Inside Social Work: Making a Difference in Your Community

Watching these people be really resilient and navigate these factors that I can't even imagine having to deal with in my life.
And you know, I'm so inspired by that.
Hi, I'm Rafozeri, and welcome to How Much Can I Make?
I am a curious journalist, fascinated by what people do for a living, what their jobs are really like, and how much they can earn.
Join me as we dive into stories behind careers, uncovering insights and details, which I hope you'll find as intriguing as I do.
So let's get started.
Today we're gonna talk about social work.
If you want to do good and look for purpose and want to make a real difference in people's lives, but still wanna climb up to make two to three hundred thousand dollars a year, you should keep on listening.
This is the segment for you.
With us is Cassie Pustelnik, who actually Hi Pat Cassie.
Hi Marath.
Nice to see you.
You actually got to the highest level of social worker I saw as executive director, and we're gonna talk about that.
But I want to know how did you start?
I I've worked in human social services for close to 20 years in Philadelphia primarily, more recently in New York for the past five years.
And I, you know, have always been driven by a desire to help others and kind of fell into that niche living in Philadelphia, you know, one of the cities in the United States with the highest level of poverty, had many opportunities to work with marginalized folks, and you know, over the years kind of realized my passion was working with children and families in some capacity, mostly in folks impacted by homelessness, domestic violence, involvement with the child welfare system.
So social work, around by us for a second, there's a lot of different things that social workers are doing.
Actually, when I read about it, I thought some of it should be doctors and medical uh, but social workers are dealing like with mental health.
I think social work is one of those fields that folks have a a limited um insight or understanding about and really is has a broad scope.
There's kind of two primary ways in which you get into the field of social work.
There's micro-level social workers where you're do working on the clinical side, working directly with uh individuals, groups, families in a clinical capacity in a similar way that psychologists might work.
Homelessness, child welfare, any hospitalizations there to support families going through difficult times, people who have mental health crises or or physical ailments too.
I mean, their social workers are in hospitals, um, supporting families who have a loved one hospitalized and helping them with their care plan or their discharge plan, what it's gonna look like when they go home, accessing resources.
All of that falls under the scope of what social workers do.
Psychotherapists are often social workers.
If one wants to get into social work, what kind of a degree do they have to have?
It it depends.
So there they're all different levels.
There's a bachelor's in social work, there's a master's level social worker, which is is what I have, and is I would say probably the most common.
Really, if you want to proceed, particularly on a clinical level, to to work directly with patients where you are their therapist or something along those lines, um, you would need at least a master's degree.
And then you can also be a doctor of social work.
Um, or if you know, if you want to be um a professor or running um a human social service agency where you're on the clinical side again.
You know, I I am an executive director, but I don't do clinical work in my current capacity.
I have another in other jobs.
So tell me a little bit about your job.
Um, I'm the executive director of Youth Research Inc., YRI, which is the um affiliate nonprofit to the New York State Office of Children and Families Services, so OCFS, which is a huge state agency um responsible for overseeing child welfare, child care, juvenile justice it across New York State.
So describe to me, for example, if you can take a case and tell me what exactly do would you do as a social worker dealing with youth?
If if in a in the case of child welfare.
Yes.
Um so you know, I've never been a caseworker specifically.
So the r the role that I can describe my own experience is um in Philadelphia, I oversaw um programs for families experiencing homelessness and then teenage pregnant and parenting youth who were involved with the child welfare system.
So that would be a a young woman who was anywhere, you know, 13 to 20 who had children also, um, and that they were involved in child welfare.
So that means that at some point somebody reported that there was concern about the child's safety, or in many cases, those moms grew up in the foster care system and were already involved in child welfare themselves.
They uh typically have access to a variety of different services or should have access, I should say.
In some cases, they don't always just with because their resources are not what they should be in terms of supporting that population.
But you would typically have a case management plan.
You would they would have kind of an overview of like what would is it job training, is it parenting classes, is it ensuring that the they or their children are making it to see a doctor on a routine basis?
