be) for everyone. As I tell my students, the personal is political, and the political is personal.

Another thing that is important is making sure that they know who their elected officials are, so that they can begin engaging with them. This is a really useful website because it can be used by someone from any location. I just have students put the address on their voter registration card, and then they get info on the major elected officials at federal, state and county levels. (The county level includes your mayor, DA, and county commissioner type people and sheriff, but doesn’t include offices like school boards, unfortunately.) https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials

Here is some thorough but easily digestible information on writing letters to your elected official: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/advocacy/direct-action/letters-to-elected-officials/main Signing a petition is something, but crafting your own letter sends a much stronger message.

Phone calls: I hate making phone calls but I had a guest speaker in class one semester who had been a staffer for a few different elected officials. They said they paid attention to phone calls more than emails and letters (and they paid more attention to emails and letters written personally than when they received 50 copies of essentially the same letter b/c it had been written by an organization and shared with followers).

Whenever I call an elected official (and last week I called 26 of them), I always identify myself by name, and by the fact that I am a resident and voter. I share my “ask” of them, usually how I want them to vote on an issue, and can boil down everything to two minutes. I can go longer if they have questions, but I am prepared for 2 minutes. The New York Times backs up the importance of phone calls as well: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/us/politics/heres-why-you-should-call-not-email-your-legislators.html

Tracking down how your federal elected officials voted on an issue is trickier (more time consuming) than finding out who they are, but it is do-able: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/HowTo/how_to_votes.htm

Tracking down how your state elected officials voted on an issue can most likely be done by going through your state legislative website and searching for voting records help. In Tennessee that’s https://www.capitol.tn.gov/help/

I have rarely made in person visits to offices of elected officials; I should probably work on that more myself. And then there is in person engagement through protests and other assemblies: a post for another day!

Same song, different verse: Resources for teaching about gun violence

In prior posts, I have written about the issue of gun violence before, most recently here https://teachingbeloved.com/2022/02/05/remembering-deebony/

Yesterday in Nashville, the city where I live, there was a school shooting. Three children died. Three adult school staff. And the shooter was killed by police. I wrote some about this from a personal perspective yesterday here: https://medium.com/@williamsonsabrina4/the-most-important-lesson-we-didnt-learn-from-columbine-will-we-learn-it-from-covenant-ee92d34c3bf2

We have to have policy change in this area.

Sometimes in classes when we are talking about comparative policy (especially how policy in one country on an issue might be different than the US policy stance), students will ask about other countries that make decisions that lead to better outcomes for their citizens than what we currently experience in the US. Broadly, students usually ask these questions in the context of educational policy, healthcare access and policy, and gun violence.

Here are three good and fairly recent resources for sharing and discussing the issue of gun violence policy. They are from varied resources, but all reputable, and easily consumed/understood by students:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/25/world/europe/gun-laws-australia-britain.html

https://www.healthdata.org/acting-data/gun-violence-united-states-outlier

Child and Teen Firearm Mortality in the U.S. and Peer Countries

After discussing the content, you can always ask students to contact their elected officials to share their opinions and concerns. Here’s how they can quickly find their federal elected representatives: https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative

It is also useful to look at state legislative assemblies as well, and have students do some comparing and contrasting in class.

Finally: it may take some digging on the students’ part but having them examine how their elected officials voted on gun related legislation is interesting. Here’s a bit of a recent historical look: https://www.npr.org/2018/02/19/566731477/chart-how-have-your-members-of-congress-voted-on-gun-bills

Secondary traumatic stress and burnout, part 2

In the most recent post, I shared some resources I use when teaching students about secondary traumatic stress (STS). STS results when social workers, teachers, nurses, doctors, police officers and others in helping professions begin to experience symptoms of trauma because of the stories they hear from their clients/patients/students. Helping professionals may also experience STS because of trauma they might directly witness in the workplace, as well as from seeing their clients/patients/students in the aftermath of trauma.

Any professional who works with people exposed to trauma is at risk of experiencing STS, but there are factors that increase the risk, including being female, being a young professional, and having had a prior exposure to trauma. It is these factors that increase risk that impress upon me the need to make sure students understand it; I know it is a real likelihood they could experience it, depending on the specific field of practice they go into. In addition to the resources I shared in the previous post, this is a really useful booklet that looks to have been created for educators’ professional development: https://safesupportivelearning.ed.gov/sites/default/files/Building_TSS_Handout_3secondary_trauma.pdf The information on risk factors that I shared above is included in here, as well as more information on signs/symptoms of STS and some strategies for self-care. The thing I especially appreciate here is that the strategies aren’t all left up to the individual; there is an understanding that there has to be some organizational level work to facilitate and support self-care and there have to be some changes in the organizational environment.

