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CASEWORK

Casework is a traditional method of social work. It is helping a person make a plan to work on issues they determined to have a detrimental impact on themselves or their family. At MIDTOWN, this plan, developed with a social worker, had incremental steps toward accomplishment. We knew there were many things people could not impact--the quality of housing and schools, what their neighbors thought of them, and the lack of income to cover all their expenses. We also knew there were some changes people could manage which would improve their quality of life. The plan would include a person’s concerns, a timetable, and the steps needed by the person and the worker to accomplish the goals. We were careful to make it step by step, so small successes would keep people going and not create further disappointment.

Uniquely, we combined casework with home visiting in many of our programs. We discovered many other people doing casework--expecting people to come to them and stay involved. We found a few doing home visits to monitor people’s progress toward casework done in some office. Combining the two tools allowed our staff to be friendly, go to the neighbor, allow people to be open to visits, work on some issues while in the home, review the plan and generally develop a stronger relationship.

One success with this model was in helping pregnant women and mothers of newborns. By doing casework and visiting women, staff could not only address the real need for mother and newborn health and development, but offer connection to other services addressing issues of poverty. For example, if a pregnant woman was behind on her rent, she was most likely not going to be too interested in the plan for the day, even if it might be a wellness visit for mom or baby. Staff could help connect the woman to MIDTOWN’S other programs and get her rent assistance—on the way back from the doctor’s appointment.

We found combining casework and home visits the most successful approach to social services. We were not following the worker’s agenda, but open to where the individual or family’s needs were on any given day. By providing casework services, transportation and support, our neighbors were more consistent with the work their plan required.

A crowd is not company, and faces are but a gallery of pictures, And talk a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love.

Francis Bacon

SOCIAL GROUP WORK

Social Group Work is another traditional method with a great history of success. Settlement Houses used group work to help integrate immigrants into American culture. Through a variety of activities in groups, such as dancing, arts and crafts, games, stories and songs, workers helped people become comfortable in a strange environment, get to know their neighbors and learn a little of the English language. Social group work helped acclimate new Americans to their neighborhoods, cities and the new culture.

Social group work is a democratic process where individuals learn from each other through activities, and decision-making is carefully processed by the worker. Choosing activities, making plans and assigning roles happens as moderated by the worker, so the strongest in the group do not wield undue influence and the newest or more “careful” group members still have a part to play in the growth of the group as a whole. This is an important difference between group work and group counseling—the growth of the group helps individual members learn and grow. The group process is in and of itself what helps people become more capable. Group counseling focuses wholly on individual needs.

Almost all of our lives we are involved with a group. Whether it is at work, church, socially or with family, we spend our time interacting with other people. Jesus knew the importance of groups as the first thing he did when he began his public life was to gather his apostles. When we understand how be strong and open in a group, we have truly been socialized for human interaction. Being able to wait our turn, share our resources, listen to the other person, celebrate cohesiveness and reach our group’s goals helps make our interactions a success. Through groups we learn the personal skills and tools needed to develop strong, positive human relationships. Because we have practiced skills in a safe, democratic place, we are empowered to try them on our own.

Helen Harris Perlman in her book, Relationship: The Heart of Helping People4 calls groups a “relationship laboratory” where individuals may practice new behaviors in a safe environment. The group helps individuals learn how these new behaviors may lead to better relationships because of how others react. The group demonstrates such behaviors during its interactions so individuals learning new behaviors can see them modeled. The group promotes more acceptable and appropriate behaviors, so new members and those without such experiences learn what works.

When we incorporated social group work into programs serving predominantly African American children and adults, we knew we had similar issues to address as those settlement houses faced with immigrants. Even though African Americans have been in this country for hundreds of years, they are a people still not welcomed into “the group”. Helping low income, African American children and adults process acceptable and appropriate behaviors for school, work, on the street and in the home improved our neighbors’ chance of successfully navigating white culture. This was the kind of work we hoped would improve the chances for social mobility among our neighbors.

Through our contacts with children and families, we realized there needed to be group activities which would socialize children to school and home. Building strength in their decision-making, relationships with their peers and reasonable obedience to adult expectations would be the experience of youth groups. We knew “play is the work of children”⁵ and learning which was fun would teach social skills. The ability to wait their turn, share their crayons or markers, follow directions, listen to their peers and successfully interact with adults was the only way children could succeed in school and help create a better home environment for overly stressed or working parents. Group work with children and adolescents had the ultimate goal of creating good citizenship so youth could grow into the world; a world which often kept them apart.

