“Empowering Youth through Social Work and Prevention: A Conversation with Caitlin Alfonso”
[00:00:08] Jake White: Welcome back, everyone to the Party Talk podcast, where we empower leaders in youth drug prevention. And today, I’m super excited. We have my friend, Caitlin Alfonso here on the call with us. And we’re just going to chat about life, about work, about impact, and what took her into this role, and everything like that. But Caitlin, will you just go ahead and give us the good old intro?
[00:00:29] Caitlin Alfonso: Yes, hi, I’m so excited to be here. So I have been in the social work field for over 10 years. And I’ve done some really awesome like youth programming in different areas, including like juvenile detention and parks and recreation. And currently, and I’ve been in the public school setting now for about four school years. So that’s where I’m at currently.
[00:00:53] Jake White: And what got you into this work? Why did you decide to go into that?
[00:00:56] Caitlin Alfonso: I fell in love with working with teens very early on in my career. So I was still in college, when I got offered, the opportunity to go into programming at the juvenile detention center. And I always knew I wanted to be in a helping like profession. I grew up with a sister with disabilities. And so I just really knew that that was where I wanted to go. And just support people and help them reach their potential. So I fell into social work with that mindset. And then really fell in love in particular with adolescents and youth. And so I started out in juvenile detention, and really met some amazing youth that had some incredible stories. And from there really explored, working and building programs in particular that helps them begin to overall reach their potential and follow their dreams in different areas. And so when I returned back to Arizona, the opportunity came to be at a high school setting. And I thought, well, that what I haven’t actually been, I’ve worked with tons of high school students, but never with them day to day in the school setting. And so I jumped on that opportunity when it came. And here we are.
“The Evolving Role of Social Work: From Non-Traditional Settings to School Support”
[00:02:13] Jake White: I’m curious from a point of learning because you’re really smart and really thoughtful. So is there a part when you think about mental health? And you think about prevention, and bringing out the best in people? Is there a part in there that really sparks your interest, and you love talking about and sharing about?
[00:02:37] Caitlin Alfonso: A part of mental health and youth prevention. It’s really interesting for me, I think everything’s connected. So we get into these conversations and dialogues. And it’s this category in this category. And for me, I see everything as just flowing, from one thing into the next and back to the other, and it’s very organic. And so what excites me about these conversations is that they’re so multi layered.
[00:03:06] Jake White: Cool. I would agree with you, 100%. And let’s say someone says, no, they’re not connected, like, “What are you talking about, Caitlin?” These are separate things. What would you say to that? Like, is there an example or something that you’re like, hey, this is connected to this is connected to this?
[00:03:31] Caitlin Alfonso: In general, I know, this is a larger scale. But I think that when I talk with my students at my university, for example, and their upcoming social workers, for a long time, the dialogue was that there’s policy social work, and there’s clinical social work and you are in clinical, or you’re in the ground, and that’s where you really work with mental health. But we’re seeing right now, across the nation, different legislation being put and so, when you look at it from that big game, that big scale, everything that’s happening at the very top really does impact what’s happening on the clinical level. And so you can’t really say that they’re separate anymore, because each decision impacts the other, the clinical data goes, is supposed to be going and driving the policies. But if the policy doesn’t consider the data, then they’re making new legislations and policies that impact how our professionals are working in the field to support people.
[00:04:31] Jake White: That’s fascinating. And, again, I would actually agree with you 100%. Because in our field, with prevention and social work and emotional health, is that is the outcome of a different problem or a separate problem. Like you said, they’re all connected, so the foundation might be a trauma that happened, or a relationship that is toxic. Maybe five years ago when I was doing this work, I would always talk with school counselors. Those are the people that wanted to work with me and bring me in for speaking engagements. And more recently, I’ve been noticing more titles of school social worker, all around the nation, which is very good. That’s a great thing to see. And I want to dive into your experience a little bit and ask you, as far as the support, or like the landscape on the each area where you were a social worker. What was it like in those different areas? If you have an opinion on, the difference, what it was like?
[00:05:44] Caitlin Alfonso: The interesting thing is, I was reflecting on this not too long ago, because I realized part of the common thing in my career path is, I’ve been the first social worker to enter into a lot of non traditional settings. So for instance, I worked in parks and recreation for a county in Florida. And so I did youth programming out there, and I was a social worker, and in parks and recreation, like why? And so I’m building up this program to support for teens across the county and this internship program, and really doing that. And I realized at that time, this was in the 2000s, they didn’t have a child abuse policy. And this was a Parks and Recreation Center that had, the most children enrolled in after school care, and they’re mandated reporters, but they technically still in the 2000s, did not have a policy for child abuse reporting. And so that was a really interesting thing for me to go in and be like I’m the only social worker. But really, Y’all been working with kids for this long, like, why and so it’s taking that step back. And so then to come in to the school setting. And, come in at a time, especially at the high school level, they’ve been at the younger at the elementary school levels, in my particular district for a while, but they haven’t really been at the high school level. At one point in time, there might have been a little bit of coverage, but for the majority of it, this role hasn’t existed at the high school level. And so coming in, and really supporting people and understanding what social work is, how we can support in these different fields, and what exactly we can, our skill set, inception and do to support our community is really important. But that’s definitely been a common thread in my personal career is moving into these non traditional roles and making space for social workers truly.