Burnout is different; any professional can experience burnout. I have seen friends who were accountants, engineers, teachers, ministers, and–yes–social workers who “burned out” of their work. Burnout is classified by ICD (International Classification of Diseases) as an occupational phenomenon, not a medical condition. As shared on the World Health Organization website, and pulling from the ICD, burnout is characterized by exhaustion, feeling cynical about your work, having mental distance/disengagement from your work, and having reduced efficacy in your work. Here’s the link to the WHO website on the topic: https://www.who.int/news/item/28-05-2019-burn-out-an-occupational-phenomenon-international-classification-of-diseases

I know burnout in any field isn’t going to feel good; no one wants to wake up and feel cynical about their work or ineffective while doing it. But I think burnout is more critical in the helping or people-facing professions because of the impact it has on others. Social workers who are burned out are going to stop writing their case notes, cut corners on home visits, leave their jobs sooner (which hurts clients) and more. I have seen all of these happen in places I have worked. Impacts of burnout on clients/service recipients could be even more detrimental in other settings where health and mental health are concerned.

A good supervisor is invaluable when it comes to preventing burnout. Having someone who knows how to help their colleague set boundaries, who encourages self-care, and who is supportive and available for consultation goes a long way. Reflective supervision is important as well; having space in supervision to process your responses to the work you are doing is surely a prevention for burnout.

If you don’t have a supervisor or overall work environment that encourages self-care and boundary setting, the social worker (or other professional) has to prioritize it for themselves. This was always hard for me (still is hard, to be honest) and I am grateful for colleagues then and now who helped me with this even when supervisors didn’t. As we tell our students, self-care isn’t just bubble baths and time for journaling; self-care is making time to get your teeth cleaned, to pay your bills, to call a friend, to get good rest each day. This concept of “boring self-care” is discussed in several places, but this one is specific to social workers: https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/self-care/think-self-care-always-feels-good/

Finally, a resource that is new to me is this FRIED podcast: https://www.friedtheburnoutpodcast.com/. I have only listened to a couple of episodes but I look forward to checking out more of them. I am especially interested in the ones devoted to burnout recovery, especially as a form of resistance to so many workplace cultures that are unhealthy.

Secondary traumatic stress and burnout, part 1

Earlier this evening I saw a social media post from a student I had several years ago. She was writing about transitioning into a new line of work because of experiencing burnout in her social work career. I have kept up with this student over the years and I know her to be committed to service, and to be someone who works with integrity. I am sorry she is leaving social work practice in the traditional sense, but I know she will always be a social worker in the sense of looking at the world in systems, in terms of problem solving, etc. I am sorry she is leaving the profession, but I understand it.

Burnout is real, and it is brutal.

I have a BSW and, sadly, no professor in my undergraduate program taught me about the dangers of burnout. I don’t remember the discussion of it in my MSW program either. Maybe those topics weren’t talked about then, maybe they were discussed but not by my professors. Maybe it was discussed in practice class the day I was late because of talking to a boy in the hallway and the professor locked the door on me.

Another topic I didn’t hear about was secondary traumatic stress (STS), but that’s because we (as a profession) weren’t aware of this concept in any significant way at that time.

Secondary traumatic stress is real, and it is brutal.

One of the things I try to help my students understand is the difference between burnout and secondary traumatic stress. There is negative impact of both, certainly, but solutions differ somewhat. I typically explore this in the context of child welfare class, and somewhat in the macro practice class when we are talking about how organizational culture shapes our practice but it would also fit in a micro or mezzo practice class.

This podcast episode is useful for understanding STS, and told from the perspective of child welfare professionals with long histories in child welfare work: https://www.childwelfare.gov/more-tools-resources/podcast/episode-4/

I had my students listen to this outside of class and then we discussed it in class. They were interested in the degree to which an agency or organization had to be very intentional about addressing STS and working to prevent it. Some of the organizational strategies were pretty simple, like a “no gossiping” policy (so that people didn’t have to worry that being vulnerable and sharing their challenges would get them talked about by colleagues), while other strategies involved more layers of mentoring and the use of groups with an intentional structure of building resilience and emotional safety for the workers.

Here are some other resources I use, either to share with students or for my own background understanding: https://www.nctsn.org/trauma-informed-care/secondary-traumatic-stress/nctsn-resources and https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/52281/secondary-traumatic-stress-for-educators-understanding-and-mitigating-the-effects This second resource is directed toward K-12 educators as an audience, but there is good overlap for social work students and social workers as well. I sometimes use this in my policy class when we are talking about education policy and trauma-informed schools.