For adults, the goal of group work was to create a different path helping neighbors consider and overcome the fear and isolation caused by poverty. We wanted African American adults to understand certain societal expectations and increase social mobility. Part of the reason poverty affects so many African Americans is the white culture does not allow participation in developing these social norms. African American families are segregated by housing, income, schools and prejudice. They are kept from seeing and participating in what is thought of as mainstream

Social groups like the MIDTOWN Mamas and Men’s Club gave neighbors a chance to interact with their peers in a safe and protected group. Staff ensured there would be no judgment of others, no personalities allowed to dominate and openness to differences. Participants had a chance to learn to accept others-- whether their ability to develop relationships with other people was adequate or not. Staff stressed “together we build a peaceful community”. People learned; in groups we did not have to compete with each other over scarce resources, working together we would create more than enough for everybody.

The use of social group work was the most important component of our work. The intentionality of each group and all the activities involved were what allowed us to build individual relationships with our neighbors. These ongoing positive relationships were what led to a stronger community—a community where diversity of experiences fostered growth.

I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned

about what happens in Birmingham.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality

tied in a single garment of destiny.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Letter from a Birmingham City Jail

COMMUNITY ORGANIZING AND SOCIAL ACTION

Community organizing and social action have historically been a part of social work, even when the field does not recognize it as so. Community organizing works to help groups of people address unfairness and inequities in societal institutions. The macro level includes public action—such as the March on Washington. The meso level deals with community issues such as housing development and gentrification. The micro level may be getting a stop sign placed at a dangerous corner on your block. This is how St. Louis aldermen most often respond to community complaints—by creating more stop signs than any other city its size and the famous St. Louis roll.

The organizer helps people who are ready and able to improve their block, neighborhood or community. The worker helps when a few residents or organizations have found issues. The group discovers its goals and identifies leadership with guidance from the organizer. The organizer supports but does not direct the group’s goals. Often, the organizer brings their connections and experiences with power and institutions to the group. To help people learn techniques for addressing the influence and control such entities may exert against their goals, the worker speaks to their experiences. The role of the organizer is one of support, information-gathering, dissemination of decisions, practical application of methods, and insuring a democratic process.

At MIDTOWN, there were no plans to become involved in community organizing. Our main focus was helping people learn to do their best in the extremely difficult circumstances of poverty and racism. However, the people in the neighborhoods got us going. In two neighborhoods, threatened by gentrification, neighbors asked us to help ensure they would be part of the process, beneficiaries of positive changes and not be forced to move. I agreed to help, even though we did not have a community organizer on staff. I needed to share one very important truth with our neighbors asking for help--I did not think we could win against the organizations promoting redevelopment. People trusted us enough, after years of services, programs and home visits, to believe we would stand with them. However, I didn’t think neighbors knew what we would be fighting for and who we would be fighting against.

Only he who learns to love one by one reaches,

in his relation to heaven,

God as the God of all the world…

For he learns to love the God of the universe,

the God who loves his work,

only in the measure in which

he himself learns to love the world.

Martin Buber

We are each of us angels with only one wing.

And we can only fly embracing one another.

Laceano de Crescenzo

RELATIONSHIP-BUILDING

The one connecting piece in our approach was relationship building. Everything we did was done to build positive relationships with our neighbors. There were many reasons for this, including overcoming the superficial difference of race, and the real differences of class and status. I believe people only change when they have someone to change for beside themselves. Whether this is a family member, spouse, co-worker, minister, social worker, teacher or friend, the relationship with this other is the key to change. Although people do stop using drugs or alcohol, and end spousal abuse on their own, the rate of recidivism is high. Without changing one’s social environment—that is the relationship one has to other people--it is very difficult to find the inner strength needed to change on one’s own. Helen Harris Perlman wrote in Relationship The Heart of Helping People, that relationship is the foundation of social work. I believe her book is the “bible” of social work.

As the title itself explains, she believed “relationship” was at the heart of change. She writes, “Relationship begins when a worker and the person seeking help first meet, even if the person does not expect or want it.'' She says it is important for the worker to realize “relationship is happening”. Perlman says relationship is a “necessary…condition for one’s taking in...and feeling benefited by help from another.” Because we spent years visiting people, being welcoming and open, helping without restrictions and trying to develop trust, our neighbors felt comfortable enough to ask for help when they needed it.

We had so many positive, helping relationships and saw so many people make changes in their lives; we hardly ever took time to realize what had happened. The process of helping people came from the hearts of our staff and volunteers. Many positive human relationships happened with neighbors, volunteers and staff because of the openness of our setting, and the willingness of everyone to get past superficial differences.

Just because the message may never be received

does not mean it is not worth sending.

