Change Agents of Yesterday and Today
Bertha Capen Reynolds was born in 1885 and died at the age of 93 in 1978. Born in Stoughton, MA she lived with her mother and father. When Reynolds was seven her father passed away and she moved to Boston so her mother could work as a teacher (Bandler, L. S., n.d). Reynolds appeared to have a normal childhood and was portrayed as polite, kind and caring person who only spoke when spoken too, but never felt loved and lived in a "life of no's" (McQuaide, 1987). Reynolds earned a BSW from Smith College in 1908 and a second social work degree from Simmons School of Social Work in 1914. Now she was ready to peruse her lifelong desire to help poor people and advocate against racism. After graduation, Reynolds worked for a few years at a health clinic in Boston and in 1917 she enrolled in the newly formed psychiatric social work program at Smith College. Once she graduated, she perused a career as an Associate Dean teaching psychiatric social work at Smith College. Reynolds tried to unionize the Smith College employees and was fired by the Dean as a result. She briefly joined the Maritime Union, however, budgeting was tight and the program was shutdown. She then retired and concentrated on writing (NASW, 2004). Reynolds was a progressive social worker who appeared to be ahead of her time as her advocating and support for " social justice and sounder social order " was often rejected by her peers and society. Reynolds inferred that not everyone, especially the oppressed and needy, are equally affected by policy and law and that societies benefit differently from distributive social justice (Barusch, 2009). In addition, NASW (2004) describes Reynolds as a socialist and communist who was an active radical social work leader. However, McQuaide (1987) concludes that Reynolds had many layers to her personality and belief system. She fit "Bowen's definition of a differential person, Kohlberg's post conventional thinking, and achieved Erikson's ego integrity state".
Reynolds interest in Matrism offered an unconventional "systematic, structural, institutional, and organizational perspective (Coconis, 2006)". Her viewpoint further studied how human behavior responds to and within these perspectives, rather than pathologizing each and every one. Reynolds applied her perspectives to her writings, clinical practice, and social work education during the 1930’s and 1940’s. Her most popular writing is Learning and Teaching in Practice of SocialWork and is stilled used today to help shape the perspective of social work, psychiatry, and psychology. Unfortunately, it was not until the end of her life that Reynolds was honored for her contribution to the social work field. To honor her life’s work, in 1985, the Bertha Capen Reynolds society was created, now named Social Welfare Action Alliance (SWAA). The SWAA is a national organization for progressive social and human service workers which concentrate on economic justice. Without Reynolds forward thinking and societal sacrifices she made, social work may not have progressed with a diverse and radical foundation for equality (Freedberg, 1986).
 |
| Jerome Wakefield |
Per Wakefield's (2011) 47 page curriculum vitae, he is a professor of social work at New York University and is involved in over 40 international, national, and university service collaborations, has an extensive educational and training background with doctorial and master level degrees, fellowships, LICSW, research, lectures, presentations, several academic appointments, awards, multi-language scholarly publications such as books and over 150 journals, is an active peer reviewer, grant funding writer. He has also been involved in media reviews and press and television coverage, and even discussed the over diagnosis of depression as indicated in his co-authored book The Loss of Sadness: How Psychiaraty Transformed Normal Sorrow into Depressive Disorder on NPR radio (2008).
Wakefield is considered a successful and intelligent individual whose theoretical base lies in the validity of the DSM criteria. Wakefield's area of expertise and research include "psychiatric diagnostic criteria, psychiatry epidemiology and integrative clinical theory (NYU Language Medical Center, 2012)". NYU (2012), recognizes Wakefield's current contributions to distributive justice through his recent research using "community- sample data sets" which indicates the over diagnosis of normal and simple sadness as a depressive disorder and further signifies the over medicating of society. Wakefield's extensive studies and research in the mental health field influenced the revision of DSM-IV-TR, to the not yet released DSM -V, with integral changes including a spectrum for each disorder. Like Reynolds, Wakefield is a progressive advocate in society and exemplifies positive social change. He pushes the envelope to assure equality of the inequality that distribute justice sometimes creates in the mental health and social work fields.
Reynolds and Wakefield's strong leadership qualities are best described by the Community Toolbox (2012) as "transformational" which coincide with my leadership style. Transformational leadership is illustrated as being able to empower those within the community and encourage them to pursue their vision of change. This style of leadership quality further mirrors the NASW Code of Ethics in which all social workers must abide.
While doing research on these two change agents, I learned that my leadership qualities are not over-ambitious or aggressive, but that they are passionate, motivated, and humanized. I also learned that progressive thinking is not a bad quality and that thinking ahead is what helped create the profession of social work as we know it today. Furthermore, I was encouraged by each change agent's small steps that they took in order to make big changes in their community and stood by their perspectives and beliefs regardless of the sometimes negative feedback from their colleagues.
These lessons have inspired to me to continue to be a leader in organizing fundraising events for the American Cancer Society and Kids Kicking Cancer foundation, especially when controversy within the organization is present. These two organizations are my personal passion as I advocate for support, education, and awareness of cancer patients, their family, and the ones who have fallen victim to this disease. But most of all, I continue to support cancer research in hope of a cure. Therefore, I hope contribute my leadership qualities and passion to these organizations to help the next generation of cancer advocates become leaders themselves. Furthermore, I am thankful for the extra years I have with my mother as a she is five time cancer survivor. I am also grateful for the extra time I had with my grandmother and father and I credit this to all the previous leaders who have advocated for cancer patients' and on their families' behalf.
Cites
Bandler, L. S. (n.d). Bertha Capen Reynolds social worker of all times. Journal of education for
social work, 155-12.
Barusch, A. S. (2009). Chapter 1, Social justice and social workers (pp. 3-26). In Foundations of
Social Policy: Social Justice, Public Programs and the Social Work Profession. Belmont,
CA: Brooks/Cole.
Coconis, M. (2006). Social welfare action alliance: our roots. Retrieved from
http://www.socialwelfareactionalliance.org/sitemap.html
Community Toolbox (2012). Styles of Leadership. Retrieved from
http://plato.bridgew.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps
%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_12662_1%26url
Freedberg, S. (1986). Religion, profession, and politics: Bertha Capen Reynolds' challenge to
social work. Smith college studies in social work, 56(2), 95-110.
doi:10.1080/00377318609516609
McQuaide, S. (1987). Beyond the logic of pessimism: a personal portrait of bertha capen
Reynolds. Clinical social work journal, 15(3), 271-280.
NASW (2004.) Bertha Capen Reynolds. Retrieved from
NPR (2008). Jerome Wakefield. Retrieved from
2&m= 19024384
NYU. (2012). (n.d.). Jerome C. Wakefield. Retrieved from
NYU Language Medical Center (2012). Jerome Wakefield. Retrieved from http://psych-
institute.med.nyu.edu/node/483
Wakefield, J.C. (2011). Curriculum vitae. Retrieved from
http://www.nyu.edu/socialwork/pdf/cvs/wakefield.pdffield.html
No comments:
Post a Comment