Check back soon (or soon-ish) for resources for teaching about burnout.

Walking update, and naming + class ideas

I wrote about my plans for local intentional walking on my sabbatical here about a month ago, and since then I have made decent progress. I am about 19 miles in to my minimum goal of 62.14. One of my best walks was in the neighborhoods where Fisk University and Meharry Medical College are located, and I spent some time on the campus as well of both of those institutions. I have some definite thoughts on naming (buildings, schools, etc), which I wrote about here earlier this evening (https://medium.com/@williamsonsabrina4/whats-in-a-name-e75d511667f5) but more related to teaching, I have been reminded of the importance of active learning in authentic settings.

I teach a macro practice class for senior social work majors. This class includes content on the Civil Rights Movement and other social movements and community organizing strategies. I always tell them about the events that took place in Nashville, and we have watched clips, but why haven’t we had class in the community? I mean, I hate logistics and fear liability of people driving across town and having an accident when they would otherwise be in my classroom….but walking around and seeing the historical markers of events and knowing that I was walking where big things happened….this was priceless. It made the work, and the sacrifice that those students made, seem even more real. I think students would feel that too.

Another thing I have reflected on is the value of an assignment I use in this class. I have students go out in groups to learn about a neighborhood or community within our city. While they are there, I ask them to use the guidelines for Asset Based Community Development and to look for signs of hope, signs of change, assets at the individual level, association levels, etc. Being out in the community on foot has made me love this assignment even more. If the ABCD model is new to you, you can learn more here: https://abcdinaction.org/ Also, this is a good, in-depth piece on basic principles of what you look for in a community (history, infrastructure, leaders, etc) when you are working to understand it better: https://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/assessing-community-needs-and-resources/describe-the-community/main

A chasing after the wind

When I was a young professional (honestly, with not enough life experience to do the job I was doing), I went to a church that was pretty big, and though I was very involved, the minister could never remember my name. He always greeted me warmly at the door and called me Samantha. (My name is not Samantha.)

It’s fine. Names were not his strong point.

I remember one time he gave a sermon on Ecclesiastes, and he said the key to Ecclesiastes was that you couldn’t read it in bits and pieces because it would be too overwhelming. Too much for the soul. You would need to read it in its entirety so that you wouldn’t be bowled over with despair and you could see the big picture of things.

I think that advice should also apply to faculty annual review processes. Goodness. My institution changed its system for doing this process, and I am on sabbatical but still need to complete one and between this new system and my general lack of desire to do things right now….it feels overwhelming. I just spent a couple of hours trying to familiarize myself with the interface, and tomorrow I am doing the whole thing in one sitting. What doesn’t get done tomorrow will not get done. (This is both my threat and my promise.)

As I was looking at what had been “imported” from the old system to the new system, I was reminded of why I am tired and also why I love my work. There were presentations from 2015 listed, beside things I wrote in 2019, next to service work I had done in 2018 and a panel series I did in 2016, and this and that….and though the chronology of this “imported” document was a mess, it was an 8-point font look at what I have been doing since joining my current university in 2013. And it was fun to look at an remember those sessions, the talks, the collaborations. And it was exhausting.

And then, because I couldn’t see any other way to do it, I had to go in and delete all these past entries because they don’t belong on my current year report. As I saw the list of my work grow shorter and shorter, I was reminded of the oft repeated refrain in Ecclesiastes, “this too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind”. I am doubtful that most of those activities had lasting meaning and impact, in and of themselves.

And the thing is, I love the work I do. I absolutely love the core of what I do: teaching, engaging in the community, mentoring students. But when looking at the nitty gritty of activities (committees, proposals to a conference so that I have something to “count” in a certain year, etc), I see a lot of things that feel pretty meaningless if you take a look at it in isolation from the bigger picture.

I think back to the minister who could never remember my name and I remember his words about reading Ecclesiastes in one sitting. You read it in one sitting so that you can see the light at the end, and have peace about the promise that life does have meaning and purpose.

This fits with my experience of academic life. I will never find joy in documenting student advising notes. But in advising, and hanging out with students in office hours, I build relationships with them, where I find a lot of joy in hearing about their dreams for the future and their everyday lives. I don’t anticipate I will be finding joy in sitting on a search committee and screening applicants the next time my turn comes to do so. But I do find so much joy in my colleagues themselves and in the ways we work together. Like, I miss them so much on sabbatical. I wish I could have them over for coffee every day, or perhaps a post work margarita.

Since COVID, semesters have felt more like a slog and something to get through rather than something to look forward to. One of my biggest hopes for returning after sabbatical is that I can recognize the less glamorous parts for what they are: part of the bigger picture. I won’t find joy in every single task, but I don’t want to forget the bigger picture. There is meaning in what I do, and I feel privileged to get to do it.

