I have spent my career working closely with older adults, individuals with physical disabilities, and those navigating chronic medical conditions. As part of various interdisciplinary teams, I’ve learned that true support is not built in isolation; instead, it’s cultivated through collaboration, meaningful communication, and creative problem-solving.
One experience that profoundly shaped my path was being introduced to Multiple Sclerosis. I became deeply engaged in understanding the disease’s progression and the medical community’s evolving efforts to improve treatment. I firmly believe that advocacy when rooted in medical literacy, system navigation, and human compassion can help clients make empowered, informed decisions. A strong advocate is not just a support figure, but a translator between complex systems and the very personal realities of illness.
I’ve come to understand that access to home care, specialists, equipment, benefits is about much more than logistics. It’s about people’s why. Their reason for choosing to keep going. When systems honor a person’s preferences and goals, we uphold their humanity. As social workers, we are not just care coordinators, we build bridges. We ensure the voices of those we serve are not only heard, but integrated into every decision made about their care.
Our mission is to promote autonomy, elevate dignity, and facilitate pathways for people to thrive on their terms. That means encouraging people to focus on their strengths and goals, rather than reducing them to diagnoses or deficits. Advocacy also includes fighting for the tools and resources like mobility equipment or community support that enable people to remain active and joyful.
I often return to the words of disability rights scholar Irv Zola (1986), who urged us to rethink dependency and instead honor interdependence. He said:
"Interdependence is not measured by how many tasks one can perform alone, but by the quality of life one can achieve with support."
Yet in today’s healthcare system, we’re losing that thread. Our focus has shifted toward reducing costs, minimizing hospitalizations, and increasing efficiency. And while these are important goals, we are sacrificing something vital:
the soul of our work
Every day, I see lists of phone calls unreturned to us and from us. I see members waiting for updates on their wheelchairs, home care hours, or essential supplies. I see caregivers holding their breath, wondering if help will arrive in time. I walk home thinking about what wasn’t done and not out of guilt, but out of a profound understanding that what’s undone affects someone’s life.
Instead of centering care, we are centering charts. Meetings. Metrics. We say we are "person-centered," but the people we serve are often the last to be asked how they want to be supported. The work has become paperwork. But social work should never be about checkboxes; instead, it needs to be about connection.
We have to ask:
how can we turn our jobs into better representations of who we are?
When the first iPod was introduced, it transformed the way people accessed music. No longer were listeners limited to a single artist or CD. They had thousands of songs at their fingertips that were waiting to be personalized, and portable. That’s what transformed the experience. And that’s the kind of personalization our systems need.
Because our clients aren’t statistics. They’re people. And people remember how you made them feel whether you followed through, whether you listened, whether you cared.
Right now, too often, we’re sleepwalking. Taking calls but not hearing the voices. Saying “we’ll follow up” but never return them. We cannot afford to sleepwalk as our profession built on human need. Let us stop surviving bureaucracy and start living our values.
If we truly want to improve outcomes, let’s start by improving relationships. Minimize caseloads. Maximize time. Understand not just symptoms, but stories. Let us learn the "why" behind someone's habits. Let us use technology not to replace connection, but to enhance it and to build bridges, not walls.
The secret to this job is not compliance. It’s care.
Let us stop pretending success is found in numbers alone. True success lies in knowing one member felt seen, one caregiver felt heard, one family felt supported.
Let’s spark a revolution not of metrics, but of meaning. Let our meetings be spaces for co-creation. Let our reports reflect not just outcomes, but insights. Let us reclaim our time to follow up, to advocate, to honor the lives we are entrusted with.
Because one relationship at a time can change the system.
Let this be our call to action:
We are here to serve with purpose, with presence, and with power.