I’m Kayla and I used to be a social worker. I am getting used to saying that.
This space serves two primary functions.
One is that I get to explore and better understand the contradictions that made social work unworkable for me. While others seemed to hate it at times and move on, I found it impossible. Each individual piece was great. I loved my clients, I loved my coworkers, I respected those above me, I loved being resourceful, and I loved learning about the underbellies of our social systems and all the iterative ways people can be. Why couldn’t I simply do the job?
Two is that if I put this out there for anyone to read, I am much less likely to be able to stumble back into an agency in the frustration of unemployment. The permanency of posting something on the internet reflects that in our consciousness. Once it’s said, it can’t be unsaid. There is no real deletion.
Bonus: There are things about this I think are important to say, but as a social worker I was unable to move in a way that represented and affected only myself. From my education through the last day of my last clinical role, I was a part of various organizations (including those that I founded) pushing for the advancement of economic and racial justice through the careful breaking of the nonprofit industrial complex. The things the state and our workplaces refused to give our clients, we organized for. I felt like a representative of too many things and that my words had to be careful and strategic to not accidentally harm my clients, who already represented the scapegoats of American society. Now, I’m ready and able to say what I need to. You can disagree with me, and it can’t hurt anyone but me.
I ask that you take me at my word and not extrapolate. I ask that you do not take me more seriously than I take myself, which is to mean not at all.
Social work is the field in which we place every single thing that we as a society can’t handle and don’t want to think about. I will be talking about these things, which can at times be tricky, unusual, or triggering. I will list topics discussed at the top if I think something may be particularly sticky.
Thanks for reading this far. I hope thinking about all of this can benefit us both somehow, or at least provide some entertainment.