Social workers don’t get to look away. And most of them wouldn’t even if they could.
March is Social Work Month, and this year I find myself sitting with something I don’t say out loud often enough: gratitude. Gratitude for this profession. Gratitude for the families who let us into their hardest moments. And gratitude for the people who stand beside me in this work every single day.
Growing up, my parents, immigrants from the Dominican Republic, taught me about the importance of seeing people and their needs. Not only as a lesson in compassion, but as a way of life.Most children hear something like that and carry it loosely.
I took it literally. Completely and entirely literally.
Becoming a social worker twenty-eight years ago taught me that grief, hope, and love can live in the same moment, in the same family, on the same day. It showed me that reunification isn’t a finish line—it’s the beginning. A sacred, complicated, beautiful moment where families need our support more than ever, not less.
Marian Wright Edelman once said, “If you don’t like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time.” That is the quiet motto I have carried for these twenty-eight years without always naming it. And I believe the social workers in this country have changed the world in countless ways that go unseen and unrecognized. But they’re felt by many.
At Families Rising, our mission is to amplify those with lived experience, assist adoptive, foster, and kinship parents, educate child welfare professionals, and champion the well-being of children and families. That is not a tagline. That is what our team does, faithfully and with their whole hearts, every single day.
Nowhere is that more evident than in Minnesota. Families Rising Minnesota provides a statewide network of free support services for adoptive, foster, and kinship families, including one on one parenting support, in-person and online support groups, peer to peer connection, education support, and youth programming. They have served thousands of families across the state. And in recent months, when Minnesota families needed stability and support more than ever, our team showed up. They didn’t flinch. They didn’t slow down. I could not be more proud of every single one of them.
Nationally, it is partners like the Dave Thomas Foundation and the I.A. O’Shaughnessy Foundation who make it possible for us to sustain critical work, including our National Adoption Subsidy Resource Center and Families Rising Academy, resources that families and professionals across the country depend on. I am grateful for every organization that understands that this work cannot wait.
I am endlessly proud of this team and of a board that holds this vision with us, especially when the work gets hard. And right now, the work is hard.
To every social worker reading this: I see you. I know what it costs to do this work well.
Twenty-eight years ago, a little girl who took her parents’ words literally walked into this workforce. She hasn’t left. And she’s not planning to.
Happy Social Work Month. Keep going.
Ligia N. Cushman
CEO, Families Rising