September 16, 2020 • 50 mins
Friend of the show Courtney Jones joins us to discuss what the fields of social work and civil service look like, particularly for women of color.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, this Sanny and Samantha and welcome to Stephane. Never
told your production of I Heart Radio. All right, guys,
today we are doing something a little different. Um, and
I'm very excited about it because I'm not gonna lie.
(00:28):
I've missed my dear friend a lot. We may have
a moment. We're gonna have a moment in a minute.
But one of my friends and good people of my
life's who I also had the pleasure of working with
at the Department of Juvenal Justice here in Georgia. Um,
and we are going to do conversation, easy going conversation. Yes, yes,
(00:50):
so um everyone. I want y'all to meet my friend
Courtney Jones. Everyone, my Courtney. My name is Courtney Jones.
Like you mentioned before, I do work with the Georgia
Department of Juvenile Justice and work with placing kids and
throughout the state making sure they receive residential treatment care
(01:11):
if they should need it. Oh. Um, and Courdney, if
you don't mind, can you give us a little bit
of your educational background and how you kind of got
into this field. Sure, Um, I started out very actually
I was supposed to be a teacher. Um. I tried
to do that and it did not go well. I
don't know how teachers teach and discipline at the same time.
(01:34):
So I quickly changed my major after volunteering one summer
and I said new not for me. So I have
a bachelor's degree in psychology and human services and after
that I got a master's degree in school council. I
also have a minor in African American studies, but I
don't know if that really counts, as I didn't graduate
(01:54):
from that school, it counts, I think, so yeah, so yeah,
social work. You couldn't in my school. You couldn't get
a minor, and you could get a second day or
an emphasis. So I was, I think two three courses
away from having another major in religion. Really weird, so
(02:15):
I kind of say that's my minor, even though technically
I couldn't have a minor. So weird to me. I
don't know why, but yes, um and I know, just
so for you guys to know. Courtney and I actually
met because we both interviewed for a promotional uh position
at d j J. There was two spots open, and
(02:36):
she and I were the ones that received those spots,
and I was like, oh no, who am I going
to work with who's coming in with me? And I
think it was the second day? Was it the second
day you and I actually started the job. We wanted
out and about and we feared out. We were pretty
much salt mates. Oh no, I knew day one. I
(02:56):
told you one that you needed your own reality of
the show. This was just like just full alive and
so I loved her. Day one. It was more anxiety
more than energy. So I couldn't stop talking. I couldn't
tell okay, good good. I was like, this girl is
(03:20):
gonna hate me by the end of this. This woman
is going to be like, get it out through my car,
Get out of my car right now. Um. But we
did have some good body moments. And just for context, uh,
the area that Courtney and I worked out and we're
definitely was definitely the major parts like of North Georgia,
So she covered all of the small surrounding counties while
I covered the major cities. So I was a city girl, yes, um.
(03:44):
And one of the things that we often talked about
during our many many like release sessions, I guess we
can call it um, would be the fact of where
we were in our field, how we got into our
field and how we could make change. And I think
what we bonded most over is that we do We
(04:05):
would come out talking about loving our kids, and these
kids were hours, whether or not we spent one on
one time more than an hour or never at all,
Like even if we just read all of their files
and understood where they were coming from or trying to
understand where they're coming from, we would claim them as
our own, our kids. And she and I went through
(04:27):
a lot of heartbreak, also a lot of encouraging times, um,
and of course a lot of frustration about what it
looks like to be in public service. Would you agree
with that, Corney? Right? And I think one of the
reasons we wanted to talk about this and I wanted
to talk about this not only to have her on
(04:47):
the show because I miss her dearly and also, you know,
I needed my one work wife to meet the other
work wife. This is a ploy, um, But the fact
that we I have been talking about the justice system
looked like today and where have we gone wrong? And
how do we fix it? How do we fix it all?
(05:10):
And what does it look like to try to fix it?
And one of the big components to that is at
risk teams and at risk youths and UM for myself,
I got into the field after I left the Department
of Family and Children's Services investigating child abuse because I
wanted to try to do something that would impact for
(05:30):
the future, if that makes sense. Coming in after the fact,
trying to keep a family together didn't seem like it
was working, So for me, I wanted to try a
little more differently with youths and trying to prevent and
help them have a better start or a better life,
or a turnaround or at least the bay at least
someone to support them. UM. And I think with that
(05:53):
one of the things that go through my mind and Accordney,
I want you to tell your side of this as well,
is as we're seeing all of the brutality that is happening,
the questions about power versus empathy, power versus UH, the escalation,
and also what it means to hold people accountable is
kind of that question of how do we do that
(06:15):
on a bigger scale, but also on the smaller scale.
Because if you're in social work, I know you guys
know this. We talk about the macro versus micro practices,
and I think that's part of the conversations that we're
not having when we talk about to fund the police,
whether or not abolition of police is even possible, or
how it's possible, or talking about what it looks like
(06:39):
to break down one power scope or will say, white
supremacy in an area that is infiltrated with a lot
of biases and prejudices that's in there. But with that, Courtney,
I wanted to ask you as a person, who how
long have you been with d j J. I know
(06:59):
it's been a minute, yeah, Um, yeah, I started in twelve.
This was after me trying to get I was successibly
getting a job with the school system because becoming a
school counselor, you know, that's position where someone either retires
or dies. There is no in between, just that dream job.
(07:23):
What else can I do with this that can really
affect the same population. D j J was a perfect
fit basically working with the same clientele. Um, the kids
that would come in UM in the school councilor's office
are the same kids that you will be dealing with
with DJJ. So I was there since started as a
probation officer and then moved into my current position. When
(07:46):
you were talking about how you got into this to
work with that population. UM. I was the same way.
So one of the things I did want to ask
you is did you get pulled in during the initiative
when they were trying to bring in count serge and
social workers as well as because that's how I got involved.
They were trying to go away from punitive Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay.
(08:07):
So at that time, I was working as a probation
officer at the Calf County. This is before I obtained
my master's degree. So that was part of the whole
restorative justice UM model in which they were trying to
get back to UM community policing, bringing more social workers
in and really getting the kids not to see us
(08:30):
as police officers, but more UM kind of the same
vein as UH defects as case worker, so not your
probation officers, but your case worker. And the focus of
that was for us to be just basically just that,
a case worker, the liaison of putting all of those
services together. So we were counseling, we were getting them
(08:52):
to UM to their actor school group sessions, making sure
that they are participating in school, make ensured of getting
the family counseling. All of those things combined in the one.
So yeah, I was definitely there for that. There was
plenty of UM in house trainings conferences and it was
(09:12):
awesome in that they were focused on that, but it
failed in that they did not tie everything together like
we have the every year the UM Systems of Care Conference,
which is a great conference, be gives us a lot
of ideas, but we don't have the community resources to
do what we're talking about UM or we have the
(09:34):
community resources, but they're not in the places where we
need them. There's so much out there, but there are
a lot of people will not or cannot travel to
the places that we needed the most, like those countries,
and those are our North Georgia kids and you know
Middle Georgia kids. They suffer because there really aren't any
(09:56):
alternative counseling or programs that can assist through their crisis.
And that's kind of where we are. And I know
they kind of they had brought me in and I
was what they called the Probation Parole Specialists and I
know that's what your title as well. And the at
this time, it was during the initiative to bring in
(10:18):
more case workers and more counseling level of people to
do this type of management. And I actually when I
started my job, I loved it. I loved interacting with
the kids. I felt so passionate about sitting with them.
And of course, because I had a background in the
Department of Family Children's Services, I had a lot of
those dual cases where they may be a part of
both defacts. In DJJ also had the mental health caseload essentially,
(10:42):
so any child that might have some type of mental
health diagnosis, I typically would have them on my plate.
I also had parents who are who had mental health
diagnosis on my caseload too, because that was a whole
different scenario. But I was one of the things that
I've always been fascinated by in my field, in our
(11:03):
fields essentially, and especially with d j J. And I'm
not really sure what the breakdown is because I couldn't
find any actual statistics um and that I do know
that in social work, uh, women make up eighty one
percent of the workers of social workers in the nation,
and then counselors is sixty nine nine of women in counseling.
(11:26):
And then if you look at the others, like human
services field, their social services field that might not have
a social work degree or counseling degree. That's a d.
Two percent of them are women as well, which I
found fascinating, um and not so surprising because if we
if you've been in the field long enough, yes see it,
that's who you work with typically um and not again,
(11:47):
I'm not so surprising, uh, for those who climb their
way up to the ladder is typically men and whether
they were there to begin with or not. Um. In
nonprofits alone, even though in the nonprofit world, old, let
me find my statistics, Uh, of the employees are women,
but only of the women become CEOs of these nonprofits.
(12:10):
And if an organization has a budget of at least
twenty one million, only twenty one are run by female CEOs,
which there's a lot to me you no, no, but
that says much to y'all. Um. And then it's also
one to note that on the organizational boards for nonprofits,
only four percent of the women women of color on
(12:32):
the awards, which I find really disheartening and sad because obviously,
if you look at the statistics, the people who know
what's going on are women, and most likely women of color. Now,
I did find a different statistics saying that social workers
because you know I'm all about my social workers do
(12:54):
make up of mainly white women, which I'm baffled by, honestly,
because the majority of people that I've worked with are
typically women of color, and for the metro area, for Georgia,
it's typically black women. Mm hmm. And Party, I wanted
to have a dialogue because you and I have talked
(13:14):
a lot about why someone gets into this field any
we've made. We've had an episode previously about why anyone
gets into this field, and typically it's because of personal trauma,
personal experiences, and a desire through because of empathy, because
of that level of personal experience that builds that empathy
(13:34):
to want to make change. And um, would that be
why you would say you were a part of this Yes, Um,
I've always known that was gonna work with kids. Even
as a kid, children have naturally just flocked to me.
