The world needs more social workers. To me they are the glue that holds societies together. From the reading I’ve done I have come to see how they have helped push this country toward change from as early as the mid 19th century and probably even before. One of the most admirable social workers I ever read of was Jane Addams and the work she did with her settlement, Hull House in Chicago. Jane Addams even stood with the labor movement later on in her career concerning workers rights. Then she would even get involved in politics; organizing support for aldermen candidacies. Social workers back then worked to form the Progressive Party that Teddy Roosevelt became affiliated with. They saw some of the conditions that people were living and working in, and knew that government could be used to change people’s lives for the better. To me that is the ultimate definition of what a progressive is supposed to be. They were one of the drivers behind the Progressive Era. Social workers also played an instrumental part in fighting for many of the reforms ushered in by the New Deal. I’ve read of the work they did in organizing with Eleanor Roosevelt even before FDR was ever president. Social workers have their fingers on the pulse of society and work to make the world a better place to live for everyone. Their field is more varied than I could have ever imagined; from your psychiatric social workers who deal with psychotherapy to the work that some do in community organizing and counseling. It is a noble and much needed profession.

Therefore, it is no surprise that social workers do sometimes end up running for public office. I wish more of them would do so. A quick scan of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) website (www.socialworkers.org) reveals some interesting people now in federal office who were social workers. You have US Senators Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Debbie Stabenow (D-MI). In the House you have Susan Davis (D-CA-53), Barbara Lee (D-CA-09), Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D-OH-11), Ed Towns (D-NY-10) and Allyson Schwartz (D-PA-13).

We are often lead to believe that to run for office you have to be a lawyer. This is simply not the case and it does not have to be this way. People that run for office represent their constituents and the needs of that constituency. Who better to know what those needs are than social workers? While I’m not sure if NY State Senator Liz Kreuger and Assembly member Amy Paulin were social workers persay; their backgrounds surely mirror the work that a social worker would be involved with, and they are both very impressive for what they have done before arriving in Albany. Having the background they have in dealing with issues of poverty, housing, education, healthcare (Kreuger) and domestic rights (Paulin) this puts them in a great position to shape public policy. For this same reason NASW pushes for social workers to run or be part of political campaigns.

Of course social workers don’t always get the credit and respect they deserve. Granted, there can be mistakes made like those who work DSS cases and fail to pick up on signs of domestic abuse. In the past the Westchester DSS has come under scrutiny for some failures and it’s understandable that they would. Yet this cannot be allowed to distort the real good work that hundreds of social workers do each day for the departments of social service all throughout the country. This year we saw the DCCC (dccc.org) put up Iraq veterans and veterans from past wars to run for congress. While there was nothing wrong with that strategy. In 2008, I’d like to see a social worker revolution.