PSW Appreciation Week at Southeast

How long have you been working as a PSW?

I have been working here as a Psychiatric Social Worker for the last nine years.

What made you choose that role?

I wanted to do something, to be able to help the kids. I know that when I was growing up, I wished I had someone to talk to and I didn’t know that there were these positions of social worker where kids can go and talk to them, so I wanted to be that person that I always wanted to have in my life growing up in middle school.

What do you do during PSW appreciation week?

As a school social worker, we support the students when it comes to their social emotions if they need to talk to someone. We also do a lot of macro events. So we go outside and do campaigns on mental health and we support in the classroom to do presentations, sometimes assemblies or even talking to teachers to support them with their students. Usually during Social Work Month, not a lot of people celebrate it for us so a lot of the times. Me and Ms. Rafael just kinda celebrate it on our own ‘cause there are not a lot of people that know about school Social Work Month so we do our own celebration.

How long have you been working as a PSW?

This is going to be my 5th year or it is my 5th year.

What made you choose that role?

When I was in college I met an amazing social worker who was my teacher and she inspired me to be a social worker and I always wanted to work with kids so that led me to be working at a school.

What do you do during PSW appreciation week? 

I think I try to really educate students about what social workers do because we don’t always work at schools. We can work in hospitals as well. There are social workers who work with the military or the homeless population. So just letting people know where they can find a social worker.