I don't know why that is. I command the grocery
stove right now, and the little kid will walk up
to me and do like this, pick me up. It's
(13:57):
like motion. I don't know this kid. It's kind concerning,
it's very weird, but it happens. But um, yeah, I
always knew I was gonna work with kids. Um, So
when the teaching thing didn't work out because of my
lack of patience with the discipline part, Um, this was
perfect because I'm all about discipline and being able to
(14:18):
do it in a helpful vein. I don't believe in
person yelling to get my point across that kids and
think it enough of that at home. So, um, this
fit very well with what I wanted to do. The
problem is always gonna be money. Um. What you were
those statistics that you were talking about, the men are
the CEO is because of the whole money situation. Men
(14:41):
are still promoted based the fond the fact that they
are the bread winners of their family. Um, and and
women aren't that we just aren't. And However, a lot
of people, I think go into social work because it
is such a It is a feeling which you can
build your family, Like if you were very family oriented,
(15:02):
you can take your time off and then come back.
That is one of the good things about being a
governmental employee. Your time is your time. So if you've
earned the time, you use the time and you can
come back. So I think there's pros and concept why
people choose to be in this particular field, whether it
is they want to build their family. They don't necessarily
(15:24):
care about the money because their partner makes more than enough,
and they truly have a desire to help people and
this is the best way that you can do that
at multiple levels. It started for me UM being a
kid working living in a low income area. We received
a lot of programs people coming in, whether that be
(15:47):
hands On Atlanta or UM. There were other volunteer groups
that would come in and work with us. I also
was a part of Upward Bound program, which is a
federally run program which UM took at a riscue and
encouraged them to go to college, which was a treat
for me because that meant met every Saturday, I got
(16:08):
to be on the Moorhouse campus and be surrounded by
all these wonderful, laurious, gorgeous young men and if you know,
UM the summer program was so awesome also because they
took us on a college tour. We got to see
campuses and go have the dorm experience and it was
all free. So when I started thinking about, you know, man,
(16:32):
that's something I really would like to do. I would
like to do this for someone else who may not
have the opportunity because I wasn't a troubled kid. I
was not in the principal's office, I was not seeing
the school council all the time. But I needed help,
and I was one of the very few that actually
got it, that didn't just slip through. I can think
(16:53):
of many other my classmates that were kind of in
the same boat as me, but they never received those things.
But once I saw free and then you're gonna give
me a Marty card to be there. Oh I'm there.
You like your free I know you were the first
person I've met. You're like, it's my birthday week. I
got download all my free things. There you go. It's
(17:16):
all about me, which my birthday and every birthday should
be a national holiday. In my mind, I celebrated like
that half Christmas is going to kick off. It is
oh yeah, her birthdays. How She's like, my birthday is
in between halfway to Christmas. And I was like, oh, okay,
six months before Christmas and six months after you can't
be there. So we're gonna do an happy birthday day.
Everybody's gonna say you happy birthdays. Remember that, listeners, we
(17:40):
have some more of our conversation with Courtney. But first
we have a quick break for a word from our
sponsor and back, thank you sponsor. Let's get back into it. Absolutely,
(18:02):
I think that was one of the big questions as
we've seen. I know we were talking about just ability
and care and that's kind of one of the things
that they talked about as to why men aren't being
social workers are going into that field. Um And by
the way, in the nineteen eighties, over thirty something percent
of social workers were men. As of this last few
(18:25):
years it went down to ten percent. And the big
question about why, and again we talked about money. And
by the way, I had to have three jobs at
one point in order to live by myself in Atlanta,
UM and I know many people from like New York
and California A scoff and DC like, oh, you don't
have to pay you know, your cost of living is
(18:46):
not that much. I was like, yeah, well, in comparison
to what we're being paid, it is um And it
took me to that and I'm still paying pretty low
now for my apartment um at with forty and trying
to figure out how to do this and I finally
have landed a job and it had to be away
from social work, like that's the only way I could
(19:08):
do it, and or any kind of social services in general.
But that was one of the things like Okay, maybe
it's money and that could be it. But one of
the bigger conversations is that men are less likely to
seek help like therapy, like assistance in that way, so
that toxic maxculinity holds them bags. So therefore, why would
(19:28):
you want men to help other women? Maybe, you know,
and that's kind of that level of like, okay, who
helps whom? Well, of course it's that's a female. A
female should help them. Maybe that's that conversation. On top
of that, there's also that conversation that social services and
social care is more like caretaking, as you said, um,
giving and providing, which is very maternal and seen as feminine.
(19:52):
So therefore men don't want to be a part of
that culture. I gotta be a man. So that's kind
of one of those levels of Okay, we get you,
but that's really really toxic and really unhealthy. It is.
I think if we approached a different way, this is
not about if we take away the social work part
(20:13):
of them, put more mentor coaching those are terms that
they can get with, right, that's those are the things
that they like. This is how we pander and so
and then I know a big part of that which
again kind of enables this toxic masculinity, this misogynistic idea
is saying being a man. So a lot of our
mentoring program talk about men being men. Yes, but in
(20:38):
order to get more men in it, we have to
rebrand this thing, is what I'm saying. If you want
men to be more caring and more open and to
really be there for this younger generation and get them
out of that toxicity, we have to uh do a
new campaign so far as to lure them in, and
the money has to change, and it has to be
(21:00):
a way for us to let them know that, hey,
this is not just about wiping noses and patting people
on the back. We're really talking about the future of
our country. We have to change how we talk to
one another, how we communicate one another. And if we
can't do that right now with our young people we're having,
we're gonna have another generation that's lost because the way
(21:22):
in which people talk and interact with each other is
so based on non reality. It's scary. The way kids
think things are supposed to be based on what they
see on TV, what they see on scripted reality TV
shows and trying to get them to understand, no, that's
not real. It's like it's very hard to jerking out
(21:43):
of that because they're bombarded by it, whether it be
the TV, internet, phone, they have it coming at them
at all different angles. So we really do need that
male perspective. We need strong male voices to be able
to lead and show our kids that this is what
you need to be. This is what truly makes you
(22:03):
not just a man, but to be a successful adult
contributing to society. And I think that's the conversation is
it's not so much that we're it's unfortunate that we
have to rebrand. Shouldn't we to be able to break
down the system in general and say being kind and
being compassionate is not a gender thing. And by the way,
(22:25):
to be a strong man doesn't mean you have to
be physically or emotionally strong. It just means that you
are reliable in there, you know. And that's kind of
that conversation that needs to be broken down, is we
shouldn't be catering to the toxic masculinity. We should be
breaking it down and redoing the mindset not only on
men and young boys, but the whole system in itself,
(22:48):
which is because exactly what you're saying. When we were
in social work, when I was in the course, I remember,
and I've talked about this before, I remember a professor
saying specifically to the men in our class, which I
think was a in full maybe three or four, saying,
you guys are gonna get jobs faster than any other
person here. You guys are gonna get money than any
other person here, so you need to stick with it.
(23:10):
That was kind of the painter. And I was like
looking around, going and and she wasn't saying it as
a good job, guys. She was just saying it as
a fact. It is what it is. And I think
you and I have seen that many times. Men who
play the game, and what I mean by that, play
the white supremacist game and being you know, in the
middle line and sucking up and not make too many
(23:31):
headways get promoted very very quickly and fast. Would you
agree with that? I don't know about the white supremacy
par It's just really about the boys quote. It really
is just being able to play your position until a
job opens up. Not just men, anyone just promoting their friends.
(23:53):
Like we have a lot of turnover, yes, a lot
of turnover and d JJ and when we have someone new,
we know they're gonna bring in such as such and
such a disposition in that position, in that position, which
is fine to have your own team. But the nepotism,
that's the word I was looking for. There's a lot
of nepotism and that, and it really prevents people who
(24:14):
have been there, who really know what the needs are
for the organization to move forward, to move up and
truly move the organization where it needs to be, whether
it be male or female. But that happens a lot,
right and I think what I'm saying about white supremacies
literally playing the game. Whether in the state of Georgia,
we know who our bosses and that's the governor. Oh,
(24:39):
I don't want to talk about that. A lot of
the idea is you don't say too much, you don't
say too loudly. We've definitely had coworkers say like, this
is somewhat racist, you're treating this child like this whatever whatnot,
and they get shut down very quickly and being like,
you can't say that. So as long as you play
the middle of the get like playing the middle of
(25:01):
the road game and where you have to, you can't
acknowledge too many wrongs because if you acknowledge too many wrongs,
and you're showing spotlights. And and I know for me,
when I worked within the Metro area, one of our
county judges um stated that, yes, black young black boys
(25:21):
are actually targeted in our area. And ninety somewhere between
of the arrests and the cases were actually black boys.
Like it was that significant. And we had they had
the highest arrest record and detention record in the state.