“Supporting Students in Crisis: A Glimpse into the Overwhelming Challenges They Face”
[00:07:58] Jake White: And can you talk a little bit about with your experience lately, what are students going through that you’re seeing, maybe this generation, or these last couple of years as there any common themes of what the students are facing?
[00:08:11] Caitlin Alfonso: I would love to say that there’s common themes. But it’s everything, life’s been hard lately for so many people, for so many reasons. And I’ve realized, and again, I’m a big data person. So I’ve always tracked numbers of how many, that’s something that we do as well, but we track how many students would typically see in a day, and that number has climbed every single year, this year has not even ended, I’ve already surpassed what the amount of students in actual crisis that I had last year. I almost hit that number in one semester. Then this semester alone, I had 100 students in crisis in my office in 20 days when we came back from Christmas. It is a lot. So it’s diverse. It’s everything.
[00:09:11] Jake White: That is insane to say that you’ve surpassed the previous year in one semester, and to hit 100 in 20 days, did I hear that right? 100 Students coming into your office in crisis in 20 days.
[00:09:30] Caitlin Alfonso: Yes. And that crisis can literally range from my family, I need a food bag or some have a basic need with clothing or school supplies, all the way to we’ve lost her housing or there the police were at my house where I need to, I was sexually assaulted or whatever the need is, my my parent died, we’ve lost a pet, like all these different types of things, whatever it is, crisis really is the perception of the person. So it’s not for me to say, well, this isn’t a true crisis like, this is lesser, if our emotions and that’s our realities, I’m in crisis, then we are in a state of crisis.
“Supporting Students in Crisis and Fostering Prevention”
[00:10:22] Jake White: So how can you possibly serve that many students? How could you do that? Or what did you do? I’m so curious, how do you handle that?
[00:10:35] Caitlin Alfonso: It’s the million dollar question. I don’t think that there’s a good answer. So the ratios are still very unrealistic at most schools. And when you’ve got one person to the whole student body, for me, that’s over 2000 students, the reality is, I’m not supporting every single student, the reality is, I may see one student, that I typically only see students in crisis, maybe one time ever. And so that’s a huge area that we need to have growth in, is we have the numbers the same year in this level of crisis, we need more supports, it’s just getting the advocacy there to, the funding, all the things that come with that, because it’s truly not possible to serve students, the way that they deserve to be and it is one of the things that’s very tough to go, knowing at the end of the day that you still saw seven to 10 kids. But there’s still so many more out there, or the next day, it’s seven to 10 different kids, different crisis, different day, and there’s not a lot of ability to do follow up. And that’s challenging, because if you have a student come in and say, I’m struggling with substance use, and you want to be able to get them resources, and then follow up and say, how did that go? Have you been connected? And then that follow up is the part that often falls through the cracks. So the initial ability to help maybe there, it’s the follow up, that makes it even more challenging. And you’re constantly trying to just sneak them in when, I think we might have a low moment. Let me go to my list and see who I need to follow up with. And who’s that priority there to make sure that XYZ happens. But that is the big challenge.
[00:12:29] Jake White: I can imagine if I were in your shoes, yes, I would be asking for, can I have budget, or another person like myself on campus, maybe a part time person to follow up and see if they need another appointment or a time to chat or just to ask, Hey, did you follow up with this resource to remind the student or their parents, if you’re allowed to do that, or anything, but like you said, that comes with the school board or someone has to approve this, and you have to get funding. And I imagined too that, as more and more students come into your office, and like you said, you’re collecting data, there’s maybe part of your mind to say, Okay, we need these resources to deal with the crisis. And then we need these resources to pour into prevention to help before this gets out of hand for the rest of the student body. And that’s, again the whole picture, it’s holistic health, it’s holistic prevention and response.
[00:13:37] Caitlin Alfonso: Absolutely, the prevention bit is definitely my passion. But realistically, that gets shifted very much instead, just constant crisis intervention. So at that point, we’re looking at students already struggling or already something traumatic has happened or is in the works. We’ve missed that prevention window. We’ve created some spaces, my school particular, like a mindfulness center, and things like that, that was highly developed with vary prevention with the prevention specific lens, and we had a big vision for the space, and then COVID happens. And so, as the crisis levels went up, the ability to do prevention has definitely decreased. And we just don’t have the personnel to be able to do it. And so yes, absolutely. I think the number one thing that can really help with schools right now is to be able to get these mental health crises supported and family supported in this way. But the challenge is, is that it’s already a new role. They’ve worked well enough without this role. There’s all these different arguments and different perspectives and things happening. That gridlock the money and the ability to get that extra personnel. Which is unfortunate.