Do they have safe housing?
All of those kind of factors you would be taking a look at.
And and if they don't, how do I help them to secure it so that they and their children can be in a sustainable environment?
Are their kids enrolled in school?
Um so you follow up, you go to the house every once a week.
A case worker, it depends on their case plan.
It could be once a week, it could be multiple times a week that you have a check-in.
Um it really depends on the level of concern, you know, that how that case is classified.
Oftentimes, really in child welfare, cases are quote unquote neglect cases where the reality of a neglect case is oftentimes it's a lack of resources, you know, it's a related to living in poverty.
So that's what I wanted to know.
They live in poverty.
Well, you go and get the money?
Not necessarily money, but you know, how do we um are is there housing subsidies available for them?
Are are they already accessing SNAP?
Are there other public benefits that they're eligible for that they haven't applied for?
You know, there's a lot of supports in place for parents with young children.
Child care subsidies, are they eligible for child care subsidies?
But you know, what are what are the roadblocks and are there resources available to remove them so that they, you know, can get to a place of being more that's sustainable and and that they're they're they're considered safe.
They don't have to be have further involvement with child welfare.
Do you have a case that you can tell us that really pulled somebody out of poverty?
We had a number of of young women who would come in, they're typically single mothers um with their children.
That was the population I worked with, and they they would enroll in like a nursing aid program, and your their kids could be for part of the day, or they we would help them access child care.
And that it just gave them the space to attend their own nurses' aid or or whatever certification they were doing, or they knew they had access to safe child care.
They were living in transitional housing.
So yeah, we we had a number of of moms who we worked with for years take advantage of those opportunities um and find ways to support themselves and their kids where they they moved into their own home, their kids were in school, they had a full-time job.
Some of them will come still come visit, you know.
You be because it's uh that's the other thing about social work, is it's based in relationships, right?
It's it's about um building trust and the oftentimes the the people you're working with have experienced quite a bit of trauma, and building trust is I mean, it's critical in any relationship, right?
But it can make such a big difference.
It sounds to me like there's a lot of cases where it could be very emotionally taxing on the social worker.
Yeah.
How do you deal with that?
I mean, it's really important, uh it's similar to, you know, teachers that you have self-care.
Um, you know, there's a term in in social worker psychology and it's called vicarious trauma, where you're really taking that on and experiencing it yourself in certain cases.
And that I think that happens a lot um for social workers who, you know, I think you have to be a pretty empathetic, compassionate person to go into the field of social work to begin with.
It's not it's not like you're, you know, doing it to make the big bucks.
Um and you were it's it's very stressful and and emotionally it takes a t takes a toll.
So you have to find ways to really take care of yourself.
You're taking time or you have certain boundaries in place where like this is these are my work hours and I need to like take some time for myself.
Um it's a struggle, it's always a struggle because oftentimes you're dealing with crisis or emergencies and there's a lot of burnout.
If somebody wants to get into social worker, how can they start before they invest years in studying and getting a master degree?
How can they start to check out if they want to get into it?
I think there's lots of ways that you can work um in a social work capacity that doesn't require a master's degree.
I mean, caseworker is a great example, but you can also work at, you know, any number of human social services agencies where you could be a case, a caseworker, you could work in a a parent or early childhood education program, you could work in a um childcare setting, you could work as a in a hospital setting doing like case management in a hospital.
Did you have to take student loans to study that, by the way?
Um I do I did take some student loans, yeah.
And most people do, and they have to pay for it for years, right?
Sometimes, yeah.
Um there are, you know, like I was actually just at meetings about this recently.
The in Pennsylvania, they have a lot, they have a number of programs.
They'll pay for a number of folks to do their social work program, their master's level social work program, um, with the commitment that they're gonna work with Department of Human Services and the state for a number of years after.
Um so there are those type of programs out there as well if you're working in the public sector.
So I'm asking that because I want to get to the money.
Yeah.
How much a beginner social worker can make?