So that conversation in itself was part of the whole. Okay,
(25:42):
don't say it too wildly. We don't want to say
that too wildly, like who is being targeted? And therefore
when you see and you know, you know who I'm
talking about, our our buddy who gets a little too
loud sometimes and it's real quick to call people out.
He doesn't get promoted very well. But people who play
the middle line play that mental game, and oftentimes it
(26:04):
is to ignore those underlying issues. And and I know
the last year and a half that I worked there.
They had just started to talk about diversity and transgender
kids and how to work with them, and the pushback
that was there was really really disheartening. I know, you
had to keep me in line so I wouldn't yell
at people a few times. But that's kind of that
(26:29):
mentality of like, how do we break this down in
this system? And we kind of went away from the
original point of women in this industry. But it's kind
of the whole breakdown is there is a built up
system that it's hard to let go of and obviously
hard to let go of if we're diverting to another
tactic instead of reinvesting into what is working right. You
(26:54):
know what I'm saying, I had you um that just
so far as with women being in this field and
and with the whole racial aspect of it, you do
kind of have to play your position. You do have
to be aware of what your leadership line looks like,
(27:16):
um before you make any suggestions on what to do
and how to move forward. Because the fact of the
matter is, nothing that we're saying right now hasn't already
been said before. They know what the needs are, they
know what we're going through, they know what the data
is because we submit it to them every month. The
fact of the matter is, how are we going to
(27:37):
tweet the budget to meet those needs? How do we
justify moving the money from here to here? And do
we have enough people to make that happen. That's where
I see it the most. I'm not fearful of saying
anything so far as what I believe that I need
for my kids. It's just tiring saying the same thing
(28:01):
over and over and over and over again, and you
get burned out. So everyone knows what my my investment
date is because I tell them all the time. I
don't know what I'm gonna be doing come January twenty two,
but I won't be here because I'm done. I'm done.
I am done. I'm done. I'm just burned out. And
and I try to and even when with saying that,
(28:23):
I do try to recruit people into the organization that
I think that would do well there. I said, Hey,
if you're looking to further your education, if you're looking
to do this, this, and this, this is the perfect
position for you because not only are you getting the
experience that you need, it stayable money. It might not
be a lot of money, but it is stable money.
(28:45):
You can work on your retirement. You can work on
these things here and you still have time to work
on your master's da da da da, have your kids whatever.
It's flexible in that. But do not come into this
if you don't have a love for people and children.
If you don't have that at the core, you're going
(29:05):
to mess up. You're going to mess up bad. You're
gonna curse out the wrong somebody, and it's going to
all fall on you. So those are you know, just
kind of where we are with it so far as
being aware of who you are, where you work, and
what the leadership line looks like. So you just have to,
(29:26):
you know, pick your battles. And that's that's definitely the conversation.
And um and before we go, I did want to
because you you were talking about it, and I want
to talk a little more about it, about funding and
about what budgeting looks like. Um. And we you know
it on a smaller scale, we know it on a
state scale. And I will say we got to see
a little more than most people in there because we
(29:47):
did handle the budget a lot more than others have.
But the one of the things that I have we
have been thinking and as we talk about all of
the things that are happening in the country and things
that are trying to be rea apter, people are trying
to find accountability within the government, within the systems all
over the country, and one of them, again, we talked
(30:08):
about defunding the police and what does that look like?
And it sounds so harsh at the beginning, and I
know everybody's like, what what we need police? We need
law enforcement. Not everybody, but a lot of people are
on that level. And I'm assuming especially in Georgia, UM,
if you go outside of the metro area, people will
be like what you know what UM? Because But one
of the things that we wanted to talk about is
(30:29):
when we had part Cannon, who was the representative UM
for Georgia, she did talk about the fact that there
was going to be over a billion dollars of a
budget cut in the state and knowing that what that
looked like and where that would go, and the immediate
places that it would go would be for mental health treatment, uh,
things like DJ for Department of Old Health, for defacts.
They're cutting workers, are cutting teachers, budgets, all of these
(30:51):
things that you're like, wait, these are the places that
need the most, that needs it the most. And the
first thing that when we were looking at it and
they're talking about giving incentive pay police departments, and the
question comes into but why. I get that they're risking
their lives, but essentially so are defects workers. They go
(31:11):
out without help to a dangerous situation. So our DJJ
workers because we as probation officers had to go out
to homes and sit with people and be threatened. I
had two kids with me, like several times. I remember
another coworker who the kid came back. It was like,
I know where I went to your house, I saw
(31:32):
your car, you know, making threats. Um. And it was
a power play for sure. But the fact of the
matter is, yes, I understand we came in knowing that
this could be dangerous and things like this happened. But
we don't see the same support. I don't know. You
tell me as the government seems to be supporting the
police department in budgetary levels. Um. So the question is
(31:57):
why are we not seeing that same level of support
and why is it so hard for people to believe
that it should happen that way? Because people don't understand
defund the police and they're too lazy to google it. UM.
I think it's just it's a lot of information, and
you know that will for ignorant. People are comfortable in
(32:19):
what they know and anything that they can find to
reinforce what they already know. They're cool with. So far
as learning anything new and taking on anyone else's pain history, culture,
that's too much. I don't have time for that. I
need to be reinforced and what I already know and
feel so I can sleep good tonight. Simple. So with
defunding the police will, Like I said before, I know
(32:42):
you hate this, but we got to rebrand this thing.
We have to just get people to understand what it
is and what it means and what that truly looks like. UM.
I can remember being a kid in the late eighties
early nineties. I can go to the Recreation Center UM
down the street from my house during the summer and
be entertained every day for free. You know, they had
(33:04):
little art classes, they had basketball, they had brisbee league, volleyball,
anything that you can think of. They had people there
teaching us with us for free snacks included. We need
that kind of stuff back because our kids are board. UM.
We still have a lot of single family homes, but
(33:24):
we don't have any outlets for them. So that's where
we need to readjust how we're looking at how to
help these kids. Instead of punitive, we need to be
more prevention. And it can't be lame stuff. They're not
going to participate in that. They have too many things
coming at them. Um So far as with the TikTok
and you know all the things on you know, on
(33:46):
the internet that keeps them entertained, we have to compete.
I like that you sound as old as me when
you say the TikTok and the internets. You know what
I'm talking about? Like, did I say it that way too?
I do charged to like that too, because I hate
it so much. I hate it so much when Snapchat
(34:07):
came out, like what the hell is this? And why
stop it? Stop it? But it's all entertaining to them
and they all know what it is, and so we
need a common form like that, and it has to
be constantly changing it updated. We can't be lazy about
this because we're talking about our future. Um So, when
we talk about defunding the police, we have to really
explain what that means and how it UM can benefit
(34:31):
other programs UM so far as with mental health and
with our kids and the residential treatment programs and keeping
these kids out of your house. Our kids get bored,
you know, they have an older person, tell them, Hey,
if you go in this house and you still such
and such and such such, you're not just gonna get
as much time as me. And they're using our kids
because they don't have anything else to do. So we
(34:52):
have to get people to understand that, UM understand it.
One care about it is two different things. I can't
make anybody care, but at least if I can of
the information out there, they won't be as negative towards
the whole. Defunding the police, maybe we can call it
something else, reappropriate. I don't know that. That's probably worse. Ye,
(35:14):
Can we borrow some money from you? You know, don't
say borrow, We're gonna pay it back. That is exactly
what it is. And and the biggest part of this
is even though we haven't we've kind of talked about
women's issues in this, this is a women's issues, This
is a family issue. This is an issue that we
need to talk about as the whole because we do
see cases and I've seen people talk about why they
(35:36):
don't like social workers because they all the people they've
interacted with social workers, all they care about is removing
children and breaking up families. And the conversations into that
is this is the lesser evil. This is the conversation
why we have to talk about why this is not
a good option. We can't and unfortunately we're talking about
it with our presidential election. The lesser evil? What is
the better choice or what it's not the worst choice, essentially,
(35:59):
And that's the problem. We shouldn't have to do that.
We shouldn't have to have this conversation. When I worked
with families, when I did the fact cases and I
did investigations, I worked my ass off trying to keep
them together because for me, seeing kids and knowing these
kids were removed from a home was more traumatic oftentimes
than the abuse or the neglect that was happening in
the home. The only times I would ever remove them
(36:21):
is because I could not find the family and because
maybe the child have gotten lost or whatever whatnot, or
because it was a life and death situation. But the
problem with all of this is there is no better option.
We have no funding. With the funding that used to
go to families to help place other kids in other
like with family members kind of disappeared, and we need
(36:43):
to talk about that. Why don't we talk about how
family should be helping other like family members. UM, A
lot of people can't afford it. I would have so
many grandparents and so many aunts and uncle's day I
would love to help. I cannot have another child in
my home because I cannot afford it. And because the
system has no money. The only way we could give
money is by taking custody. And that's a whole other
(37:06):
issue about why this is an ugly, ugly thing and
why we need to break down this money and why
is it being allotted in billions and billions of dollars
to one place that doesn't seem to be improving anything.
If you look at the numbers of homicide, if you
look at the numbers of stuff, if you look at
the numbers of crime, it hasn't really gone down. You're
(37:27):
you're one correct, But that just lets us know that
the system of repression is working perfectly, is working beautifully,
is working exactly the way they set it up to.
And I don't think until we um change the the
guards of the money that's not gonna change. Um, that's
why we have to It's kind of like a balancing act.
