Smith College School for Social Work

SSW is excited to announce that Kristina Domaney, M.S.W. ’24 and current student Antara Anand have been awarded the 2025 Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (BPSI) Social Work Grant Award. Read more here: https://buff.ly/4gEory4

This first #MSWMonday of 2025, meet Dakota Young, M.S.W. '25! Dakota is building clinical skills at a community mental health clinic with adolescents. Her advice? Step outside your comfort zone in practicum—you’ll grow in ways you never imagined. Does your practicum placement align specifically with your career goals? If not, can you share how what you’re learning informs how you engage with or practice social work? My goal as a social worker has always been to work with adolescents. When I found the MA state Adolescent Addiction internship opportunity, I was eager to take it in service of those goals. My internship site is a community mental health clinic. I had never imagined myself doing strictly outpatient therapy, but there is no place better to learn and improve your clinical skills and I find myself growing every day as a clinician. What’s one piece of advice you’d like to share about practicum placement? Even if you know exactly the kind of work you want to do or what setting you want to do it in, I urge you to choose one placement that is outside of that comfort zone. You'll learn so many different things than you imagined, and the skills you bring back to your chosen path will be worth the experience. Why is clinical social work important, for you and your community? My mental health, and that of my friends and family, is shaped by our environment and circumstances now more than ever, in ways that can't always be solved by breathing exercises or self-reflection. Clinical social work pairs the hard self-work of therapy with a commitment to action, and acknowledges the ways that our environments shape us as well as the ways we can be empowered to shape our environment.  What was the most challenging moment from your time at Smith so far? Honestly, being a second year and balancing my practicum, my CBARE (Community Based Anti-Racism Experience), and my home responsibilities and paying job is exhausting. While the work itself is fulfilling and energizing, I look forward to a day when I can do it in better balance with my life, other things that bring me joy, and a living wage. Photo 2) Dakota at @MassMoCa Photo 4) Dakota at the Smith College Botanic Garden annual Bulb Show.

With winter solstice just passed and the days getting lighter, enjoy this #throwback to the Summer Solstice Festival: Stories of the Land, Resistance and Solidarities organized by the Anti-Racist Planning Group. Day 1 used the Beehive Design Collective’s Mesoamerica Resiste graphics as a backdrop with storytelling by students, faculty and community members. Day 2 featured artwork by Native American and Indigenous artists at the Smith College Museum of Art with a special installation created by Charlene Shang Miller, educator for academic programs. In the afternoon, a celebration of Lakota heritage focused on the changing of the seasons, led by Lushanya Echeverria, Ed.D. who facilitated storytelling, songs, a friendship dance and water blessing.  Photos 1-4 from Rose Marie Aikas, adjunct professor and co-organizer of this event Photos 5-9 by Shana Sureck Photography

Kai Pratt, M.S.W. '25 was looking to deepen his community healing skills with clinical training, and had friends who had attended the M.S.W. program. After looking into it, he realized the curriculum had a lot of what he wanted to be learning. “I think it’s a degree that offers a fuller picture of systems and how systems operate outside of a person but influence a person,” Pratt said. “We’re looking at class differences, we’re looking at systemic racism, we’re looking at carceral systems.” Read more here: https://buff.ly/3AeLAXX

Meet Cam Blair, M.S.W. '25. Advice for practicum: advocate for your needs! Does your practicum placement align specifically with your career goals? If so, how? It does! My current plans are to attain my LCSW and eventually pursue further psychoanalytic training. I work in a hospital setting where I conduct intakes, offer individual therapy, and facilitate a few different types of groups. There’s also a big focus on documentation and case formulation.  What’s one piece of advice you’d like to share about practicum placement? Advocate for your needs, with Smith and your agency. As interns, it’s easy to get into a “pay your dues” mindset. But we are students paying for a particular learning experience.  What makes you excited about becoming a clinical social worker? I like doing work that feels meaningful to others and myself on a day in and day out basis. I also love that therapy can be artful and feels like a craft. As an SSW student, what have you been most excited about this year I’m looking forward to writing my major case study. I think I learn the most during deep projects like those. I love my classes in the summer but they can feel a bit fast-paced. If you could learn to do anything, what would it be? I think it would be pretty cool to learn how to design and build a house. Photo 1) Cam and Sarah Joyce, M.S.W. ‘25 Photo 2) Cam and co-interns Briana and Sean Photo 3) Cam eating a kiwi at his desk.

Looking back on an inspiring fall, we’re celebrating the impactful work of SSW faculty and doctoral students at the 2024 CSWE Annual Program Meeting. From decolonizing social work education to community healing after family separation, our community shared research that’s advancing social work with a social justice lens. Here’s to ending the year reflecting on the powerful connections and knowledge shared this fall. Photo 1: Professor Kenta Asakura, M.S.W. '04, editor-in-chief and Maria Ximena Maldonado-Morales, doctoral student and editorial assistant of the Studies in Clinical Social Work journal. Photo 2: Cheryl Aguilar, doctoral student who presented and received an award at CSWE 2024 taking a selfie with a friend. Photo 3: The selfie! Read about it here: https://buff.ly/41Zcoan

Sydney Voelbel, M.S.W. '25, is an intern with Baystate Health’s Pediatric Palliative Care unit, where she supports families facing life-altering illnesses through home visits alongside comprehensive care teams. Her experience is expanding her passion for medical social work and she's seeing the impact social workers can have in tough situations. “I love my experience at Smith,” Sydney says, highlighting the support from her professors and peers that makes this journey so rewarding. Read more about her work here: https://buff.ly/3DoId1K Photo 1: Kate Krieder, M.S.W. '18 (left) and Sydney Voelbel Photo 2: Sydney at a home visit during her internship with Baystate Health's Pediatric Palliative Care unit Photo 3: Sydney conducts a home visit alongside her supervisor, Kate Krieder, M.S.W. '18 left)

Ph.D. student Cheryl Aguilar shares her work on The Hope Dealer podcast.

How do traditional boundary norms in social work impact care? In the new special journal issue Queering Clinical Social Work Praxis, Frances Beroset, Michael Carney, Yuri Shane, Ford Fishman and Chungyun Seo, all M.S.W. '23, explore how rigid standards often prioritize institutions over relationships. Through reflections and vignettes with queer, trans, and racial minority clients, they imagine new ways to center care, empower clients, and resist restrictive norms. "'Something There is That doesn’t Love a Wall': Notes on the Limits of Risk-Based Boundary Norms in Clinical Social Work" is open access until December 31. Read it here: https://buff.ly/4foIQG1

“I love supporting individuals with severe mental illness in their recovery to regain autonomy. You get what you get, you see what you see,” LaToya Lopez, M.S.W. '18, said of her chosen client population. LaToya is making a difference as the program director of San Francisco’s Mental Health Rehabilitation Center (MHRC), helping clients reframe their thoughts and move toward recovery. Read more about her impactful work: https://buff.ly/3Dg6vuU