How— and why — journalists should talk to social workers →

Looking for leads? Every day, social workers across New York City work on the front lines of every pressing social issue.

Social workers are mental health service providers. They are community organizers. They are policy analysts. Every day, tens of thousands of social workers across New York City work on the front lines of psychological trauma, nightmare bureaucracy, and public indifference. They work in courts, in churches, in city hall, on the streets, in schools, in homes, in hospitals — everywhere human suffering grinds against the weight of a broken system. These labors grant social workers deep insight into how these systems operate. Furthermore, we (yes, we — I left the Star-Revue two years ago to pursue a Master’s degree in Social Work at Columbia University — ) are trained to analyze these issues on individual, organizational, and societal levels.

As such, social workers are excellent go-to sources for any journalist interested in any community. Yet rarely is our expertise tapped — we social workers are often characterized in the media alternatively as baby-snatchers and as cogs in a mindless system designed to reinforce learned dependence on the Nanny State. There are historical reasons for this — many of them rooted in racism, sexism, and classism — but it is time for this pattern to end. Social workers’ insights are powerful, and it is time for media professionals to take us seriously.