If you are in the miry pit of a semester right now and you don’t know how you will survive, hang on as best you can and look around for who can speak a little life and purpose to you. If you don’t have someone to do that for you, reach out to me and I will fill in the gap. As it says in Ecclesiastes, “two are better than one”.

Memphis

Last year, a friend of mine asked me to be on a panel on allyship. The fact that she thought of me for this panel was an honor, and one that I felt uncomfortable with in many ways because of how imperfect of an ally that I am.

In prepping for the panel, I did alot of thinking about my journey of understanding about race and racism and what it means to be anti-racist. Many of the first steps on my personal journey took place in Memphis, where I went to college, stayed for one graduate degree, and lived and worked for several years. I love this city, and I reflected on it, and a little bit of my journey, on Medium earlier this evening. You can read it here if you want: https://medium.com/@williamsonsabrina4/memphis-5ce268b42e61

When I think about what is happening now with the death of Mr. Nichols at the hands of five police officers, my thoughts get jumbled up in many ways but there are points of clarity. The main point of clarity is that the system of policing as it is set up in the US is based in violence. Are there individual officers who are different and who do their work differently? Yes. Absolutely. But the system itself is violent and to seek justice for victims of violence means to change the system rather than just holding individuals accountable for their behavior (obviously that should be done too).

There are some in the social work profession who believe we should disavow any participation/employment in policing. Their stance is that change means abolition of the system as we know it. There are others in the social work profession who believe we should absolutely be employed in these settings, to be a part of changing the system from the inside out.

This is a great (tension-filled) example of how we can struggle with regard to ethics as professionals in the context of our own profession. Ethical standards of public participation, social and political action, integrity of the profession and more are all points from which you can have a teaching/learning moment with respect to this issue. Having this discussion in a recent semester in my macro practice class, I can say it is one of the hardest classroom conversations I have facilitated and “held space” for, especially given the experiences of the students in the room.

This is an interesting piece I want to read again, and share with students for discussion in the fall: https://inquest.org/cops-and-counselors/ Here is a link discussing findings from a national survey on levels of resistance and support for reform, defunding, and abolition efforts: https://news.yale.edu/2022/02/04/resistance-defund-or-abolish-police-rooted-policy-proposals. And finally, here is a link to a piece from Social Service Workers United-Chicago that shows the power of collective action for professionals as well as our clients, and also provides some background and resources regarding how professional views on this issue differ: https://socialserviceworkersunited.medium.com/the-nasw-is-failing-us-either-it-changes-or-we-will-change-it-ourselves-b1da4c8a0096

My Camino

The Camino de Santiago is a pilgrimage that has been walked (and sometimes biked) by countless people since at least the 9th century. Some pilgrims (known in the local language as peregrinos) make the journey for religious and spiritual reasons, others do it for reasons of culture, heritage, fitness, and probably more. I would assume that many people do the walk for a combination of reasons.

Over the past three years I have had three friends journey on the Camino. Two have completed their certificate (compostela) and one is doing the journey in stages. To be awarded the compostela you have to complete at least the 100 kms into Santiago (62.14 miles), having collected stamps at lodgings, churches, etc to verify your travels.

**Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash** on the real Camino

I would love to do the Camino, any of the routes. My two friends who have completed it have done much more than the minimum journey, spending weeks and weeks walking, averaging 10 to 12 or more miles a day. But while I would love to do this, it isn’t realistic for my life right now given my kids ages and other situations. Maybe someday! But in the meantime I have decided to create my own camino in Nashville (expanding to other locations in middle Tenn as needed) during this semester of my sabbatical.

The main reason I want to do this ties in with a class I teach each semester, a macro practice class where a main focus is on community assessment and organizing. I have good theoretical understanding of Nashville and the broader metro area but my time is mostly spent in Bellevue, Green Hills, and Edgehill: a combination of where I live, work and worship.

So, at a minimum this semester (and into the summer if needed) I will be walking 62.14 intentional miles. (Intentional means that I am going to a particular area and trying to learn about it before, during and after my walk.) Hopefully I will get to more, but this is the minimum goal.

In teaching this macro class each fall, one of the resources I depend on is the Community Tool Box, https://ctb.ku.edu/en. It has a wealth of useful information in it, especially related to the importance of listening, collaborating, and seeking to understand rather than assuming you (an outsider) know what is “wrong” in a community. I also teach students how to use Census data to get some understanding of certain metrics important in understanding a community, but that they also have to use eyes and ears and be present in the community to really get an accurate picture.

Stay tuned for highlights of my camino, and for additional macro resources I use in class!