Fordham Graduate School of Social Service – Fordham Now https://now.fordham.edu The official news site for Fordham University. Thu, 25 Apr 2024 12:49:51 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://now.fordham.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/favicon.png Fordham Graduate School of Social Service – Fordham Now https://now.fordham.edu 32 32 232360065 Fordham Dumpson Symposium Focuses on Past Lessons and Collaboration to Improve Child Welfare in NYC https://now.fordham.edu/colleges-and-schools/graduate-school-of-social-service/fordham-dumpson-symposium-focuses-on-past-lessons-and-collaboration-to-improve-child-welfare-in-nyc/ Wed, 22 Feb 2023 16:19:23 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=169452 Jennifer Jones Austin, LAW ’93, the CEO of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, leads a panel at the Dumpson Symposium. Photos by Bruce Gilbert.How can the lessons of the history of the child welfare system in New York City help provide a better future for children across the city? That was the focus of the James Dumpson Symposium, hosted by Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service on Feb. 15 at the Lincoln Center campus.

The symposium, titled “Leading for Change: How to Create Sustainable Impact in Children and Family Services,” brought together agency leaders, government officials, service providers, and more to learn about how partnerships can improve care and how the system can work to confront challenges.

Anne Williams-Isom, FCLC ’86, New York City deputy mayor for health and human services, helped organize the symposium to provide a place for professionals to learn with and from each other. While Williams-Isom was unable to attend, she said that the idea for the forum came from the legacy of James Dumpson, the late activist and leading social crusader who served as the city’s first black welfare commissioner and as GSS dean from 1967 to 1974.

“So much of Dr. Dumpson’s work was about the intersection of policy, practice, and research—he wanted to ensure that NYC children, families, individuals, and communities were supported with dignity,” said Williams-Isom, who served in leadership positions in the city’s child welfare system for many years before going on to lead the Harlem Children’s Zone, an education and anti-poverty nonprofit.

John Mattingly, a former head of New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), encouraged those in attendance to value the importance of public service.

“Public service creates public value,” he told those in attendance. “The work that we highlight tonight is one example of public service going back into the mid 1990s. And still going on here in New York City as we speak.”

Shirley Gatenio Gabel, the Mary Ann Quaranta Endowed Chair at GSS, served as the moderator for a panel.

A Look Back

Mattingly, who served as the welcome speaker, set the stage for the first panel, which featured a look back at the history of ACS. The panel included Linda Gibbs, who served as deputy mayor for health and human services for New York City; Gerard McCaffery, the former president and CEO of MercyFirst, a nonprofit human and social service agency; Sister Paulette LoMonaco, formerly of Good Shepherd Services; and Fred Wulcyzn, the director of the Center for State Child Welfare Data, Chapin Hall, at the University of Chicago.

Shirley Gatenio Gabel, the Mary Ann Quaranta Endowed Chair at GSS, who served as the moderator, highlighted the strides that many of the panelists had made during their time working with or for the city.

“There’s one statistic that keeps on coming to mind—in 1996, when ACS was founded, there were 50,000 children in care, and today, there’s 6,800,” she said. “So I think we can all agree that’s 6,800 too many children in care, but what an accomplishment. And a lot of that accomplishment is due to the hard work of people on this panel and people in this room, and many others working together to create a new system for children.”

The Importance of Data

Wulcyzn said he’s seen how data and story collection from those in the system can help to make improvements. He has about 4.5 million records of children in foster care since the late 1970s, when they first started tracking children’s experiences—at the time on index cards, compared to today’s more modern, efficient system.

“In the last 45 years or so, we have completely changed [the system], and our ability to know something that was happening to children is extraordinary,” he said. “And at the time with Linda and Nick [Scoppetta, the first head of ACS] and all the people who worked at ACS at that time, it was the first time we really had a chance to demonstrate what could be done to take those stories seriously and use them to make a better system.”

Panel discussion at the Dumpson Symposium

Addressing Current Issues

While panelists acknowledged that progress had been made in serving children and families, the second panel of the evening highlighted some of the challenges that still need to be addressed. The panel featured Jess Dannhauser, the current ACS commissioner; Julia Jean-Francois, the co-executive director at the Center for Family Life; Benita Miller, the executive director of Powerful Families, Powerful Communities; Raysa Rodriquez, chief program and policy officer at Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies; and Willie Tolliver, professor at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College.

Jennifer Jones Austin, LAW ’93, the CEO of the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, an anti-poverty, policy, and advocacy organization, served as the moderator. She said that as she listened to the speakers from the first panel, she kept thinking of the word sankofa, which is an African word from a tribe in Ghana.

“The literal translation of the word sankofa is ‘it is not taboo to fetch what is at risk of being left behind,’” she said. “What it means is taking from the past what is good and bringing it into the present to make progress in the future.”

Jones Austin said that she saw this as the goal of the evening—to look back on the history of ACS and to engage in “constructively critical analysis” of child welfare.

Miller said one of the things the agencies should keep in mind as they continue this work is the need to keep the community and the voices of children at the center of it..