(37:47):
We've got to keep our eyes on our kids, but
we also have to encourage the adults. Hey, okay, I
need you to vote. Man, I need you not only
to vote, but I need you to be a thought
or voter. I need you to go to to the
Secretary of State website and actually look up who's running. Look,
we see what's on the ballot before you get there.
(38:08):
These are things that it's not information that's hidden from you,
but it's not advertised. And we have to do a
better job of educating. Um, those who are maybe want
to just don't know how to start. Especially our young
people that are just now starting to vote in this
new election. We've got to guide them. Got oh god,
(38:31):
that's that's just a nightmare on top of a nightmare.
And you know, I'm all about bottom line. So the
moment he said that slavery was a choice was that
it was a rap for me. I was drunking. I
was done after that rap. So there's nothing else good
for you that can come from that vein at all.
(38:51):
But that's all, um. I would have to stay on
that we got to do better with this balancing where
we are. Don't forget our kids, is try to move
it forward to the future. We've got to vote these
people out and start a new and pay attention. And
and then one of the things that you as you
were saying, looking at the ballot, go to the Secretary
of state, state site, look at your local elections. And
(39:15):
we've said this many of times, which is why we
brought on part Cannon, who was a local representative I
really and I loved her anyway, but all of those things,
it was because these are the people that are controlling
a lot more than you know. The city council. That
Atlantis council right now is in control o over seventy
three million dollars of our budget and they're talking about
allotting that to the police, are allowing that and not
(39:39):
even having a conversation about why we're doing so. This
is kind of that level of like you have to
pay attention and you have to read those ballots. You
need to pay attention to who's representing you and why,
and if you think you can do it a better job,
please run. I agree, Oh my god, please run. I
will give you money if you I'm just playing. I'm
(40:03):
not playing. But all of those things I love. I
think it's such an important thing, and I would Corney,
this is why I talked to you. And of course
you're doing any But like Courtney and I have been
on this track for the past seven years. You know
each other that. Yeah, we've created our own two person therapy,
trauma therapy UM. So this is where I get my
(40:24):
trauma out. This is where we talk. This is I
think you and I have had the most frank and
honest conversations about not only obviously this, but about race,
about about UM culture, shock, and I being the one
of two Asian people, one of three Asian people in
our agency minority within the minority. But she held it well.
(40:45):
Though she's a strong lady, I'm too sassy. You can't
mess with me. No, you are a word assassin. So
people aren't messing with you too often because they already
know that you are locked and loaded. We do have
a little bit more for you listeners, but first we
have one more cup break for work from our sponsors,
(41:19):
and we're back. Thank you sponsor. Okay, Andie, I'm so sorry,
do you have anything that you want to add as
we have completely overtaken this is what happens that I
love it. It's great. I've I've learned so much. UM.
I did when I touch on UM because we have
done an episode on nonprofits before, and I know that's
not exactly the same as government work, but there are
a lot of similarities. And one of the very uh
(41:41):
disheartening statistics about that is women. There is this really
high rate of burnout. UM. Is that something that you've seen? Yes, UM,
I also worked at a group on before I started
any of business. I was getting my bachelor's. I worked
at a group home and the multiple roles that you
(42:02):
have to play, UM in that is astounding. I was
the weekend living counselor, and that's exactly what I did.
I lived there on the weekend. I was the twenty
four seven type position. I was there with the girls
all day and I was responsible for meals on the weekend.
And if they had a weekend job, I had to
drive them there. If they wanted to go to the
(42:24):
amusement park, I drove them there. I had to issue med's,
make sure that no one was fighting. I had to
make sure no one was in a corner somewhere because
you know there's a lot of gay or to stay
even in the group homes on cabineing. You have to
keep your eyes on so much. And that is the
issue with any type of social service job. You're wearing
more than one hat because there isn't any backup because
(42:46):
the staffing is limited, because most of the funding is
going to keeping that whole thing running, making sure the
girls can have clothes, food, um, getting to UM appointments
and like, yeah, you do receive like your payment from
your dj J and your defects, but you still are
dependent upon donations. And being that this was the Methodist
(43:13):
uh background, we were depended upon donations from the church
and trying to make sure that our girls were presentable
for the ones who chose to go to church and
you know, interacted well with the people in the church.
There's just so much that can go wrong if we
don't meet that donation marker. So and I wasn't really
(43:33):
a part of the you know, with the money and
things like that, but I could see how it affected
us if we didn't get it. So far as um,
what trips we were planning versus what we went last year,
versus where we went the next year, things of that nature,
whether we got the new van or not, or did
we have to stick with the old van and wake
sure that it was fixed. So you know, it's it's
(43:56):
a lot of ah you have. You really do burn
yourself out trying to make sure that you're giving them
everything that you mean, everything that they need and making
sure that you put in your case notes and things
like that. There's a lot of work. And I would
put in that we exhaustion, like the literal exhaustion from
(44:20):
taxing yourself emotionally, whether you're investing in kids and heartbroken
because of death, of failure somehow of um, something going
wrong UM. For us, oftentimes, if a kid became incarcerated
after leaving DJJ, that was like a death almost to us.
We felt that was our failure somehow, and that in
(44:40):
itself was an emotional uh trauma for us. And on
top of that the actual trauma of being attacked, perhaps
are being uh verbally abused, which happened often often UM
or whether or not that you're trying you're doing the
making the best decision, because again this is one of
those things that you never know the best decision. And
(45:01):
for me, as the ending came, I was like, I
am not giving everything I have for this job, and
though you shouldn't have to, because it's still just a
job that in itself causes anxiety and emotional trauma and
physical trauma. To be fair, but when I was working
in Defects, I was had so many panic attacks, I
(45:25):
had so many sleepless nights. I was not it was nightmare.
It was a constant nightmare where I would drive or
have dreams about my kids. And I still actually have
dreams about some of those kids. Um, because you you're
just scared of making the wrong decision, and because lives
are on the line. It's not like we could come
and that even though this is our job, we can
walk away from it. Walking away from it. Maybe that
(45:47):
we've not we've neglected kids somehow in between, that we
left them slip because we had to go to you know,
practice here, or we're trying to live our lives so
we're gonna put our our phone down, and then you
missed that phone call because of ever. And I know
that we didn't as much support as we may have
gotten from our immediate bosses. We weren't supported on the
bigger picture and that's also exhausting in itself. And as
(46:12):
we talk about police being respected in this level and
they're qualified immunity, that's a whole other conversation. I actually
had to take out insurance as a social worker at
Defects just in case I got sued. That was it
so that I could pay the liability. It came out
of my money. So that to me was like, why
wouldn't that be a thing, especially if I'm not the
(46:33):
one that caused it. It's half the times of decisions
are from the higher ups, whether it's our supervisors, whether
it's judges, whether it's court systems, or whether it's you know,
state mandate. There's all of these things. And a part
of that is because we do have to have we
do have cases with mental health issues, and we don't
have any type of resources except for one organization that
(46:55):
can only handle so much. And the severity has to
be so high that they won't type unless it's there.
But it has to get to the already bad point
in order for it to be resolved. And all of
those days caused a lot of burnout. And I think
for women in's self, when you talk about women who
accord you are a caretaker. I'm not necessarily a caretaker
because I got a doggy, but he just can do
(47:18):
like he's thought. She's fine. But being a caretaker on
top of that, that's another reason why burnout happens, because
you're being pulled in so many directions that you're not
able to do your job. And that if you are
someone who is sympathetic and had or an impact that
destroys you, that can literally destroy you physically, emotionally, all
(47:39):
of those ways. Yeah, you know, I'll go all forever.
You gotta have questions, but yeah, and I think, and
that can be any job when you're not satisfied. Unfortunately,
for those in human services and all of those and
counseling you, being disappointed or sad FID often means something
(48:01):
is wrong in the system and other people are in
harm's way. Are being women in this field, we always
do what we have to do anyways, and so we
are teachers, we are mothers, We are the backbones this
whole thing. But we meet help. So any help we
(48:22):
can get, we take good help. That is sometimes the
kind of okay help. We have to settle for the
okay help that brings us to the end. Of this interview.
It was such a delight. I'm so glad that I
got to virtually meet Courtney. I know it made me
(48:44):
happy too. I'm sorry when we get to talking, I
understand it's hard to slow down, especially when we get
really into the issues. And even though like we may
not always agree on like terminology and the back stories,
but we do have a really good open conversation about
what does this look like? How does this look like
when we break it down, even though we may not
be able to implement it, Yeah, we at least have
(49:06):
that conversation and being able to refresh in knowing that
we are in a good headspace. You know, I do
love that she's my girl. I love her so much.
She's fantastic. Love the people I've been working with, just
so you know, everybody, everybody, I just have so much love.
But I also feel very fortunate for the people I
work with. UM and I it was very um enlightening
(49:30):
and important conversation have and I'm glad we had it,
so thank you for arranging it, Samantha. Yeah, if if
any of you listeners have any stories you want to share,
if you're also working in this field or a similar field,
or you know well, we love hearing from you no
matter what. Right tell us what's going on, what your
thoughts are, how you think things could be changing, like,
there's so many ideas that's not being spoken yet. Let
(49:52):
us know what your thoughts are. Yes, yes, please let
us know. You can email us at SEFT Media, mom
Stuff and I hurt Mia dot com. You can find
us on Instagram at stuff I Never Told You or
on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks. It's always to
our super producer Andrew Howard. Thanks Andrew, and thanks to
you for listening Stuff I Never Told You this production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart
(50:13):
Radio is heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows,
Hey, this Sanny and Samantha and welcome to Stephane. Never
told your production of I Heart Radio. All right, guys,
today we are doing something a little different. Um, and
I'm very excited about it because I'm not gonna lie.
