Student Center
Social Action is Social Work: An Intern’s Reflections By Leah Russo
I
have always been a loud person. As a kid, I was vocal about my whole grade receiving a punishment of silent lunch because of a few bad actors in my class. I made petitions in elementary school about Tamagotchis and found myself actually having to take on the administration in high school because I wanted to wear pants instead of a dress to graduation. During my undergrad, I found myself leading protests around campus about sexual assault, union contracts, and so many other things. So, macro social work easily became a home for me to express how I felt about the state of the world. I consider myself fortunate to have obtained an internship with the NASW-NJ while I pursue my MSW. Part of that means I have the privilege to go to the State House in Trenton to learn about advocating for legislation and attend rallies around the state to use my voice to speak out against injustice. This summer, I’ve had the opportunity to participate in several rallies with the NASW-NJ team. Our first rally was a same day voter registration rally in Trenton, which I attended with my field supervisor, Jeff. On the ride down, I was super excited to go to my first rally at our state’s capitol. Almost immediately upon our arrival in Trenton, we ran into another social worker. She had taken the day off from her work in
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hospice to come to the rally. We spent the first part of the morning at the masonic temple talking to others who all wanted to use their voice to pass same day voter registration. I got to talking to someone from the NAACP about student loans – what can I say? Students will always bring up student loans and I am not sorry about that. As we chatted with other advocates (and drank some juice boxes) we learned about reasons people had chosen to turn out for the rally. Soon, we made our way down to the capitol annex and talked with the event organizers. They thanked us for coming and for the support of the NASW-NJ and we thanked them for putting on such a great event. We also ran into another social worker who works as a legislative staffer and I spent some time talking with a retired teacher about the importance of interprofessional collaboration between social workers and teachers. As the rally progressed, we heard from legislators, religious leaders, community organizers and more. Not a bad way to spend a Thursday. The following weekend, we participated in a March for Our Lives event put on by the Lesniak Institute. Again, I jumped in the car with Jeff and headed to Roselle. We met with other members of the NASW-NJ staff, our Chapter board, and other social workers. We heard speeches from community organizers and advocates, including our own Jeff Feldman and Widian Nicola,