“For me, it was very, very important to bring in folks who were impacted by the system to the conversations that were happening around their lives,” she said.

Inequities and Underlying Causes

Jones Austin emphasized that the system is set up to “treat the symptom.”

“To solve the problem, we have to get at the underlying cause that created the problem in the first place,” she said, citing examples of structural inequities such as poverty, mass incarceration, economic deprivation, social and emotional well-being, and a lack of clinical resources in communities. “We’re not going to solve these problems by just pouring more money into systems that are in place, at best, to treat the system.”

Dannhauser also highlighted the disparities that he and his team are working to address.

“There’s disproportionality throughout the entire system—the most disparate point is at the point of the call,” he said. “It’s 6.6 times more likely that a Black family be called [into ACS]than a white family in New York City. That means, according to one study, that we are investigating almost half of Black families in New York City—44%. And that’s something we’re working really hard on to fix.”

One way is through providing families with resources upfront, he said.

“We have a lot of work to do around how we engage families. We are very open in this administration that it may not be right for ACS to be building all of the solutions, but that there should be other areas that are created, and we have a long way to go.”

Williams-Isom said the goal of the forum was to focus on “how to create sustained reforms over many years in children and family services.”

“The panelists demonstrated the power of diverse teams to bring about systemic change and large-scale reform,” she said in an email following the event. “This needs to happen throughout the entire human services system so that we can reimagine what is possible so that people can truly thrive. I am so proud that Fordham GSS is at the center of this very important work.”

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Marthe Guirand, GSS ’22: ‘All I Ever Wanted to Do’ https://now.fordham.edu/commencement/commencement-2022/marthe-guirand-gss-22-all-i-ever-wanted-to-do/ Wed, 18 May 2022 16:05:04 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=160566 Contributed photoWhen a 7.0 magnitude earthquake devastated Haiti in January 2010, Marthe Guirand was just 11, living with her aunt in the capital, Port-au-Prince. Ten months later, she and her brother left the shattered city to join her parents in Stamford, Connecticut, and begin a new life in the United States.

She’s never forgotten how a social worker helped her and her family make that transition. And soon she’ll be in a position to offer help to others in need. On May 21, Guirand will graduate with a Master of Social Work from the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS).

To get there, though, she had to overcome some misconceptions about the field. Even though she was attracted to it as an undergraduate at Long Island’s Molloy College, she changed her major three times—from criminal justice to psychology to computer science—before settling on social work.

“I think a lot of people have just one perspective of the social work field—that they’re social workers that take children away from families,” she said.

Guirand attended Molloy on a basketball scholarship, and she said her coach encouraged her to stick with the social work field if it was really what she wanted to do.

“I think that was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made because I’m learning so much and it’s all I ever wanted to do. A social worker helped me, and I wanted to be able to give back,” she said.

When she first began taking classes with GSS remotely from her home in Norwalk, Connecticut, she was working part-time as a caregiver with Assisted Living Services. In February, a field placement assignment introduced her to Family & Children’s Agency (FCA), where she currently works as a social work supervisor, and where she will remain after graduation. Her focus is on geriatric care, an area where the need for social work is growing as the U.S. population ages.

“A lot of seniors, especially during the pandemic, haven’t had contact or relationships with other people, and as they get older, their family members kind of drift away from them,” she said.

“I want to be able to support them. If they need someone to speak to, or they need something that their family members can’t help them with, I want to be that person they can always call.”

The onset of the pandemic presented both challenges and opportunities. On the one hand, Guirand missed what would have been her final year playing basketball for Molloy, and in September 2020, when Covid infections were still spiking, her father had to travel from Stamford to Manhattan to undergo a non-Covid-related lung transplant.

At the same time, remote learning meant that she didn’t have to commute from Connecticut to Fordham’s Westchester campus, where she would have been taking classes if they were in person.

She was grateful, though, that her current placement with FCA is in person and has brought her face to face with clients—even though mask-wearing can sometimes pose a problem.

“One of my biggest challenges was communication, at least in the beginning. The clients are older, so they’re hard of hearing, and plus I have a mask on. It’s a lot of repeating and raising my voice, which I’m not used to,” she said. It made it difficult to establish trust.

“I want to build that rapport with them and coming off too strong, depending on the person’s personality, could be a problem.”

She has also learned the importance of being an advocate for her clients.

“It’s so important because they’re not aware of certain benefits they can receive, or how to advocate for themselves. I’m kind of a point person,” she said.

Linda White-Ryan, Ph.D., associate dean of student services and an adjunct professor at the GSS, said that Guirand helped create a sense of community in her class, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, a task made more challenging by the fact that it was held exclusively on Zoom.

Social work is fundamentally the act of building relationships, and Guirand, she said, is the quintessential role model for a social worker.

“One of the things that professors do is model that for students in the classroom and break them into small groups so that they begin to work on case studies together, practice interventions together, or pair up with other students to role play,” she said.

