A Presidential Management Fellow takes a broad view of social work

What does a social worker’s job look like? Those outside the field might picture someone who meets one-on-one with clients, or works at a hospital, school, or nonprofit. Hannah Babiss is proof that there is no one answer to that question.

Now in the midst of a prestigious Presidential Management Fellowship, a two-year training and leadership development program administered by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management that places advanced degree holders in U.S. government agencies, Babiss is using her studies in macro social work to impact federal policy.

“I felt like I wanted to have a greater impact to help support individuals and communities that might be experiencing challenges or barriers,” says Babiss, who earned an M.S.W. at Fordham’s Graduate School of Social Service (GSS) in 2021. She had already gained experience in direct social work service before arriving at GSS. And although she considered master’s programs in public policy and international affairs, she was drawn to the field placements available through social work programs—and specifically to the small class sizes and electives at Fordham.

Policymaking to Make Lives Easier

During her time at Fordham, Babiss became involved in the GSS Student Congress, which she says not only helped her land the fellowship but also gave her experience in organizational structuring and leadership—skills she also developed as a research assistant for Professor Marciana Popescu, Ph.D., director of Her Migrant Hub, a website that helps women gain access to health care services and other resources in New York City.

Babiss began the fellowship in August 2022 as a budget analyst in the U.S. Department of Transportation, where she assessed the distribution of money for federal transportation projects and wrote budget justifications to clarify why line items were included as funds. She says the work has helped her understand how money ties into specific policies.

“My first year was a lot of training because I don’t have a background in finance or budgeting in particular,” Babiss says. “It was a lot of learning the ropes, but I learned a lot about the congressional budgeting process.”

When the fellowship ends next August, she plans to apply for jobs across various federal agencies. And while she has a particular passion for immigration, education, and mental health policy, she’s open to working in any area in which she can make a positive impact.

“I would love to see more efficient policymaking that helps make people’s lives easier,” she says. “I think that’s really what it boils down to—how can you improve the quality of people’s lives, while also making a policy that’s realistic and efficient and a good use of taxpayer dollars?”

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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.”

“Haitians have different views on mental health, they see it as bringing shame to the family,” she said.

The incident spurred an intense interest in psychology, which Clermont majored in for her bachelor’s degree. But her family’s cultural viewpoint kept nagging at her. As a first generation American, she had grown accustomed to the viewpoint that psychology was a science. How could she bring this profession to the culture and to the country her parents were born?

“The failure of Haitians to acknowledge mental health is real, and that causes a failure to seek mental health resources,” she said. “I came to Fordham to research this topic and to educate my Haitian community in Elizabeth, New Jersey.”

Clermont is now a Master of Social Work candidate at the Graduate School of Social Service (GSS). She said she was attracted to Fordham after researching different schools and learning that GSS’s study abroad program included trips to Haiti, headed by Marciana Popescu, Ph.D., associate professor of social work.

“I speak Creole, so I thought I could be a great asset for the program,” said Clermont. “Dr. Popescu is an amazing professor, I was attracted to Fordham University because of her work connecting social work with international interest. If it wasn’t for her I would still be searching for ways to incorporate the two.”

Indeed, Clermont brings more than just Creole to the program, she brings the awareness of someone straddling both U.S. and Haitian cultures.

“There are times where I feel like I’m not Haitian enough and times I feel like I’m not American enough, I feel in between and I want to explore that more,” she said. “When I grew up, mental health was not a topic we’d talk about at home, but that just made me want to go into social work, it’s the reason why I’m pursuing this career.”

During her visit to Haiti last March, Clermont said that she encountered a variety of community organizations and was very impressed with the strength of the women she encountered. Having visited the country as a child, she said she was also familiar with the belief systems that helped them through trying times, such as Voodoo (known in Haiti as Vodou).

“In Haiti, there are more 60,000 Voodoo priests and about 200 mental health professionals,” she said.

She added that she’s interested in researching how to incorporate traditional beliefs with mental health care.

“By using the cultural beliefs of Voodoo and combining them with western, evidence-based therapies, we may be able to help more people,” she said. “Growing up in the U.S., I thought of Voodoo as negative, but after going on this trip I began to realize that this is who they are, it’s part of their culture.”

Clermont said that she’s found very little literature on the subject and she is unsure that there are Voodoo priests willing work with mental health workers, though she has identified an organization trying to bridge the two groups.

“It’s going to be a work in progress,” she said. “I mentioned it to a friend in Haiti and he just started laughing because he can’t picture the two together.”

Regardless, she said mental health advocates need to familiarize themselves with the way Haitians view the world if they’re going to help them.

“This could be a way to let Haitians know that there are other options out there and mental health is real,” she said.