(00:28):
I've missed my dear friend a lot. We may have
a moment. We're gonna have a moment in a minute.
But one of my friends and good people of my
life's who I also had the pleasure of working with
at the Department of Juvenal Justice here in Georgia. Um,
and we are going to do conversation, easy going conversation. Yes, yes,
(00:50):
so um everyone. I want y'all to meet my friend
Courtney Jones. Everyone, my Courtney. My name is Courtney Jones.
Like you mentioned before, I do work with the Georgia
Department of Juvenile Justice and work with placing kids and
throughout the state making sure they receive residential treatment care
(01:11):
if they should need it. Oh. Um, and Courdney, if
you don't mind, can you give us a little bit
of your educational background and how you kind of got
into this field. Sure, Um, I started out very actually
I was supposed to be a teacher. Um. I tried
to do that and it did not go well. I
don't know how teachers teach and discipline at the same time.
(01:34):
So I quickly changed my major after volunteering one summer
and I said new not for me. So I have
a bachelor's degree in psychology and human services and after
that I got a master's degree in school council. I
also have a minor in African American studies, but I
don't know if that really counts, as I didn't graduate
(01:54):
from that school, it counts, I think, so yeah, so yeah,
social work. You couldn't in my school. You couldn't get
a minor, and you could get a second day or
an emphasis. So I was, I think two three courses
away from having another major in religion. Really weird, so
(02:15):
I kind of say that's my minor, even though technically
I couldn't have a minor. So weird to me. I
don't know why, but yes, um and I know, just
so for you guys to know. Courtney and I actually
met because we both interviewed for a promotional uh position
at d j J. There was two spots open, and
(02:36):
she and I were the ones that received those spots,
and I was like, oh no, who am I going
to work with who's coming in with me? And I
think it was the second day? Was it the second
day you and I actually started the job. We wanted
out and about and we feared out. We were pretty
much salt mates. Oh no, I knew day one. I
(02:56):
told you one that you needed your own reality of
the show. This was just like just full alive and
so I loved her. Day one. It was more anxiety
more than energy. So I couldn't stop talking. I couldn't
tell okay, good good. I was like, this girl is
(03:20):
gonna hate me by the end of this. This woman
is going to be like, get it out through my car,
Get out of my car right now. Um. But we
did have some good body moments. And just for context, uh,
the area that Courtney and I worked out and we're
definitely was definitely the major parts like of North Georgia,
So she covered all of the small surrounding counties while
I covered the major cities. So I was a city girl, yes, um.
(03:44):
And one of the things that we often talked about
during our many many like release sessions, I guess we
can call it um, would be the fact of where
we were in our field, how we got into our
field and how we could make change. And I think
what we bonded most over is that we do We
(04:05):
would come out talking about loving our kids, and these
kids were hours, whether or not we spent one on
one time more than an hour or never at all,
Like even if we just read all of their files
and understood where they were coming from or trying to
understand where they're coming from, we would claim them as
our own, our kids. And she and I went through
(04:27):
a lot of heartbreak, also a lot of encouraging times, um,
and of course a lot of frustration about what it
looks like to be in public service. Would you agree
with that, Corney? Right? And I think one of the
reasons we wanted to talk about this and I wanted
to talk about this not only to have her on
(04:47):
the show because I miss her dearly and also, you know,
I needed my one work wife to meet the other
work wife. This is a ploy, um, But the fact
that we I have been talking about the justice system
looked like today and where have we gone wrong? And
how do we fix it? How do we fix it all?
(05:10):
And what does it look like to try to fix it?
And one of the big components to that is at
risk teams and at risk youths and UM for myself,
I got into the field after I left the Department
of Family and Children's Services investigating child abuse because I
wanted to try to do something that would impact for
(05:30):
the future, if that makes sense. Coming in after the fact,
trying to keep a family together didn't seem like it
was working, So for me, I wanted to try a
little more differently with youths and trying to prevent and
help them have a better start or a better life,
or a turnaround or at least the bay at least
someone to support them. UM. And I think with that
(05:53):
one of the things that go through my mind and Accordney,
I want you to tell your side of this as well,
is as we're seeing all of the brutality that is happening,
the questions about power versus empathy, power versus UH, the escalation,
and also what it means to hold people accountable is
kind of that question of how do we do that
(06:15):
on a bigger scale, but also on the smaller scale.
Because if you're in social work, I know you guys
know this. We talk about the macro versus micro practices,
and I think that's part of the conversations that we're
not having when we talk about to fund the police,
whether or not abolition of police is even possible, or
how it's possible, or talking about what it looks like
(06:39):
to break down one power scope or will say, white
supremacy in an area that is infiltrated with a lot
of biases and prejudices that's in there. But with that, Courtney,
I wanted to ask you as a person, who how
long have you been with d j J. I know
(06:59):
it's been a minute, yeah, Um, yeah, I started in twelve.
This was after me trying to get I was successibly
getting a job with the school system because becoming a
school counselor, you know, that's position where someone either retires
or dies. There is no in between, just that dream job.
(07:23):
What else can I do with this that can really
affect the same population. D j J was a perfect
fit basically working with the same clientele. Um, the kids
that would come in UM in the school councilor's office
are the same kids that you will be dealing with
with DJJ. So I was there since started as a
probation officer and then moved into my current position. When
(07:46):
you were talking about how you got into this to
work with that population. UM. I was the same way.
So one of the things I did want to ask
you is did you get pulled in during the initiative
when they were trying to bring in count serge and
social workers as well as because that's how I got involved.
They were trying to go away from punitive Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay.
(08:07):
So at that time, I was working as a probation
officer at the Calf County. This is before I obtained
my master's degree. So that was part of the whole
restorative justice UM model in which they were trying to
get back to UM community policing, bringing more social workers
in and really getting the kids not to see us
(08:30):
as police officers, but more UM kind of the same
vein as UH defects as case worker, so not your
probation officers, but your case worker. And the focus of
that was for us to be just basically just that,
a case worker, the liaison of putting all of those
services together. So we were counseling, we were getting them
(08:52):
to UM to their actor school group sessions, making sure
that they are participating in school, make ensured of getting
the family counseling. All of those things combined in the one.
So yeah, I was definitely there for that. There was
plenty of UM in house trainings conferences and it was
(09:12):
awesome in that they were focused on that, but it
failed in that they did not tie everything together like
we have the every year the UM Systems of Care Conference,
which is a great conference, be gives us a lot
of ideas, but we don't have the community resources to
do what we're talking about UM or we have the
(09:34):
community resources, but they're not in the places where we
need them. There's so much out there, but there are
a lot of people will not or cannot travel to
the places that we needed the most, like those countries,
and those are our North Georgia kids and you know
Middle Georgia kids. They suffer because there really aren't any
(09:56):
alternative counseling or programs that can assist through their crisis.
And that's kind of where we are. And I know
they kind of they had brought me in and I
was what they called the Probation Parole Specialists and I
know that's what your title as well. And the at
this time, it was during the initiative to bring in
(10:18):
more case workers and more counseling level of people to
do this type of management. And I actually when I
started my job, I loved it. I loved interacting with
the kids. I felt so passionate about sitting with them.
And of course, because I had a background in the
Department of Family Children's Services, I had a lot of
those dual cases where they may be a part of
both defacts. In DJJ also had the mental health caseload essentially,
(10:42):
so any child that might have some type of mental
health diagnosis, I typically would have them on my plate.
I also had parents who are who had mental health
diagnosis on my caseload too, because that was a whole
different scenario. But I was one of the things that
I've always been fascinated by in my field, in our
(11:03):
fields essentially, and especially with d j J. And I'm
not really sure what the breakdown is because I couldn't
find any actual statistics um and that I do know
that in social work, uh, women make up eighty one
percent of the workers of social workers in the nation,
and then counselors is sixty nine nine of women in counseling.
(11:26):
And then if you look at the others, like human
services field, their social services field that might not have
a social work degree or counseling degree. That's a d.
Two percent of them are women as well, which I
found fascinating, um and not so surprising because if we
if you've been in the field long enough, yes see it,
that's who you work with typically um and not again,
(11:47):
I'm not so surprising, uh, for those who climb their
way up to the ladder is typically men and whether
they were there to begin with or not. Um. In
nonprofits alone, even though in the nonprofit world, old, let
me find my statistics, Uh, of the employees are women,
but only of the women become CEOs of these nonprofits.
(12:10):
And if an organization has a budget of at least
twenty one million, only twenty one are run by female CEOs,
which there's a lot to me you no, no, but
that says much to y'all. Um. And then it's also
one to note that on the organizational boards for nonprofits,
only four percent of the women women of color on
(12:32):
the awards, which I find really disheartening and sad because obviously,
if you look at the statistics, the people who know
what's going on are women, and most likely women of color. Now,
I did find a different statistics saying that social workers
because you know I'm all about my social workers do
(12:54):
make up of mainly white women, which I'm baffled by, honestly,
because the majority of people that I've worked with are
typically women of color, and for the metro area, for Georgia,
it's typically black women. Mm hmm. And Party, I wanted
to have a dialogue because you and I have talked
(13:14):
a lot about why someone gets into this field any
we've made. We've had an episode previously about why anyone
gets into this field, and typically it's because of personal trauma,
personal experiences, and a desire through because of empathy, because
of that level of personal experience that builds that empathy
(13:34):
to want to make change. And um, would that be
why you would say you were a part of this Yes, Um,
I've always known that was gonna work with kids. Even
as a kid, children have naturally just flocked to me.