“Marthe helped students engage with each other by creating that safe space. I was impressed with her contribution to making the class such a comfortable place to be—a comfortable learning environment where students could challenge things that were being taught, and also contribute creative ideas.”

When the war in Ukraine began, talk in the class turned to the trauma felt by refugees fleeing conflict, and Guirand shared her own story of leaving the country she called home, White-Ryan said. Guirand detailed how she had to adapt to a change in the pace of life, the mix of excitement and fear associated with the move, and how she had to embrace a new cuisine.

Guirand said that she’s excited to follow in the path of her mother, who has also worked as a caregiver. She’s also taken joy in the fact that she is making an impact in the lives of the elderly people she works with.

“I see that every day with my clients. A phone call just to check in makes the biggest difference. They’re like, ‘Oh my God, Martha, thank you for calling.’ You know, it it’s things like that that make my day.”

Guirand said her favorite phrase is “In a world where you could be anything, be kind.”

“I really like that because you never know what someone is going through or has gone through,” she said.

“That person may act this way or say that, and maybe something is going on with them. So being kind is something that all of my classes at Fordham have emphasized. Empathy plays a huge role in this field.”

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Her Migrant Hub: A Resource by and for Women Asylum Seekers https://now.fordham.edu/colleges-and-schools/graduate-school-of-social-service/her-migrant-hub-a-resource-by-and-for-women-asylum-seekers/ Mon, 26 Jul 2021 23:44:18 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=151223 Fordham faculty and students worked with women asylum seekers to design a new website that helps this vulnerable population gain access to health care services and other resources in New York City. Women can use the website to understand their rights in the U.S. and to find local medical practices that will accept them regardless of their immigration status—and they can do it all anonymously.

“The idea is to support women who are seeking asylum and to make their transition and waiting period more bearable and sustainable,” said Marciana L. Popescu, Ph.D., website co-founder and associate professor in the Graduate School of School Service. “We want the ability to preserve confidentiality and anonymity for online visitors. This is extremely important because we’re dealing with a population that lives in fear.”

More than 79 million people are displaced worldwide, according to a 2020 report from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, and more than half are women. Tens of thousands are in New York City alone. Few attempt to seek health care services in fear of deportation, and the pandemic has worsened the situation, especially for women asylum seekers, said Popescu. 

Her Migrant Hub was built thanks to a $150,000 grant from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation. In addition to accessing resources on the site, asylum seekers can share best practices and meet women who have experienced similar struggles. The project began in January; the website was launched in late June in honor of World Refugee Day. 

“It’s designed by the women, down to the colors that are used on the website, the images, the graphics, the logo, the website name itselfeverything was done collaboratively and driven by the women who are part of this group,” said Dana Alonzo, Ph.D., website co-founder and GSS professor who specializes in mental health. 

Showing the Experts What’s Missing

The website was developed by a team of about 20 people, including a Fordham graduate student and an alumnus. Because Her Migrant Hub was developed in conjunction with the target audience—the women asylum seekers themselves—it is unlike many resources developed by experts and scholars, said Popescu and Alonzo. 

“They are teaching us what it means to be an asylum seeker, to live in NYC and not be able to get the services you need,” said Alonzo. “They are looking at the website and saying, ‘This is what we’re missing.’” 

Among them is Marthe Kiemde, 36, who fled political persecution in Burkina Faso with her husband while pregnant in 2016. She said that during their first four years in the U.S., they raised their newborn in New York City shelters, where they also received career training and got back on their feet. 

“I know many immigrant women who are struggling right now. They don’t know where to go to get any services, especially in health care. They are afraid to go because they don’t have any papers … But this website is secure,” said Kiemde, who helped research immigration and childcare policies for Her Migrant Hub and now works as a hospital dietary associate. “With this program, we’re going to help many, many women.” 

Another website collaborator is Vanessa Rosales-Linares, 40, an asylum seeker from Venezuela. She said she was an anesthesiologist who fled her native country in 2017 with her husband and 8-year-old daughter after giving medical treatment to government protesters and fearing punishment from political leaders. Rosales-Linares said she now wants to help people who were once in her position. 

“[The website has] good information because it’s from many people who have in the past had the same problems. They are telling their histories and teaching how to improve their situation for new immigrants,” said Rosales-Linares, a website designer for Her Migrant Hub and a nursing student at Lehman College. 

‘A Window Into What Is Happening’

In addition to providing local health care resources, Her Migrant Hub simplifies the asylum seeking process and an asylum seeker’s rights in New York City through text and graphics. It also provides an online forum where women asylum seekers and allies can share their experiences and read stories that help them feel less alone, said Popescu and Alonzo. 

This fall, the website will launch several new features, including expanded translation services; a workshop webinar series designed and co-taught by women asylum seekers; and Her Migrant World, an educational page that takes a deeper look at global migration and the people at the center of it all. 

“We hope that Her Migrant World will be a window into what is happening and why people take so many risks to come here and the reality on the ground,” Popescu said. 