And how far can you go in this field as far as income?
So again, it's a a really broad scope, but I I mean I would say that if you're an entry-level, no experience, like bachelor's level social worker, I mean, you're probably gonna start in the 40, 45 range.
Um, if you're master's level, you'll probably get closer to into the 60s.
Um you can get into the six figures, certainly, if you're you know a master's or higher level, if you're a supervisor.
What are the kind of jobs in between where you can make sixty, seventy, eighty thousand?
If you're like running a pro, so you know, I'll use my organization of Philly, which did direct service as an example.
Like, you know, if you're the case management supervisor, so you're overseeing the case managers, um, you you are making mid 80s probably.
Oh.
Yeah, maybe 90.
Or and you know, to start.
And then, you know, you'll make more than that every, you know, you get a raise.
Right.
And then, you know, if you're running a program, like the director of our parenting and early childhood education program is making a similar amount.
Nice.
And then in the you know, 85-90 range.
Being a supervisor is really obviously gonna make a difference in in how how much you can move up, move up the um rank.
So definitely if you have the opportunity to do any type of like supervisor training, I mean, it may just happen over time naturally anyway, if you're an organization long enough that you're just progressing up the chain.
Um, and then, you know, you may if you're a psychotherapist, you know, you you could certainly make um in the low six figures, depending it just depends on what kind of caseload you're carrying.
But if you're seeing 25, 30 clients a week, you could be, you know, making into the six figures.
Right.
Certainly.
Nice.
And then, you know, if you work in management, you know, if you work in management, you know, I don't I will I won't discuss, you know, my specific organization necessarily, though it's public information, you could find it easily if you wanted to.
Um but you know, like if you're working in senior management at an organization that's um like a 10, 15 million dollar organization, you're probably, if you're at a VP level, making 130 to 150.
And if you're the executive director, you're probably making 200 to even 300 if it's a large organization.
Amazing.
Yeah.
Well, who would you say is the right person with the right skills and character traits to get into social workers?
Certainly, I think um compassion and empathy are at the forefront.
Um, a desire to pursue, you know, social economic justice.
So you, you know, somebody who can can weather some some ups and downs.
I think you have to have some fortitude and ability to like have really good introspection on yours for yourself too, just to make it sustainable, right?
Because you have to figure out is this too much or is this the right type of social work for me?
Is there a different niche that would be better for me and more sustainable over time?
You know, you can also have compassion fatigue.
And I I saw that many times.
Um, you know, I had had conflict at certain points with case workers who were on the child welfare side in New York working with the families in our housing because they're burnt out and they work with so many families, and some of them see really legitimate abuse cases, and it it it hardens you.
And there's this like assumption that you know, if you have a child welfare case, you know, you're doing something wrong or you're abusive, or and that is oftentimes not the case.
So, how do you maintain that compassion in the work that you're doing?
And you have to be able to take a look at how you're showing up to do that appropriately.
Yeah.
Describe to me a day in your life.
You come to work, what do you do?
Varies greatly from day to day, but um, and I should just say, you know, being an executive director, I I am multiple steps removed from the the trainers and workers who work directly with families, and in a lot of ways they have a much harder job than I do.
I answer a lot of emails.
I meet with my staff about the project, what are ongoing projects, how they're going, you know, what are the are there things that I need to elevate.
I meet with like the commissioner, the deputy commissioners of OCFS, a lot of projects we're doing on are on behalf of them.
So I'll I also meet with them regularly, so I'll get the macro level summary of what's going on with any of these projects.
Are there things I need to make sure are on their radar?
Our you know budget is close to$20 million a year.
So it's not a small endless it it's yeah.
All those are so would you say that now because you're the executive director, your job is more administrative rather than uh Absolutely.
Do you like that?
Do you prefer that on the field work?
Yeah.
I mean, I think when I moved from Philadelphia back to New York, I kind of consciously made that that change.
I and I don't know that it'll be forever, right?