Segalir

RADICAL SOCIAL WORK

Some social workers define “radical social work” as “…if they view the sources of the problems they already address as deeply rooted in the social order, and if their work attempts to confront those problems at that level”. Jeffry Galper, in his article from Social Policy, What Are Radical Social Services says,

“From a radical perspective, the problems of individuals are seen as ultimately not amenable to social service solutions. Social services are seen as effective in addressing these problems only to the extent that they use their point of entre with people as a vehicle to reach back or reach deeper into the social system which creates these situations”.⁶

Everything we did was to develop relationships with people who were forced to the edges of society. The programs and services were tasks we took on to be able to stand with our neighbors. The services and programs were very effective and well implemented. However, they were not the ultimate goal of our work. That goal was to help people address issues which kept them out of mainstream culture and treated them as less than full citizens.

Preparing clients to take on the powerful--community organizing, and social action--are social work methods which challenge the status quo and help people determined to change the power structure in their neighborhood, community, city or country. We used these techniques as our neighbors made us aware of their needs.

We once took a group of neighbors to the Barnes-Jewish hospital campus to protest how poor people were treated by this massive system. The hospital was just across the highway from one of our neighborhoods. We were part of the Community Utility Advocacy Network. We met to discuss people’s utility issues, to talk about how the system of assistance worked, and to fight how people were treated by utility companies and service organizations. With the Network we protested in front of the LaClede Gas building in downtown St. Louis after an older woman died one winter when her gas was shut off. We were hoping to get LaClede Gas to change their policy of shut-offs in the winter. Over time, the company did change their way of deciding about shut-offs, agreeing to refrain from ending service if the temperature was under 32 degrees for more than 3 days.

We rallied with neighbors for Welfare Rights and against abuse of eminent domain. Staff and neighbors rode a bus to the state capital of Missouri to march for Medicaid. Together we visited Missouri legislators asking for their support of Medicaid coverage. We helped for many years when families were being forced to move out of their neighborhoods because of gentrification. A group of 30 residents and staff attended a committee meeting of the Board of Aldermen to testify against the use of eminent domain in their neighborhood. We helped prepare residents to address these men--about their neighborhood, their willingness to be part of redevelopment, and the surety not everyone who lived there would be forced to move.

We protested in the driveway of the Missouri Botanical Garden because they were promoting gentrification in a neighborhood just north of their location. We met and talked to members several times at these protests. On Valentine’s Day two members of Citizens for a Fair Plan for McRee Town bought tickets to their event, went up to the band’s microphone, and began to talk about what the Garden was doing to its neighbors. We marched through four neighborhoods surrounding McRee Town in protest, stopping at the Alderman’s houses to give them a flower in a pot with a sign that said, “Let us bloom where we are planted”.

I found through my decades of work, the only real radical efforts are not those that use power versus power, but the power of love’s ability to help people change, adapt, relate and grow. I believe what Jimi Hendrix said, “When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” This is an easy thing for me to say as a comfortable, white man, but human history is about violent “solutions”. They never end the violence. Policy, voting, new laws and money have yet to create real change. They perpetuate the power versus power philosophy in which those with the most power get what they want. Almost always, this is not good for everyone. Some say the Golden Rule has changed to “He, who has the gold, makes the rules”.

Listening is one of the highest forms of hospitality.

Henri Nouwen

THE VALUE OF MIDTOWN

One President of Catholic Charities visited MIDTOWN often. He brought the conservative Archbishop of St. Louis with him to see the work of serving God’s people. This one Archbishop was the only “leader” of the St. Louis church who ever visited. He was able to meet some of the people we served. This President had the public opening of the Catholic Charities Christmas Appeal at MIDTOWN several times. He wanted the larger community to know how their money provided quality services. He used MIDTOWN for an announcement by the Archbishop. He was making a public pledge of financial support toward gas bills after a very frigid winter.

This President, who had a Master’s degree in social work and who had been an Executive Director at a Catholic Charities agency for years before his promotion, had this to say about MIDTOWN’S place within the organization and the Church:

I have always appreciated MIDTOWN as a classic example of professional social work. All the methods of social work are operating there every day—social casework, social group work, community organizing, social action and the elements of the old Settlement House movement. It is great. In the old school building the Church for years carried out its educational mission. Now you are carrying out the Church’s social mission of charity, as well as the educational mission. The curriculum now is peace and justice. The kids are learning to recognize their rights, responsibilities and obligations and the rights, responsibilities and obligations of others. These are the crucially important lessons for life.

There are no more dedicated people in any of our Catholic Charities agencies than you and the MIDTOWN staff. You are making a valuable contribution to the neighborhood and community-at-large. You are a real credit and treasure to Catholic Charities and the entire Church.