‘This Feels Like Home’ 

After project funding ends in December, Popescu said she is confident that her team will continue to make a difference in the lives of women asylum seekers across the city. Within their team, they have also found a home. 

“We talk all the time. All our joys and sorrows started to be shared in the group, so the group provides support,” said Popescu, adding that they chat via WhatsApp. “At our second meeting or so when we first met, one of the women said, ‘This feels like home.’”

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Board of Trustees Welcomes Eight New Members https://now.fordham.edu/university-news/board-of-trustees-welcomes-eight-new-members/ Fri, 06 Nov 2020 19:24:40 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=142567 Fordham’s Board of Trustees has inducted eight new members, including a United States Circuit Court of Appeals judge, two Jesuit rectors, a nonprofit executive, and several corporate leaders. 

“Fordham is blessed—a word I do not use lightly—with an exceptional Board of Trustees,” said Joseph M. McShane, S.J., president of the University. “Our eight new trustees typify the generosity, wisdom, and dedication of Board members. I, and the University, are indebted to them for the time, treasure, and care they bring to Fordham, and especially to our students. I look forward to working with them as we navigate this most challenging of years.”

In the past decade, former and current board members have helped establish endowed chairs and endowed or current-use scholarship funds, fund the construction and renovation of buildings on campus, and guide University policies and initiatives. Recently, the board helped develop the University’s anti-racism action plan and mandated annual anti-racism training for all faculty, administrators, staff, and students—including the president’s cabinet and the board itself. Below are the condensed bios of this year’s newly elected trustees. 

A studio portrait of a woman

Meaghan Jarensky Barakett, GSS ’16

Founder and Executive Director, One Girl

Barakett is the founder and executive director of One Girl, Inc., a nonprofit that develops young women into leaders through charity, advocacy, and community organizing. She is also a two-time beauty pageant winner; she won the Miss New York USA title in 2005 and Mrs. New York America in 2010. An unusual obstacle in her courtship with her husband, Brett Barakett, led her to become an anti-cyberbullying advocate who has pushed for passage of the E-Impersonation Prevention Act, New York Senate Bill S5871-A, which would elevate the crime to a felony. Barakett graduated from Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service with a master’s degree in nonprofit leadership in 2016. That same year, One Girl and GSS’s Institute for Women & Girls hosted its first “Women in Charge” conference, which became an annual event for several years. More recently, Barakett served as a panelist in Fordham’s 2018 Women’s Philanthropy Summit and a member of the President’s Council. The Baraketts are finalizing plans to establish an endowed scholarship fund at Fordham in loving memory of their son, Lincoln.

A studio portrait of a manUlderico Calero Jr., FCLC ’90

Head of Banking and Lending, BNY Mellon

Ulderico “Rick” Calero Jr. is a financial services executive with more than two decades of experience. Before joining BNY Mellon Wealth Management, he spent six years at TIAA, where he served as senior managing director in institutional financial services and president and CEO of TIAA-CREF Trust Co. FSB. He has also held various senior executive roles at Umpqua Financial Holdings, Citigroup, and Regions Financial. In addition, he is a fellow of the Aspen Institute’s Finance Leaders Fellowship, a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, and a board member of the Bank Administration Institute. For nearly 12 years, he served in the U.S. Army in various positions, including as a Green Beret. He earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Fordham College at Lincoln Center and an MBA from Southern Methodist University’s Cox School of Business. As a Fordham student, he received an ROTC Scholarship. He is a past member of Fordham’s President’s Council, where he mentored current students and helped fund key initiatives. Calero and his wife, Nancy, whom he met in the sixth grade, have three children. 

A studio portrait of a manDenny Chin, LAW ’78 

Judge, United States Court of Appeals – Second Circuit

Chin is the first Asian American to win a federal judicial appointment on the East Coast and an award-winning circuit judge who has presided over many notable cases in his judicial career, including the sentencing of infamous Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff. A Hong Kong native, Chin graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University and earned his law degree from Fordham Law School, where he served as managing editor of the Fordham Law Review. Over the next four decades, Chin climbed the ranks in the U.S. courts and private firms, from law clerk, to associate, to assistant U.S. attorney, to partner, to U.S. district judge, to his current position. He is the recipient of multiple awards, including the Spirit of Excellence Award from the American Bar Association, the Edward Weinfeld Award from the New York County Lawyers Association, and the Medal of Achievement from the Fordham Law Alumni Association. At Fordham, he is an adjunct professor of law who has regularly taught first-year legal writing since 1986. Chin and his wife, Kathy Hirata Chin, have two children. 