But I I wanted to still be working for an organization that had the same type of mission as the organizations I've worked for before, but I was a little burnt out.
I had a small child, I still have a small child.
And so, you know, it was hard for me to balance what do you take home, you know.
And I knew, like I said, I knew the family, so I was always like, are they safe?
Did the is this, you know, do they have everything they need?
And you think about it when you're at home.
And when you have small childs and you know, you have a lot going on personally, you you don't have as much bandwidth to do that.
Right.
Or I didn't, I shouldn't speak for everybody.
And so this was a good and I worked in management in Philadelphia too, so it was a good transition for me to still be doing the work that I feel most passionate about.
And I always want to be at the heart of what my my employment is, but I don't have like specific faces or families that I'm thinking about every day at the end of the at the end of the day.
Right.
You mentioned before you worked between disputes between different families.
Were you ever attacked?
Were you ever in danger?
Is it a fear that goes into your head when you get into social working?
I think that you there's always the possibility.
Nobody directly tried to, but I'm also like six feet tall, you know, so I think that that's a deterrent.
But I mean I've been indirectly physically hit in it just being in the middle of trying to break something up.
And I I have been thr like verbally threatened on a couple occasions.
Um you were verbally threatened.
Well, there's sometimes I'm delivering news that people don't want to hear, or there are times when um, you know, you are requiring participation in whether it's maybe drug and alcohol rehabilitation or parenting classes or or something along those lines where there's you know, folks don't want to participate.
That's part of what you navigate as social worker.
There's an inherent power differential sometimes because you are kind of overseeing requirements that are often put in place for families, and that's not always going to be well received.
And so that's part of the job is recognizing that would you be thrilled to be if your situations were reversed?
And you know, how can I be as compassionate as I can be and understanding, you know, like and and not take it personally.
I I understand that I am the deliverer of news that are is not necessarily um what you want to hear, and I get that, and and how do I do it in a way that is respectful of you um and your agency and decision making about you and your family as I can be.
What's the biggest misconception about social workers?
People when they think about social work have a very narrow idea of what it is, and it's just like being a caseworker or some or something like that.
That's what I thought.
Yeah.
I mean, most I think most people who are not, you know, involved in it, um, but the breadth of social work, I mean, in every facet of an organization or hospital or agents that serves people in some capacity, and it's not just child welfare and child, it's you know, folks experiencing, you know, who are are blind or hearing impaired or or in a in a hospital setting in a variety of different ways, whether it's on a clinical side or helping families access resources and making sure that there's a safety plan for a patient who has a broken leg or m m had a major surgery and like needs to have some type of accommodation at their house, you know, whatever it is, like that, those are all roles that social workers play.
The breadth of what social workers do and the ways in which they support different facets of society, I don't think is recognized.
So somebody finished school, they learned everything by the book, they come to work the first day.
Do they have like a mentor to show them the work?
How do they know what to do in the field?
It's not like studying.
So if you're a caseworker and and you and I can speak to New York State and and Pennsylvania does this as well.
So actually, my organization, we do there's a six-week, full six weeks of training that all caseworkers go through before they work with families.
Okay.
In addition to any education, you know, educational requirements just to get to secure the job to begin with.
Um so that we do six weeks of intensive full-time training.
So they will always have a supervisor and somebody to consult and you know, and then multiple levels of supervision.
You will never have any type of contact with a family before completing a minimum of six weeks of training.
Do you run into people saying, why should I pay for these poor kids?
You know, if his parents can, that's their problem.
Do do you run into attitude like this?
I'm not in a position in my day-to-day job where I have to in you know interact with with folks who are expressing their opinion one way or another, really.
You know, everyone I'm working with is pretty committed to the idea that children and families serve to be safe and supported and w and recognize that people come from backgrounds that disadvantage them in certain ways, and that we live in a society and a social structure where there's some inherent discrimination and racism and structural inequities.
So um all of those things.
But I do think that there are gonna be some organizations and and certainly some states that suffer with with coming cuts to be because of the mentality you described.