I don't know why that is. I command the grocery
stove right now, and the little kid will walk up
to me and do like this, pick me up. It's
(13:57):
like motion. I don't know this kid. It's kind concerning,
it's very weird, but it happens. But um, yeah, I
always knew I was gonna work with kids. Um, So
when the teaching thing didn't work out because of my
lack of patience with the discipline part, Um, this was
perfect because I'm all about discipline and being able to
(14:18):
do it in a helpful vein. I don't believe in
person yelling to get my point across that kids and
think it enough of that at home. So, um, this
fit very well with what I wanted to do. The
problem is always gonna be money. Um. What you were
those statistics that you were talking about, the men are
the CEO is because of the whole money situation. Men
(14:41):
are still promoted based the fond the fact that they
are the bread winners of their family. Um, and and
women aren't that we just aren't. And However, a lot
of people, I think go into social work because it
is such a It is a feeling which you can
build your family, Like if you were very family oriented,
(15:02):
you can take your time off and then come back.
That is one of the good things about being a
governmental employee. Your time is your time. So if you've
earned the time, you use the time and you can
come back. So I think there's pros and concept why
people choose to be in this particular field, whether it
is they want to build their family. They don't necessarily
(15:24):
care about the money because their partner makes more than enough,
and they truly have a desire to help people and
this is the best way that you can do that
at multiple levels. It started for me UM being a
kid working living in a low income area. We received
a lot of programs people coming in, whether that be
(15:47):
hands On Atlanta or UM. There were other volunteer groups
that would come in and work with us. I also
was a part of Upward Bound program, which is a
federally run program which UM took at a riscue and
encouraged them to go to college, which was a treat
for me because that meant met every Saturday, I got
(16:08):
to be on the Moorhouse campus and be surrounded by
all these wonderful, laurious, gorgeous young men and if you know,
UM the summer program was so awesome also because they
took us on a college tour. We got to see
campuses and go have the dorm experience and it was
all free. So when I started thinking about, you know, man,
(16:32):
that's something I really would like to do. I would
like to do this for someone else who may not
have the opportunity because I wasn't a troubled kid. I
was not in the principal's office, I was not seeing
the school council all the time. But I needed help,
and I was one of the very few that actually
got it, that didn't just slip through. I can think
(16:53):
of many other my classmates that were kind of in
the same boat as me, but they never received those things.
But once I saw free and then you're gonna give
me a Marty card to be there. Oh I'm there.
You like your free I know you were the first
person I've met. You're like, it's my birthday week. I
got download all my free things. There you go. It's
(17:16):
all about me, which my birthday and every birthday should
be a national holiday. In my mind, I celebrated like
that half Christmas is going to kick off. It is
oh yeah, her birthdays. How She's like, my birthday is
in between halfway to Christmas. And I was like, oh, okay,
six months before Christmas and six months after you can't
be there. So we're gonna do an happy birthday day.
Everybody's gonna say you happy birthdays. Remember that, listeners, we
(17:40):
have some more of our conversation with Courtney. But first
we have a quick break for a word from our
sponsor and back, thank you sponsor. Let's get back into it. Absolutely,
(18:02):
I think that was one of the big questions as
we've seen. I know we were talking about just ability
and care and that's kind of one of the things
that they talked about as to why men aren't being
social workers are going into that field. Um And by
the way, in the nineteen eighties, over thirty something percent
of social workers were men. As of this last few
(18:25):
years it went down to ten percent. And the big
question about why, and again we talked about money. And
by the way, I had to have three jobs at
one point in order to live by myself in Atlanta,
UM and I know many people from like New York
and California A scoff and DC like, oh, you don't
have to pay you know, your cost of living is
(18:46):
not that much. I was like, yeah, well, in comparison
to what we're being paid, it is um And it
took me to that and I'm still paying pretty low
now for my apartment um at with forty and trying
to figure out how to do this and I finally
have landed a job and it had to be away
from social work, like that's the only way I could
(19:08):
do it, and or any kind of social services in general.
But that was one of the things like Okay, maybe
it's money and that could be it. But one of
the bigger conversations is that men are less likely to
seek help like therapy, like assistance in that way, so
that toxic maxculinity holds them bags. So therefore, why would
(19:28):
you want men to help other women? Maybe, you know,
and that's kind of that level of like, okay, who
helps whom? Well, of course it's that's a female. A
female should help them. Maybe that's that conversation. On top
of that, there's also that conversation that social services and
social care is more like caretaking, as you said, um,
giving and providing, which is very maternal and seen as feminine.
(19:52):
So therefore men don't want to be a part of
that culture. I gotta be a man. So that's kind
of one of those levels of Okay, we get you,
but that's really really toxic and really unhealthy. It is.
I think if we approached a different way, this is
not about if we take away the social work part
(20:13):
of them, put more mentor coaching those are terms that
they can get with, right, that's those are the things
that they like. This is how we pander and so
and then I know a big part of that which
again kind of enables this toxic masculinity, this misogynistic idea
is saying being a man. So a lot of our
mentoring program talk about men being men. Yes, but in
(20:38):
order to get more men in it, we have to
rebrand this thing, is what I'm saying. If you want
men to be more caring and more open and to
really be there for this younger generation and get them
out of that toxicity, we have to uh do a
new campaign so far as to lure them in, and
the money has to change, and it has to be
(21:00):
a way for us to let them know that, hey,
this is not just about wiping noses and patting people
on the back. We're really talking about the future of
our country. We have to change how we talk to
one another, how we communicate one another. And if we
can't do that right now with our young people we're having,
we're gonna have another generation that's lost because the way
(21:22):
in which people talk and interact with each other is
so based on non reality. It's scary. The way kids
think things are supposed to be based on what they
see on TV, what they see on scripted reality TV
shows and trying to get them to understand, no, that's
not real. It's like it's very hard to jerking out
(21:43):
of that because they're bombarded by it, whether it be
the TV, internet, phone, they have it coming at them
at all different angles. So we really do need that
male perspective. We need strong male voices to be able
to lead and show our kids that this is what
you need to be. This is what truly makes you
(22:03):
not just a man, but to be a successful adult
contributing to society. And I think that's the conversation is
it's not so much that we're it's unfortunate that we
have to rebrand. Shouldn't we to be able to break
down the system in general and say being kind and
being compassionate is not a gender thing. And by the way,
(22:25):
to be a strong man doesn't mean you have to
be physically or emotionally strong. It just means that you
are reliable in there, you know. And that's kind of
that conversation that needs to be broken down, is we
shouldn't be catering to the toxic masculinity. We should be
breaking it down and redoing the mindset not only on
men and young boys, but the whole system in itself,
(22:48):
which is because exactly what you're saying. When we were
in social work, when I was in the course, I remember,
and I've talked about this before, I remember a professor
saying specifically to the men in our class, which I
think was a in full maybe three or four, saying,
you guys are gonna get jobs faster than any other
person here. You guys are gonna get money than any
other person here, so you need to stick with it.
(23:10):
That was kind of the painter. And I was like
looking around, going and and she wasn't saying it as
a good job, guys. She was just saying it as
a fact. It is what it is. And I think
you and I have seen that many times. Men who
play the game, and what I mean by that, play
the white supremacist game and being you know, in the
middle line and sucking up and not make too many
(23:31):
headways get promoted very very quickly and fast. Would you
agree with that? I don't know about the white supremacy
par It's just really about the boys quote. It really
is just being able to play your position until a
job opens up. Not just men, anyone just promoting their friends.
(23:53):
Like we have a lot of turnover, yes, a lot
of turnover and d JJ and when we have someone new,
we know they're gonna bring in such as such and
such a disposition in that position, in that position, which
is fine to have your own team. But the nepotism,
that's the word I was looking for. There's a lot
of nepotism and that, and it really prevents people who
(24:14):
have been there, who really know what the needs are
for the organization to move forward, to move up and
truly move the organization where it needs to be, whether
it be male or female. But that happens a lot,
right and I think what I'm saying about white supremacies
literally playing the game. Whether in the state of Georgia,
we know who our bosses and that's the governor. Oh,
(24:39):
I don't want to talk about that. A lot of
the idea is you don't say too much, you don't
say too loudly. We've definitely had coworkers say like, this
is somewhat racist, you're treating this child like this whatever whatnot,
and they get shut down very quickly and being like,
you can't say that. So as long as you play
the middle of the get like playing the middle of
(25:01):
the road game and where you have to, you can't
acknowledge too many wrongs because if you acknowledge too many wrongs,
and you're showing spotlights. And and I know for me,
when I worked within the Metro area, one of our
county judges um stated that, yes, black young black boys
(25:21):
are actually targeted in our area. And ninety somewhere between
of the arrests and the cases were actually black boys.
Like it was that significant. And we had they had
the highest arrest record and detention record in the state.
So that conversation in itself was part of the whole. Okay,
(25:42):
don't say it too wildly. We don't want to say
that too wildly, like who is being targeted? And therefore
when you see and you know, you know who I'm
talking about, our our buddy who gets a little too
loud sometimes and it's real quick to call people out.