A studio portrait of a manEmanuel Chirico, GABELLI ’79 

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Phillips-Van Heusen

Emanuel “Manny” Chirico is chairman and CEO of PVH Corp., the world’s second-largest apparel company and parent company to brands like Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger. He has received numerous accolades for his work, including being named to the NRF Foundation’s List of People Shaping Retail’s Future in 2020 and induction into the Business of Fashion 500 Hall of Fame in 2019. Born and raised in the Bronx, Chirico serves on the boards of Montefiore Medical Center, Save the Children, United Nations Global Compact, and other organizations; he has previously served on the Fordham Board of Trustees. This year, Fordham and PVH entered a new partnership: PVH will donate $1 million to the Gabelli School of Business to enhance sustainability curriculum and support speakers, visiting scholars, and academic conferences. Chirico and his wife, Joanne, have supported other University initiatives and incorporated lessons from Fordham into their daily work. Two of their three grown sons are Fordham alumni. The couple will be honored at the Founder’s Dinner on March 22, 2021.  

An outdoors portrait of a womanDarlene Luccio Jordan, FCRH ’89 

Executive Director, The Gerald R. Jordan Foundation

Jordan is the executive director of the Gerald R. Jordan Foundation, a nonprofit named for her husband that champions education, health and medical research, youth services, and the arts. She is a former assistant attorney general of Massachusetts, where she served in the insurance fraud division from 1996 to 1999. Previously, she was an assistant district attorney in the Norfolk district attorney’s office. She served as a national finance co-chair for Mitt Romney for President in 2008 and 2012, and was the state finance chair for Florida Gov. Rick Scott in 2014. At Fordham, Jordan and her husband established the Darlene Luccio Jordan, Esq., and Gerald R. Jordan Jr. Endowed Scholarship, which gives preference to undergraduates from Boston high schools. Jordan served as co-chair of Excelsior | Ever Upward | Campaign for Fordham and Faith & Hope | The Campaign for Financial Aid, the University’s most recently completed campaign to help finance opportunities for Fordham students. She has previously served on Fordham’s board. Jordan and her husband, Jerry, live in Florida with their daughter, Charlotte. 

An office portrait of a manArmando Nuñez, GABELLI ’82 

Adviser and former chairman, Global Distribution Group, ViacomCBS

Nuñez is adviser and former chairman of the global distribution group and chief content licensing officer for ViacomCBS, where he oversaw all content licensing for ViacomCBS-owned programming to third-party platforms and monetization of the industry’s largest library of film and television titles. Nuñez, who has held senior leadership roles in international media for more than two decades, also directed CBS Television Distribution, which produces and distributes industry-leading franchises including Entertainment Tonight and Jeopardy!. He has been recognized by multiple organizations for being a major television influencer. In 2014, he was No. 7 on The Hollywood Reporter’s list of the top 25 Latinos in entertainment. Nuñez graduated from the Gabelli School of Business with a bachelor’s degree in marketing and management. In 2012, he established the Nuñez Family Scholarship Fund for full-time Gabelli students, with preference given to students who are economically disadvantaged or part of underrepresented populations. He has previously served on the Fordham Board of Trustees.

A black-and-white studio portrait of a manThomas J. Regan, S.J., GSAS ’82, ‘84

Rector, Jesuit Community at Fordham 

This past summer, Father Regan became the leader of the Jesuit community at Fordham. In 1980, he began his academic career at Fairfield University as an instructor of philosophy and went on to become associate professor and chair of its philosophy department and associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. His work at Fairfield earned him the Most Influential Educators award, given to five faculty members, every year from 1990 to 1995. He also spent nearly a decade at Loyola University in Chicago, where he served as an associate professor of philosophy, academic dean at St. Joseph College Seminary, director of the Jesuit First Studies master’s program, and dean of both the College of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School. From 2010 to 2011, he was a visiting associate professor of philosophy at Fordham. Father Regan also served as Provincial for the New England Province of the Society of Jesus for six years. He has served previously on Fordham’s board. He is the new co-chair of the Mission and Social Justice Committee with Trustee Anthony Carter. 

A portrait of a manRichard P. Salmi, S.J.

Rector, Jesuit Community at Loyola University Chicago

Father Salmi, previously the head of Fordham University’s London Centre from 2014 to 2020, is currently the rector of the Jesuit community at Loyola University Chicago. A native of Cleveland, Father Salmi has served in various roles throughout his life, including director of community service programs; coordinator of spiritual counseling for people with AIDS, their families, friends, and caregivers; and vice president of student affairs at Loyola University Chicago. From 2009 to 2013, he served as president of Spring Hill College, where he oversaw the opening of a center in Bologna, Italy. Father Salmi has been a member of nearly a dozen boards, including Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Chicago and the Association for Student Affairs at Catholic Colleges and Universities. Among other degrees, he holds a Master of Divinity degree from the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University and a Ph.D. in higher education administration from Boston College.

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Fordham GSS Webinar Spotlights Child Welfare in the Time of COVID https://now.fordham.edu/colleges-and-schools/graduate-school-of-social-service/fordham-gss-webinar-spotlights-child-welfare-in-the-time-of-covid/ Mon, 24 Aug 2020 19:16:52 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=139635 When people think of frontline workers in the COVID-19 pandemic, images of doctors, nurses, and first responders often come to mind. But leaders in child welfare say that another group should be recognized as well—direct care workers, including social workers and case managers.

