There are more than 650,000 social workers in America.
Last week, I saw 110 honored during a special induction ceremony at FAU’s Sandler College of Social Work.
It was the spirit boost I needed, because these young people are truly amazing yet seldom celebrated.
How I wish that would change.
Because now—more than maybe ever—we need to celebrate, recognize, respect, honor, cherish and support people who decide to devote their lives to healing our fractured society.
I went to the ceremony as a guest of keynote speaker Suzanne Spencer whose journey is inspiring to me and many others who have been fortunate enough to see her work in our community.
I got to know Suzanne through her work as the former executive director of the Delray Beach Drug Task Force, a critically important group that gathers a wide cross section of the community to discuss the scourge of substance use disorder in our city.
I went to several meetings and saw the sharing of information and resources among providers, counselors, insurers, prosecutors, law enforcement, health care and others who are on the front lines in the battle to save lives in our community. It was great to see people communicating and working together…I’ve been a fan of Suzanne’s ever since.
So when she invited me to see her speak to people graduating with a Master’s in Social Work, I was all in. Suzanne delivered—as I knew she would.
But while I expected and enjoyed her great speech, I was especially struck by the pictures of the graduates flashed across screens with their career intentions below their smiling faces.
They were going to devote their lives to child welfare, abuse, adoption, addiction, victim’s rights, mental health, education—social work. Is there anything more valuable than the healing of society?
And I found myself growing emotional as I saw their faces and listened to the speakers who are really the best that our society has to offer.
They care. They love. They are passionate, committed and dedicated to working with those who need help, nurturing and healing.
The specter of Parkland hung heavy in the room. It’s fresh. It’s local.
We live in a violent and volatile society, But while that level of mental illness is at the top end of what can and does go wrong all too often these days, it’s also the day to day issues that calls for an army of healers.
And I thought, who tends to the families of the two young Delray Beach men who were killed in separate scooter and dirt bike accidents in the past two weeks? Who is there to help the children left alone after a murder suicide recently in our community?
The tragedies—some publicized, many hidden—are an everyday occurrence in every community in America.
And it’s not just tragedies, accidents, violence, crime, abuse, addiction etc., that afflicts us—it’s how we relate to each other as people. The vitriol on social media, cable TV, in Congress, across borders, religions, political persuasions and on and on that erodes our social fabric and compels us to wonder where the healers are.
And I thought, here they are.
Here are the people who will make a difference in our world. They won’t get rich doing so, at least in the conventional sense, but they will surely enrich our world.
As Dr. Michelle Hawkins, Vice Provost of FAU reminded the MSW graduates: we have to teach the world to be kinder. We don’t have to be mean spirited, we can be kind-spirited.
Amen.
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