He doesn't get promoted very well. But people who play
the middle line play that mental game, and oftentimes it
(26:04):
is to ignore those underlying issues. And and I know
the last year and a half that I worked there.
They had just started to talk about diversity and transgender
kids and how to work with them, and the pushback
that was there was really really disheartening. I know, you
had to keep me in line so I wouldn't yell
at people a few times. But that's kind of that
(26:29):
mentality of like, how do we break this down in
this system? And we kind of went away from the
original point of women in this industry. But it's kind
of the whole breakdown is there is a built up
system that it's hard to let go of and obviously
hard to let go of if we're diverting to another
tactic instead of reinvesting into what is working right. You
(26:54):
know what I'm saying, I had you um that just
so far as with women being in this field and
and with the whole racial aspect of it, you do
kind of have to play your position. You do have
to be aware of what your leadership line looks like,
(27:16):
um before you make any suggestions on what to do
and how to move forward. Because the fact of the
matter is, nothing that we're saying right now hasn't already
been said before. They know what the needs are, they
know what we're going through, they know what the data
is because we submit it to them every month. The
fact of the matter is, how are we going to
(27:37):
tweet the budget to meet those needs? How do we
justify moving the money from here to here? And do
we have enough people to make that happen. That's where
I see it the most. I'm not fearful of saying
anything so far as what I believe that I need
for my kids. It's just tiring saying the same thing
(28:01):
over and over and over and over again, and you
get burned out. So everyone knows what my my investment
date is because I tell them all the time. I
don't know what I'm gonna be doing come January twenty two,
but I won't be here because I'm done. I'm done.
I am done. I'm done. I'm just burned out. And
and I try to and even when with saying that,
(28:23):
I do try to recruit people into the organization that
I think that would do well there. I said, Hey,
if you're looking to further your education, if you're looking
to do this, this, and this, this is the perfect
position for you because not only are you getting the
experience that you need, it stayable money. It might not
be a lot of money, but it is stable money.
(28:45):
You can work on your retirement. You can work on
these things here and you still have time to work
on your master's da da da da, have your kids whatever.
It's flexible in that. But do not come into this
if you don't have a love for people and children.
If you don't have that at the core, you're going
(29:05):
to mess up. You're going to mess up bad. You're
gonna curse out the wrong somebody, and it's going to
all fall on you. So those are you know, just
kind of where we are with it so far as
being aware of who you are, where you work, and
what the leadership line looks like. So you just have to,
(29:26):
you know, pick your battles. And that's that's definitely the conversation.
And um and before we go, I did want to
because you you were talking about it, and I want
to talk a little more about it, about funding and
about what budgeting looks like. Um. And we you know
it on a smaller scale, we know it on a
state scale. And I will say we got to see
a little more than most people in there because we
(29:47):
did handle the budget a lot more than others have.
But the one of the things that I have we
have been thinking and as we talk about all of
the things that are happening in the country and things
that are trying to be rea apter, people are trying
to find accountability within the government, within the systems all
over the country, and one of them, again, we talked
(30:08):
about defunding the police and what does that look like?
And it sounds so harsh at the beginning, and I
know everybody's like, what what we need police? We need
law enforcement. Not everybody, but a lot of people are
on that level. And I'm assuming especially in Georgia, UM,
if you go outside of the metro area, people will
be like what you know what UM? Because But one
of the things that we wanted to talk about is
(30:29):
when we had part Cannon, who was the representative UM
for Georgia, she did talk about the fact that there
was going to be over a billion dollars of a
budget cut in the state and knowing that what that
looked like and where that would go, and the immediate
places that it would go would be for mental health treatment, uh,
things like DJ for Department of Old Health, for defacts.
They're cutting workers, are cutting teachers, budgets, all of these
(30:51):
things that you're like, wait, these are the places that
need the most, that needs it the most. And the
first thing that when we were looking at it and
they're talking about giving incentive pay police departments, and the
question comes into but why. I get that they're risking
their lives, but essentially so are defects workers. They go
(31:11):
out without help to a dangerous situation. So our DJJ
workers because we as probation officers had to go out
to homes and sit with people and be threatened. I
had two kids with me, like several times. I remember
another coworker who the kid came back. It was like,
I know where I went to your house, I saw
(31:32):
your car, you know, making threats. Um. And it was
a power play for sure. But the fact of the
matter is, yes, I understand we came in knowing that
this could be dangerous and things like this happened. But
we don't see the same support. I don't know. You
tell me as the government seems to be supporting the
police department in budgetary levels. Um. So the question is
(31:57):
why are we not seeing that same level of support
and why is it so hard for people to believe
that it should happen that way? Because people don't understand
defund the police and they're too lazy to google it. UM.
I think it's just it's a lot of information, and
you know that will for ignorant. People are comfortable in
(32:19):
what they know and anything that they can find to
reinforce what they already know. They're cool with. So far
as learning anything new and taking on anyone else's pain history, culture,
that's too much. I don't have time for that. I
need to be reinforced and what I already know and
feel so I can sleep good tonight. Simple. So with
defunding the police will, Like I said before, I know
(32:42):
you hate this, but we got to rebrand this thing.
We have to just get people to understand what it
is and what it means and what that truly looks like. UM.
I can remember being a kid in the late eighties
early nineties. I can go to the Recreation Center UM
down the street from my house during the summer and
be entertained every day for free. You know, they had
(33:04):
little art classes, they had basketball, they had brisbee league, volleyball,
anything that you can think of. They had people there
teaching us with us for free snacks included. We need
that kind of stuff back because our kids are board. UM.
We still have a lot of single family homes, but
(33:24):
we don't have any outlets for them. So that's where
we need to readjust how we're looking at how to
help these kids. Instead of punitive, we need to be
more prevention. And it can't be lame stuff. They're not
going to participate in that. They have too many things
coming at them. Um So far as with the TikTok
and you know all the things on you know, on
(33:46):
the internet that keeps them entertained, we have to compete.
I like that you sound as old as me when
you say the TikTok and the internets. You know what
I'm talking about? Like, did I say it that way too?
I do charged to like that too, because I hate
it so much. I hate it so much when Snapchat
(34:07):
came out, like what the hell is this? And why
stop it? Stop it? But it's all entertaining to them
and they all know what it is, and so we
need a common form like that, and it has to
be constantly changing it updated. We can't be lazy about
this because we're talking about our future. Um So, when
we talk about defunding the police, we have to really
explain what that means and how it UM can benefit
(34:31):
other programs UM so far as with mental health and
with our kids and the residential treatment programs and keeping
these kids out of your house. Our kids get bored,
you know, they have an older person, tell them, Hey,
if you go in this house and you still such
and such and such such, you're not just gonna get
as much time as me. And they're using our kids
because they don't have anything else to do. So we
(34:52):
have to get people to understand that, UM understand it.
One care about it is two different things. I can't
make anybody care, but at least if I can of
the information out there, they won't be as negative towards
the whole. Defunding the police, maybe we can call it
something else, reappropriate. I don't know that. That's probably worse. Ye,
(35:14):
Can we borrow some money from you? You know, don't
say borrow, We're gonna pay it back. That is exactly
what it is. And and the biggest part of this
is even though we haven't we've kind of talked about
women's issues in this, this is a women's issues, This
is a family issue. This is an issue that we
need to talk about as the whole because we do
see cases and I've seen people talk about why they
(35:36):
don't like social workers because they all the people they've
interacted with social workers, all they care about is removing
children and breaking up families. And the conversations into that
is this is the lesser evil. This is the conversation
why we have to talk about why this is not
a good option. We can't and unfortunately we're talking about
it with our presidential election. The lesser evil? What is
the better choice or what it's not the worst choice, essentially,
(35:59):
And that's the problem. We shouldn't have to do that.
We shouldn't have to have this conversation. When I worked
with families, when I did the fact cases and I
did investigations, I worked my ass off trying to keep
them together because for me, seeing kids and knowing these
kids were removed from a home was more traumatic oftentimes
than the abuse or the neglect that was happening in
the home. The only times I would ever remove them
(36:21):
is because I could not find the family and because
maybe the child have gotten lost or whatever whatnot, or
because it was a life and death situation. But the
problem with all of this is there is no better option.
We have no funding. With the funding that used to
go to families to help place other kids in other
like with family members kind of disappeared, and we need
(36:43):
to talk about that. Why don't we talk about how
family should be helping other like family members. UM, A
lot of people can't afford it. I would have so
many grandparents and so many aunts and uncle's day I
would love to help. I cannot have another child in
my home because I cannot afford it. And because the
system has no money. The only way we could give
money is by taking custody. And that's a whole other
(37:06):
issue about why this is an ugly, ugly thing and
why we need to break down this money and why
is it being allotted in billions and billions of dollars
to one place that doesn't seem to be improving anything.
If you look at the numbers of homicide, if you
look at the numbers of stuff, if you look at
the numbers of crime, it hasn't really gone down. You're
(37:27):
you're one correct, But that just lets us know that
the system of repression is working perfectly, is working beautifully,
is working exactly the way they set it up to.
And I don't think until we um change the the
guards of the money that's not gonna change. Um, that's
why we have to It's kind of like a balancing act.