“Our frontline staff are the direct heroes in this work during the pandemic,” said Denise Hinds, assistant executive director of Good Shepherd Services, a social service agency. “They have been the heroes for us, they have been the heroes for our children, our youth, and our families.”

Hinds joined other leaders in the New York City child welfare industry on August 12 for a virtual discussion titled “The Current and Future Impact of COVID-19 on Child Welfare in NYC,” which was organized by Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service (GSS).

Shirley Gatenio Gabel, holder of the Quaranta Chair for Justice for Children at GSS, said that the goal of the of webinar was to understand how children and families who are a part of New York City’s child welfare system were receiving help during this time, and discuss new challenges and needs that have arisen. Children and families in the child welfare system are among those hit hardest by this pandemic, said Gabel, who served as moderator.

“The coronavirus pandemic has affected us all yet it has disproportionately hit hardest on those who were marginalized and vulnerable before the pandemic,” she said.

That’s one of the reasons why Gabel asked the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) for the impact of drops in cases and referrals for preventative services. According to data from the New York statewide central register, intakes in April 2019 were 5,037 compared to just 2,292 in April 2020. Referrals to preventative services went from 1,299 in April 2019 to just 887 in April 2020, according to the data.

A Concerning Drop in Referrals

“Reports of cases to be investigated are significantly down from last year and referrals to preventive services are down from last year—the question is can we assume that this is good news or cause for concern?” she asked.

David Hansell, New York City commissioner of the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) said that cases dropped abruptly at the start because many of the usual people who referred children were no longer seeing them regularly at school.

“The chart showed that in mid-March, at the very beginning of the pandemic in New York City, and right after the schools closed, we did see a very significant drop,” he said. “The month of April the number of reports dropped by 50%. That’s not entirely surprising, because in routine times, about a quarter of our reports come from school personnel. Others come from other providers who stopped seeing children in the early days of the pandemic.”
Still, Hansell said that the numbers of referrals has been slowly going back up to normal with community members, friends, and family stepping up when a child is in need.

“The number of reports we’re getting is almost back to the typical level we’d be getting during a summer month,” he said. “That suggests that community members and family and friends were really stepping up and providing good oversight of kids and making sure they were safe.”

Throughout the pandemic, case workers and social workers were often still seeing children and families in-person through home visits and at other meetings, such as children in foster care meeting with their biological families, particularly for those most in need.

Continuing to Serve Vulnerable Families

“We know that the critical work that we do on the ground for our children, youth, and families—we knew we needed people on the ground,” Hinds said.

She and Bill Baccaglini, president and CEO of New York Foundling, credited ACS with providing guidance, funding, and personal protective equipment for those who had to continue to work in the fields during this time.

Raysa Rodriguez, associate executive director at the New York Citizens’ Committee for Children, said that it’s going to take a lot in the long run to help stabilize some of these families who have been dramatically affected by the pandemic.

“The truth is that all the families we were worried about and fighting for pre-COVID … all of these communities are exactly the communities that have been hardest hit by COVID,” she said, citing particularly those that experience housing instability, overcrowding, and limited access to health care. “(We’ve seen an) incredible amount of loss—loss of life, loss of income—we don’t fully know the extent. When I think about what it takes to keep children safe, the reality is that it’s pretty simple, it’s stable families.”

New Telecare Skills

Baccaglini said one glimmer of hope he thinks the system should take out of this is the skills social workers learned in providing telehealth and telecare services.

“Coming out of this, I think if we don’t take the opportunity to fully examine how telecare, not just telehealth, fits in our system, we’re doing a real injustice to the kids and families we serve,” he said. “It’s not a home visit or a Zoom meeting—I’m talking about how this fits into the continuum of care. I am convinced that this will, going forward, play a critical role.”

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Professor’s Research Highlights Last Acceptable Prejudice https://now.fordham.edu/politics-and-society/professors-research-highlights-last-acceptable-prejudice/ Tue, 25 Feb 2020 15:32:07 +0000 https://news.fordham.sitecare.pro/?p=133027 You might not know it from all the profiles of fresh-faced Silicon Valley executives and whiz kid millionaire teenage investors, but last year, a full 35 percent of the United States population was 50 years old or older. And when it comes to jobs, crossing that Five-O mark brings some very unwelcome challenges. In 2018, a survey by the American Association of Retired Persons found that nearly one in four workers 45 or older have been subjected to negative comments about their age, and three in five workers have seen or experienced age discrimination in the workplace.

Carole Cox, Ph.D., a professor at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service, has spent her career studying gerontology and social policy, and in 2015, she dedicated an entire chapter to employment and retirement in her book Social Policy for an Aging Society: A Human Rights Perspective. Ageism remains the last form of discrimination that’s widely accepted in our culture, she says, and it’s critical that we overcome it if we want to grow and thrive as a society. Listen here:

Full transcript below:

Carole Cox: Employers have gotten very smart. They will never say to somebody, you’re too old or, well, we don’t think you can do it because of your age. That would immediately be discrimination, just as if you said, well, I’m sorry I can’t hire you because of your color.