Right.
When I ask you about misconception, you know, sometimes you hear you read about the social worker came and took the kids for not always for valid reason.
What do you do in a case like this?
You know, I think there's a lot of recognition now that kids are removed from their families way more frequently than they should be, particularly with black and brown families.
Right.
There's a lot of discrimination in that.
There's a lot of discrimination.
And so, you know, you can have a case where there's a complaint of some sort that is exactly the same with a white family versus black or brown family, and the likelihood of those the kids being actually removed from their family and the length of time that they're removed from their family is significantly higher.
Wow.
What do you do to change it?
Well, so like New York State has um implements some policy changes where they do blind removals, which is that when the folks responsible for making decisions about whether children will actually be removed from the custody of their parents or family, all of that demographic information is removed, that you don't see their race and ethnicity.
Okay.
And so you're making a decision that where your own judgments or preconceived ideas or discriminatory thoughts don't creep into the decision-making process.
What's the biggest challenge of this job?
It's maintaining your same level of enthusiasm sometimes when you're you know have compassion fatigue.
But I think that's part of why it's so important to find the right organization or agency and that serves a mission that you feel passionate about.
Because this is not a job that you're driven by the compensation.
And so it's really important to have that alignment in place for yourself.
We spoke about the challenge.
What's the most rewarding things?
I feel every day you feel like you're you're making a difference, right?
And you you get to help folks who are often impacted by circumstances that are beyond their control, and you're in a position where you can mitigate to some degree the impact that has on them.
And that's something I think anyone working in that, whether you're a social worker or not, can can and should feel good about.
If you can help, you should.
Um, and if you're a social worker, that's why you.
Go into that field.
So it's you know being in a position where where you can offer that.
And I think it also helps sometimes to appreciate what you have.
This is challenging for me, but like, you know what?
I'm watching these people be really resilient and navigate these factors that I can't even imagine having to deal with in my life.
Um, and you know, I'm so inspired by that.
How do you keep your passion?
I think focusing on the victories, um, you know, when when you Do you have one victory you can tell me about uh that you can comes to mind?
The one that comes to mind for me is a young woman I worked with in who lived in our transitional housing in Philadelphia.
She was like 22, 23 years old.
She had a seven or eight-year-old, and so she had her first baby when she was like 14.
Wow.
She grew up in off and on in foster care.
Okay.
Rightfully overwhelmed by losing her housing.
I don't remember the exact circumstances.
It was years ago now.
She was in transitional housing with two young kids by herself with no family support.
She was very stressed out.
Um, she was very combative with me at first.
And you know, over the months we we worked together and got to know each other and we would joke.
I would joke with her when we saw her in the hallway, or you know, if I was like, you know, saw something really positive that happened with her kitten, you know, and like I was like, I'm here.
I'm here to if you need someone to talk to, or if if you feel like things are about to go off the rails with your kids, like bring them to my office.
And so it was it was really helping to just build our relationship and trust.
You know, she eventually did her nursing aid certification.
You know, she she really got her kids to a good place.
She moved into permanent housing.
It was i in the neighborhood that where my organization was, so she would pop in just to visit periodically.
She really took care of her.
She she eventually like started doing some of her own therapy and like processing some of the like she had, you know, been through a lot.
Do you think she gives credit to the social workers that worked with her?
Um, I think that she recognizes how helpful she deserves the majority of the credit, right?
I mean, I think she knows that it was a good that coming into living at our in the housing and and having that level of support helped her to make that transition.
Before we go, can you say the name of your organization and a website that people can go to?
Sure.
I'm my organization's Youth Research Inc.
and it's um yriny.org.
www.yriny.org.
Excellent.
Cassie, thanks a lot.
You know, I didn't know that you actually do all of those things.
Yeah.
It's amazing, it's a huge field.
It is.
Yeah, and I think anybody that wants to do good should definitely look into it.
Absolutely.
Thanks a million.
Thank you.
Education.
Thank you.
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