(37:47):
We've got to keep our eyes on our kids, but
we also have to encourage the adults. Hey, okay, I
need you to vote. Man, I need you not only
to vote, but I need you to be a thought
or voter. I need you to go to to the
Secretary of State website and actually look up who's running. Look,
we see what's on the ballot before you get there.
(38:08):
These are things that it's not information that's hidden from you,
but it's not advertised. And we have to do a
better job of educating. Um, those who are maybe want
to just don't know how to start. Especially our young
people that are just now starting to vote in this
new election. We've got to guide them. Got oh god,
(38:31):
that's that's just a nightmare on top of a nightmare.
And you know, I'm all about bottom line. So the
moment he said that slavery was a choice was that
it was a rap for me. I was drunking. I
was done after that rap. So there's nothing else good
for you that can come from that vein at all.
(38:51):
But that's all, um. I would have to stay on
that we got to do better with this balancing where
we are. Don't forget our kids, is try to move
it forward to the future. We've got to vote these
people out and start a new and pay attention. And
and then one of the things that you as you
were saying, looking at the ballot, go to the Secretary
of state, state site, look at your local elections. And
(39:15):
we've said this many of times, which is why we
brought on part Cannon, who was a local representative I
really and I loved her anyway, but all of those things,
it was because these are the people that are controlling
a lot more than you know. The city council. That
Atlantis council right now is in control o over seventy
three million dollars of our budget and they're talking about
allotting that to the police, are allowing that and not
(39:39):
even having a conversation about why we're doing so. This
is kind of that level of like you have to
pay attention and you have to read those ballots. You
need to pay attention to who's representing you and why,
and if you think you can do it a better job,
please run. I agree, Oh my god, please run. I
will give you money if you I'm just playing. I'm
(40:03):
not playing. But all of those things I love. I
think it's such an important thing, and I would Corney,
this is why I talked to you. And of course
you're doing any But like Courtney and I have been
on this track for the past seven years. You know
each other that. Yeah, we've created our own two person therapy,
trauma therapy UM. So this is where I get my
(40:24):
trauma out. This is where we talk. This is I
think you and I have had the most frank and
honest conversations about not only obviously this, but about race,
about about UM culture, shock, and I being the one
of two Asian people, one of three Asian people in
our agency minority within the minority. But she held it well.
(40:45):
Though she's a strong lady, I'm too sassy. You can't
mess with me. No, you are a word assassin. So
people aren't messing with you too often because they already
know that you are locked and loaded. We do have
a little bit more for you listeners, but first we
have one more cup break for work from our sponsors,
(41:19):
and we're back. Thank you sponsor. Okay, Andie, I'm so sorry,
do you have anything that you want to add as
we have completely overtaken this is what happens that I
love it. It's great. I've I've learned so much. UM.
I did when I touch on UM because we have
done an episode on nonprofits before, and I know that's
not exactly the same as government work, but there are
a lot of similarities. And one of the very uh
(41:41):
disheartening statistics about that is women. There is this really
high rate of burnout. UM. Is that something that you've seen? Yes, UM,
I also worked at a group on before I started
any of business. I was getting my bachelor's. I worked
at a group home and the multiple roles that you
(42:02):
have to play, UM in that is astounding. I was
the weekend living counselor, and that's exactly what I did.
I lived there on the weekend. I was the twenty
four seven type position. I was there with the girls
all day and I was responsible for meals on the weekend.
And if they had a weekend job, I had to
drive them there. If they wanted to go to the
(42:24):
amusement park, I drove them there. I had to issue med's,
make sure that no one was fighting. I had to
make sure no one was in a corner somewhere because
you know there's a lot of gay or to stay
even in the group homes on cabineing. You have to
keep your eyes on so much. And that is the
issue with any type of social service job. You're wearing
more than one hat because there isn't any backup because
(42:46):
the staffing is limited, because most of the funding is
going to keeping that whole thing running, making sure the
girls can have clothes, food, um, getting to UM appointments
and like, yeah, you do receive like your payment from
your dj J and your defects, but you still are
dependent upon donations. And being that this was the Methodist
(43:13):
uh background, we were depended upon donations from the church
and trying to make sure that our girls were presentable
for the ones who chose to go to church and
you know, interacted well with the people in the church.
There's just so much that can go wrong if we
don't meet that donation marker. So and I wasn't really
(43:33):
a part of the you know, with the money and
things like that, but I could see how it affected
us if we didn't get it. So far as um,
what trips we were planning versus what we went last year,
versus where we went the next year, things of that nature,
whether we got the new van or not, or did
we have to stick with the old van and wake
sure that it was fixed. So you know, it's it's
(43:56):
a lot of ah you have. You really do burn
yourself out trying to make sure that you're giving them
everything that you mean, everything that they need and making
sure that you put in your case notes and things
like that. There's a lot of work. And I would
put in that we exhaustion, like the literal exhaustion from
(44:20):
taxing yourself emotionally, whether you're investing in kids and heartbroken
because of death, of failure somehow of um, something going
wrong UM. For us, oftentimes, if a kid became incarcerated
after leaving DJJ, that was like a death almost to us.
We felt that was our failure somehow, and that in
(44:40):
itself was an emotional uh trauma for us. And on
top of that the actual trauma of being attacked, perhaps
are being uh verbally abused, which happened often often UM
or whether or not that you're trying you're doing the
making the best decision, because again this is one of
those things that you never know the best decision. And
(45:01):
for me, as the ending came, I was like, I
am not giving everything I have for this job, and
though you shouldn't have to, because it's still just a
job that in itself causes anxiety and emotional trauma and
physical trauma. To be fair, but when I was working
in Defects, I was had so many panic attacks, I
(45:25):
had so many sleepless nights. I was not it was nightmare.
It was a constant nightmare where I would drive or
have dreams about my kids. And I still actually have
dreams about some of those kids. Um, because you you're
just scared of making the wrong decision, and because lives
are on the line. It's not like we could come
and that even though this is our job, we can
walk away from it. Walking away from it. Maybe that
(45:47):
we've not we've neglected kids somehow in between, that we
left them slip because we had to go to you know,
practice here, or we're trying to live our lives so
we're gonna put our our phone down, and then you
missed that phone call because of ever. And I know
that we didn't as much support as we may have
gotten from our immediate bosses. We weren't supported on the
bigger picture and that's also exhausting in itself. And as
(46:12):
we talk about police being respected in this level and
they're qualified immunity, that's a whole other conversation. I actually
had to take out insurance as a social worker at
Defects just in case I got sued. That was it
so that I could pay the liability. It came out
of my money. So that to me was like, why
wouldn't that be a thing, especially if I'm not the
(46:33):
one that caused it. It's half the times of decisions
are from the higher ups, whether it's our supervisors, whether
it's judges, whether it's court systems, or whether it's you know,
state mandate. There's all of these things. And a part
of that is because we do have to have we
do have cases with mental health issues, and we don't
have any type of resources except for one organization that
(46:55):
can only handle so much. And the severity has to
be so high that they won't type unless it's there.
But it has to get to the already bad point
in order for it to be resolved. And all of
those days caused a lot of burnout. And I think
for women in's self, when you talk about women who
accord you are a caretaker. I'm not necessarily a caretaker
because I got a doggy, but he just can do
(47:18):
like he's thought. She's fine. But being a caretaker on
top of that, that's another reason why burnout happens, because
you're being pulled in so many directions that you're not
able to do your job. And that if you are
someone who is sympathetic and had or an impact that
destroys you, that can literally destroy you physically, emotionally, all
(47:39):
of those ways. Yeah, you know, I'll go all forever.
You gotta have questions, but yeah, and I think, and
that can be any job when you're not satisfied. Unfortunately,
for those in human services and all of those and
counseling you, being disappointed or sad FID often means something
(48:01):
is wrong in the system and other people are in
harm's way. Are being women in this field, we always
do what we have to do anyways, and so we
are teachers, we are mothers, We are the backbones this
whole thing. But we meet help. So any help we
(48:22):
can get, we take good help. That is sometimes the
kind of okay help. We have to settle for the
okay help that brings us to the end. Of this interview.
It was such a delight. I'm so glad that I
got to virtually meet Courtney. I know it made me
(48:44):
happy too. I'm sorry when we get to talking, I
understand it's hard to slow down, especially when we get
really into the issues. And even though like we may
not always agree on like terminology and the back stories,
but we do have a really good open conversation about
what does this look like? How does this look like
when we break it down, even though we may not
be able to implement it, Yeah, we at least have
(49:06):
that conversation and being able to refresh in knowing that
we are in a good headspace. You know, I do
love that she's my girl. I love her so much.
She's fantastic. Love the people I've been working with, just
so you know, everybody, everybody, I just have so much love.
But I also feel very fortunate for the people I
work with. UM and I it was very um enlightening
(49:30):
and important conversation have and I'm glad we had it,
so thank you for arranging it, Samantha. Yeah, if if
any of you listeners have any stories you want to share,
if you're also working in this field or a similar field,
or you know well, we love hearing from you no
matter what. Right tell us what's going on, what your
thoughts are, how you think things could be changing, like,
there's so many ideas that's not being spoken yet. Let
(49:52):
us know what your thoughts are. Yes, yes, please let
us know. You can email us at SEFT Media, mom
Stuff and I hurt Mia dot com. You can find
us on Instagram at stuff I Never Told You or
on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast. Thanks. It's always to
our super producer Andrew Howard. Thanks Andrew, and thanks to
you for listening Stuff I Never Told You this production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart
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