Patrick Verel: You might not know it from all the profiles of fresh faced Silicon Valley executives and whiz kid millionaire teenage investors, but last year a full 35% of the United States population was 50 years or older. When it comes to jobs crossing that 5-0 mark brings some very unwelcome challenges. In 2018, a survey by the American Association of Retired Persons found that nearly one in four workers 45 or older have been subjected to negative comments about their age, and in three and five workers have seen or experienced age discrimination in the workplace.

Carol Cox, a professor at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service, has spent a career studying gerontology and social policy. In 2015, she dedicated an entire chapter to employment and retirement in her book Social Policy for an Aging Society, A Human Rights Perspective. “Ageism remains the last form of discrimination that’s widely accepted in our culture,” she says, “and it’s critical that we overcome it if we want to grow and thrive as a society.” I’m Patrick Verel and this is Fordham News.

Now, you recently took to task a columnist in the New York Times for writing an article saying that the aging of the population is having a dire consequence on the American economy. Why?

CC: Well for one thing, even though our population is aging along with the rest of the world because aging is now a global phenomenon, there’s more people reaching older years, ages 60 and over, than probably being born in most societies, but one of the things that we know, particularly in this country, is that people are aging healthier. In fact, we know that we talk now about 80 is the new 60, 60 is the new 40, so we have expectations and it’s true in a sense, people are definitely living healthier for a much longer period of life. In fact, it’s only in the last couple of years of life that we talk about the expenses of an older generation and the healthcare of older people. It’s really only in the last few years of life that these expenses get to be very, very high. For instance, when a person’s in a nursing home or needs a lot of intensive care, that is really a very condensed period of life. It’s not the entire age limit.

People are living healthier longer, which means they also are contributing more. In many ways they are actually a part of the social capital in our country. They are providing incredible volunteer work, often in terms of families. It’s the older adults, the grandparents who come in and do babysitting and childcare, which is incredibly expensive in America and help out with their children and the grandchildren and become dependent upon, so that in itself is a contribution.

They do a lot in terms of the community. Older people are the ones who take on many the jobs, the volunteer jobs, that others aren’t, so they’re doing tutoring in schools. In New York City, we have a whole group of older adults who do the main type of volunteering in the schools with students. They help with SAT tests. They help with getting kids ready for succeeding in school, doing many, many types of volunteering there.

Another thing about older adults is that they tend to have more disposable income than younger generations, which means that they have more money to spend on consumer goods, more money to spend on vacations. They have a lot of spending power and this also is important for our society. When they say it’s having dire consequences for the economy, that’s really such a discriminatory stereotype, which doesn’t look at really what the worth of having older people in the society is.

PV: It’s so interesting you talk about that notion that 40 is the new 30, or 50 is the new 40, or whatever you want to say, that this is the new blah, blah, blah. That basically has not permeated the workplace culture is what it sounds like, but it is something you hear about all the time in the popular culture.

CC: Of course. Of course. In fact, when you look at commercials on television, you see so many of them now sort of showing older people on their bicycles and older people traveling and all, which says, hey, they’re there and they’ve retired, but they’re not ready to sit back and knit. They are contributing, they’re doing something, they’re active, they’re involved.

PV: Why is it harder to prove in court that you’ve been a victim of ageism in the workplace as opposed to being a victim of racism or sexism?

CC: Because employers have gotten very smart. They will never say to somebody, you’re too old or well, we don’t think you can do it because of your age. That would immediately be discrimination, just as if you said, well, I’m sorry I can’t hire you because of your color or because of your sexual orientation. Boy, you’ve got a real case.

They cloak it. You just don’t have this. We need somebody who can travel more or we need somebody who has had more computer skills or a longer time doing certain kind of programming or something. They find another way of discriminating cause you cannot use age itself. Even without hiring, if you go to look at training within corporations, they have a tendency not to provide so much training for people at a certain age, but it’s very difficult to say you didn’t get that training because of your age. Employers are very smart. They can say, well, you didn’t get the training because we want to keep you in this certain area or something. You can always find a reason. As long as you can find other reasons, it’s hard to prove age discrimination.

I think AARP did a study, 23% of all the charges in 2016 in terms of discrimination in the workforce. That’s almost a quarter of the claims were about age discrimination, but only 2% were able to sue. Just last week or in January, the House of Representatives passed a new bill protecting older Americans against discrimination and employment act. This means, the House in this bill, people are given the right to sue, even though age was not mentioned if they have enough evidence to believe that it was age that kept them from being promoted or hired or whatever. It was passed by the House. It goes to the Senate. Nobody believes that it’s going to pass the Senate and the White House is already said that they won’t sign it.

PV: Have they said why?

CC: They believe that the reason being that it’s going to open up to a lot of frivolous lawsuits.

PV: I mean, it’s interesting. I mean, given the fact that baby boomers make up such a huge percentage of the population and they’re now hitting their seventies, I would imagine this is a topic that would be getting, I mean it’s kind of a winner, right? But do you feel like there is any kind of movement on this in general?

