Carl,
Interesting. Well, let me tell you a short story of my path to social work
and what it was like when I got there. My mother was really worried about what
kind of work I could do when I grew up. After all, I was this handicapped
child, legally blind. She had reason to be worried. I'd been thrown out of the
nursery school I attended after I fell down the cement stairs in the front of
the building. The sun was shining on them in such a way that there were no
shadows and I didn't have depth perception. So she asked the only person she
knew who had an education and might no the answer, our family doctor who also
was a family friend. Dr. Weinstein looked into the matter and suggested that I
might become a social worker. I was, maybe, twelve or thirteen years old. He
explained that social workers helped people. So it was decided. I thought that
would be a good thing to do. I was absolutely sure that I could not get
married, have children, or run a household. After all, my mother never taught
me to do any household chores except to shell peas. So I latched onto that goal
and never let go. What Dr. Weinstein didn't know was that schools of social
work in and around New York City weren't exactly delighted to welcome legally
blind students. The most prestigeous was at Columbia University. It was called
The New York School of Social Work. Back in 1959, it was perfectly acceptable
to refuse someone on the basis of blindness and they did. Adelphi School of
Social Work said they'd accept me if I managed to find my own field placements
because they couldn't guarantee me any. Field placements were the heart and
soul of social work education. N Y U said if I proved that I could find a job
and work for one year, they'd consider accepting me. I think, perhaps the
Social Work School at Hunter College accepted me unconditionally. But then
someone, maybe a legally blind sociology professor of mine, maybe the
recreation director at the Lighthouse, told me that I should apply to a school
away from New York so that I would have to leave home and could learn to live
on my own. That's how I ended up at the University of Michigan. Interestingly,
they accepted me on the basis of my interview at Columbia which had refused me.
But what I wanted to do was counseling or psychotherapy so I wanted a
concentration in psychiatric social work. The person in charge of that program
refused me on the basis of my blindness. By the way, back then, I had a lot of
useable vision. I was not using a cane and I was reading print with a
magnifying glass. Anyway, they insisted that I take the rehabilitation
sequence. That was the only way I'd get a fellowship. It was probably the only
way I got in. The rehab agency where they placed a group of us was dreadfully
backward. The workers were called agents, not counselors. All they cared about
was getting jobs for the least disabled clients so they could get raises which
were based on the number of closures they got. The School of Social Work placed
students there because they thought that we, and our supervisor, who the school
also provided, could be agents of change. It was truly an insane idea. I begged
them for a psychiatric field placement for the second year, but the head of the
psychiatric sequence said she would only permit me to have one that wasn't
certified. Instead, they offered me a family service agency which would have
been fine if I'd had a good supervisor and was allowed the kind of cases which
permitted me to learn to do counseling. Those were white, middle class clients
and they were given to experienced staff members. I learned a lot about race
segregation and poverty that year because the agency gave me the cases that
they considered worthless and hopeless. So actually, I got a real social work
education that year, not the shortcut to becoming a psychotherapist that I
might have gotten if I weren't visually impaired. When I graduated, I could
have gotten supervisory jobs and, in one case, a director's job, if I'd been
willing to work in northern Michigan or down South. The guy at the Lighthouse
wanted me to take the job as director of a tiny agency for the blind in some
southern state or other. I wanted to live and work in New York. The family
agencies in New York didn't want me, even with a family agency placement. Of
course they didn't. I was blind and they probably figured out what the agency
in Yipsilanti was really like. I worked for 2 days in a little family agency in
Patterson, NJ and quit because there was no way I could do that commute, and I
didn't want to live in Patterson. The New York State Commission for the Blind
put pressure on the New York Sstate Dept. of Mental Health to hire me in an
after-care clinic for people just released from mental hospitals. This wasn't
what I had in mind, but the location was OK. Only the director of that clinic
didn't want me there and when it was my turn to get one of the offices with
real walls, a real door, and a window, they wouldn't let me have it because
they said it was too far for me to walk. I did walk back there to the bathroom
several times a day, however. So I stayed in my office at the front with
dividers rather than walls and no windows. When I left, where do you suppose I
went? I went where they all wanted me to go, to the Industrial Home for the
Blind which was a miserable place to be. There are other things that happened
like how no one wanted to hire me when I thought I'd return to work when my
older daughter was five, and when a former classmate of mine, who was the head
of social services at an agency for mentally ill people, refused to hire me
because of my disability. But eventually, I did work on my own, for 30 some odd
years in adoptions. And even then, disability caused difficulties. But social
work? It didn't practice what it preached when it came to accepting people into
its ranks.
Miriam .
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From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Monday, April 03, 2017 8:37 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: [blind-democracy] RE: [blind-democracy] Re:
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Miriam, (second try)
Back in the 50's and 60's I recall declaring that there were three types of
people who were totally self centered, self serving, and stuck up. They were
Marines, Texans and Social Workers.
I knew decent young guys graduating from high school who enlisted in the Marine
Corps and when they finished their four year hitch, they couldn't keep their
shirts buttoned because the buttons seemed to burst off their chests. I met
people from Texas who were so pleased with themselves that they preferred a
full length looking glass over another human being. But the worst, the very,
very worst of all were the Social Workers. I know that they had to have been
born just like everyone else was born. First nasty, disgusting sex, followed
by great labor pains...now it's called contractions, and then there they were,
babies. But Social Workers seem to have simply materialized at some point, as
new adults. 23 years or 25 years old, proudly presenting their Masters Degree
from Stanford, Yale or Princeton. And in that piece of paper rested all of the
wisdom and New World Thinking. The young social workers of that time even
looked down their noses at the old social workers. Blessed with Absolute
Truth, they went forth to damage the children of the world. And they weren't
any much better with older adults, either. I often wanted to ask, but was far
too polite, if it weren't difficult to work all day with a corn cob up their
butt.
Over the years I have become so much wiser and far more tolerant. I have met
some down right decent Marines. In fact my Brother-In-Law was such a creature.
And so is my eldest son-in-law. Then I met some really nice young adults, a
group of them traveling together. They were a bit nervous about coming so far
out west, thinking there was great lawlessness out here. We met at a
conference and I fell in love with all of the young women...I was between wives
at the time, and I asked them from whence they came. "Texas!" they beamed
proudly.
Later I even had a male friend from Texas. I think the difference is that
these people were, "From" Texas.
Finally, after holding firm to my belief that Social Workers were really
Goblins who grew in the corn patch and took on Humanoid bodies, I finally met a
few who did alter my long established belief. I even hired a Social Worker for
my staff. She was, and still is, a cracker jack of a woman. I hired her as
one of two Braille Instructors. But her real job was to pull folks out of
their crappy attitudes. She was amazing at it.
Yup. I've come a long, long way toward open acceptance of everyone...well,
almost everyone. In fact, that list is far too long to post here.
Carl Jarvis