[00:15:10] Jake White: So, I want to end our time together to talk for five or six minutes on some of the things that you are really proud of that you did, or ideas that you implemented that you’re just like, that is so cool that we did that, or just personal stories that make you hopeful and that people might be able to steal from you and say, I could do that.
[00:15:37] Caitlin Alfonso: So I mentioned, our mindfulness center, and a lot of schools in particular, have created beautiful, Great Spaces for that. And so even though they may not be being able to be utilized, as much as I know, many of us want them to be are in a capacity, I am still super excited to see that these spaces exist in schools. And to know that, that’s one of the things that I was involved with, as well. But my number one thing that I’m proud of with my school, in particular, is a space that we developed that actually addresses the basic needs of a student and their family. So we got a grant to start a closet that has shoes, clothing, hygiene products, and school supplies, and it is my favorite place on campus. It’s like an actual boat’s heat, we created it with the idea that there was to be no shame involves, no matter what the circumstances were, you are cared for you deserve, nice, comfortable things. And so we made it into this beautiful boutique. And it’s got fitting room in there, it’s cool. And so we took over that, and it’s just amazing space. But what makes it so awesome, too. And, I hope other people can implement this in their spaces as well. By this multi layered, so not only does it serve students who may be experiencing, and families may be experiencing homelessness due to fires or domestic violence situations, or losses of incomes, or things like that, if we also built in the factor for students to be able to volunteer in the space and get their hours. So COVID took away a lot of those opportunities for students to go off campus and get that volunteer time for applications and scholarships, things like that. So we wanted to bring that to be accessible back at our school. So our space is mostly run by youth volunteers and students at our school, which is really cool. In addition, we made sure that we brought in students that maybe don’t get as many opportunities to participate.
And so all of our clothing is actually processed, once of our student volunteers process everything, like what are we going to keep? What are we going to donate back out, which when we donate items that mainly don’t fit our, so we go back through and we make it very specific to certain shelters in our community and things like that, we go through donations a couple of times to make sure people are getting the things that are appropriate. But our life skills students, students in our special ed department actually come in and wash the clothes and practice folding them, bring them back up, and they make our space run smoothly because we could not do without them. And they come in and just bring everything back, beautifully folded. And we just flip it around the shelves and all these things. So our fashion design club is has done things where they come in and change the mannequins because I have zero patience for those mannequins and their arms falling off. They come in and take care of that for me and for us and then we have our clubs, our clubs do donation drives for us, we have amazing community partners that come in and they’re really proud of our space. And so we have been able to do so much with that closet and have been able to impact over 65 families this year through that. So it’s a really exciting, it’s probably my favorite project that I’ve been able to be a part of and support at my particular school and I just get so excited each time i think about it and its impact, so I hope others can do it and know that it bring so much joy and happiness in the middle of all the chaos and sometimes sad news but it’s awesome.
[00:19:47] Jake White: Wow. Honestly, I’m a little teary. Just hearing you talk about that is the coolest thing and I love how the students are involved in running the whole thing from the washing of the clothes to running the center. To choosing the different things, to having food like clothes drives. What a good way to rally around your community and make students feel loved and cared for. And what I want to bring out too is, it comes back to your point of, it’s linked. Like if a student comes to school without socks or shoes, or they’re feel like, I don’t have what’s necessary, is they’re going to worry about that the entire day, they’re not taking in information, they might not be learning at their highest capacity. And it’s going to affect the school culture. And you’re learning objectives as a teacher. And some of the schools will say, I don’t have time for prevention, we’ve got to increase our literacy literacy rate, or we’ve got to decrease suicide rates. And your like, these things are absolutely connected by the safety of our students, and how well they’re provided for at home, and at school. I’m so proud. And this has been awesome Caitlin, thank you so much for doing this show with me, before we end, is there anything else that you’d like to share, knowing that prevention professionals from across the US are open to listen to this. And they might hear you. Is there anything that you could say to them that might help them? Or advice?
[00:21:29] Caitlin Alfonso: I know these are tough times. And everyone’s out there grinding and do really good work and just serving people in so many different beautiful ways and that sometimes it constantly with things the way they are right now, you feel like we’re not hitting that bar sometimes and doing enough, that can be very challenging. So I don’t have any way to fix out. It’s something that there’s days I definitely have that feeling. But my big thing is always, we all got to make space for that self care. Because that’s, so critical for mental health or physical health. And I’m glad the conversations are kicking up around self care more, people are embracing it more, because I just feel it’s so critical. And finding the things that bring you joy, so that you can refill your cups and continue to do the things that you love as well for others.
[00:22:25] Jake White: There you go. That’s another episode of Party Talk where we empower leaders in youth drug prevention. And Caitlin Alfonso, thank you so much for being on. We’ll see y’all next time on the Party Talk podcast.