CC: Some companies do seem to pride themselves on it and particularly where you need really skilled workers.

PV: Can you give me an example?

CC: Right. Well, BMW is a major corporation which has started making some changes. It’s made the production line easier to accommodate older employees. It’s focused on hiring older accountants, so it’s making an effort and one of the reasons is that they have begun to realize that these people have skills, they have the experience they can really contribute to the company.

One of the things that we find and the data shows that older workers don’t leave. Where a younger person at 30 or 48, certainly in their twenties and their thirties, they take a stepping stone. They go from one job to another job to another, and with it they’re taking their experience and their skills to another company. Older people, once they’re there, they stay. Often they have a lot of experience, a lot of skills that they can continue to use. BMW is one of the companies that comes out as one that’s just really making a point, even in terms of their accounting, to hire older people because they are steadier there.

There is a myth that older people take more time off because of illness and they don’t show that at all. If we look at even the fast food industry, for a long time McDonald’s was making a point of hiring older workers because they stay and they take the job more seriously. There are some changes happening in the workforce. Even if we look at computer skills, computers have been around now easily since the 70s, even earlier. To say that somebody doesn’t have the skills for high tech doesn’t make any sense because they’ve been using them for a long time and because they’re skilled in it, it doesn’t take that long to learn a new program or new software. They can pick it up. As long as people are motivated and they want to do it, age does not become a factor.

PV: That brings me to my next question, which is the tech sector. In 2007, I couldn’t believe this when I actually saw this, that this was a real thing, that Mark Zuckerberg actually said with a straight face, “Young people are just smarter.” Has it gotten any better?

CC: Well, and Mark Zuckerberg is the one who’s not going to change Facebook at all, even though he knows the ads are false and true and lying and all that.

PV: Yeah. Talk about somebody who’s not willing to change.

CC: Right, right. Does that have to do with his age? I mean, this is not anybody I think we need to take as a pillar of wisdom in our society.

If we look at just the candidates for president now, I would say at least what? Five of them are over the age of 70. Are you going to say that, I’m not going to get into personalities here, but age alone is not something, which is saying that people aren’t smart. It’s the same thing with the Supreme Court Justices. Personally, I think Ruth Bader Ginsburg is one of the most intelligent people there is. She’s in her eighties. The tech sector themselves, there’s got to be people in their forties.

PV: Yeah. When you would start the first to really kind of run into this problem.

CC: Yeah. They’re aging. Now, maybe they do want to leave. Maybe they’ve all got enough that they don’t need to stay there.

PV: We’ve been talking a lot about different companies and I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the differences between the United States and other countries around the world. Are there any that you think are good models for us to look to?

CC: Sweden actually has an ombudsman, which goes out to companies. If somebody says, I think I may have been ignored or I’m not being promoted or whatever, and begins to investigate the complaints. Unlike the U.S., where complaints are just disregarded or pushed off. There, they’re really tying to take action. The Netherland has a whole checklist for employers and for human resource people to complete to make sure that they understand what is age discrimination, that to make sure that every job which is being advertised is screened against age discrimination. Ireland also has an initiative within the workforce to mainstream people to keep age discrimination out of the workplace.

Some are developing Belgium, for instance, is one of the countries that’s really working to develop what they call age-friendly workplaces, so that older people stay in the workforce and actually transfer their knowledge to younger employees. If you are very experienced and you’ve done the data, developed a whole all of the data and the software for something 25 years ago and it’s really working and you have new people coming in, you want to make sure that they understand and they have gained the expertise that you have. Rather than starting always anew, they are really trying to keep people in.

One of the things I liked that they said in Belgium and they’re trying to get more older workers involved, there is no age for talent and that’s a wonderful statement.

PV: What makes you optimistic about things here in the United States?

CC: I tell you what makes me optimistic is that there’s a lot of older people who want to stay. They’re not ready to go off and play golf or do whatever else, start painting or something. They really want to be engaged and they have experience, they have knowledge, they have brains, they have as this one said talent, and I just think it’s going to be a mesh. I think that they are going to want to stay and companies are going to say, hey, we can’t just keep getting rid of all these people. This is a big part of the workforce now.

It also, if you think about it, if you’re 45 or 50 and you see that a company where you’ve been for 20 years is immediately starting to push people off in their sixties and that’s not that far ahead for you. You’re beginning to think, well, what’s going to be my future here? It does give people a greater sense of continuity, security that they are able to stay and have a future in a company and they become more committed. I’m being listened to. I can keep working up.

I think it’s quite interesting because if you go to certain professions like law, people don’t discriminate. Oh, he’s too old, right? No, you don’t discriminate about a lawyer. Same thing with a physician. You would not want to go so easily, so quickly to a physician who had just came out of medical school compared to a surgeon, for instance, who’s been doing this for 30 years and has that experience to know, okay, this is what I found and this is what we should be doing. I think that’s going to impact a lot, a lot of the workforce. I’m optimistic.

PV: Yeah?

CC: Yeah.

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