News Archive
Alumni
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At the beginning of February 2020, Jesiah Ahlemeier, MSW ’16, began working in the ICU at M Health Fairview St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Paul, Minnesota as a case manager and discharge planner. Within a month, she was in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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In ordinary times, hospice social worker Andrea Nava is what people would call a “hugger.” The USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work alumna maintains a warm closeness with her clients and their families, and those familial displays of affection are part of the regular day.
But during the COVID-19 pandemic, which has hospice care agencies and nursing care facilities enforcing strict social distancing policies to minimize the risk of infection, Nava has had to adapt.
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MSW alumna of the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, Megan Ford (name has been changed to protect anonymity), works the graveyard shift at a Los Angeles County hospital, five days a week. She has been a medical social worker for 17 years, and under more stress in the last six weeks than over her entire career.
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In March 2020, Los Angeles Councilmember Gil Cedillo asked Jose Ruiz, MSW ’17, if he could upscale his community garden to provide 300 Emergency Grab-n-Go food bags each week to respond to the COVID-19 crisis. Ruiz had just last year taken .16 acres of space in the Westlake neighborhood of Downtown Los Angeles and created a farming community.
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Even as the COVID-19 pandemic has changed much about our daily lives, the rhythms of life and death continue.
Christian Diaz, MSW ’13, a medical social worker at a hospital serving the San Gabriel Valley in Los Angeles County, helps patients and their families cope with some of life’s most challenging moments.
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The USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work has many alumni working on the front lines in hospitals across the country. Allison Trapp (name has been changed to protect anonymity) MSW alumna, has been a social worker for almost 20 years. She works in a hospital ICU in the southern United States.
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As an emergency room social worker, Veronica Annette Acosta, MSW ’17, provides emotional support for families of patients who have passed away. Under normal circumstances, these conversations happen about five times a month. Under COVID-19, she is having them four times a day.
“It is extremely overwhelming,” said Acosta. “It is starting to take an emotional toll.”
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Dave Leon, MSW ’03, was working at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services as a therapist and case manager for young adults aged 18-30, after graduating from the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work. It was during this time that he first began to think about the concept that would become Painted Brain.
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Spend any time talking to Chelsea Bowers, MSW ’17, and her passion for helping others is crystal clear.
The graduate of the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work is the director of public affairs for City Net, a nonprofit in Orange County focused on ending street-level homelessness.
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As the disaster management program manager at LAC+USC Medical Center, USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work nursing alumna Kellyn Pak is ensuring health care workers receive the resources they need.