By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
Worker shortages have become a real struggle in the economy and some worker shortages extend well beyond any financial considerations.
Missouri Western State University believes that is the case in Social Work and hopes its new master’s program will fill the growing need.
Associate Professor of Social Work, Jana Frye, says Missouri Western prepares its students to address the physical, emotional, and mental needs of the populace.
“We work with people from the day they’re born until the day they die and every day in between,” Frye tells host Barry Birr on the KFEQ Hotline. “Since COVID has happened and even prior to that, we have really started to acknowledge people’s issues in this world. We’re starting to recognize that mental health is significant and that we have to face those facts.”
Missouri Western has had a bachelor’s program in Social Work on the St. Joseph campus since 1977. The master’s program began a little over a year ago.
Frye says there are a variety of jobs available for the graduate of the Social Work program, including in government, non-profits, and even in the business world.
Social Work Professor, Pam Clary, says the program has developed and grown over the years in an attempt to address the issues that can lead to emotional and mental distress.
“We changed the question from what’s wrong with you to what has happened to you?” Clary says.
Clary says Missouri Western is in a prime position to address the needs of rural communities, which are too often neglected.
Clary says social workers often work with a team to address people in crisis.
“Our job is really to look at where can we help them, empower them, not do the work for them, but to empower them to better their lives,” according to Clary.
Frye says a social worker seeks to meet the needs of individuals and families that find themselves in stressful situations.
“As a frontline social worker, because I was in the field for a long time before I became a professor, and I worked in child welfare,” Frye says. “So, I worked with foster children, I worked with kids who had been removed from their home. I also worked with families who were struggling and just trying to keep their children with them, trying to stay in their homes, trying to be able to provide food and day care and all of those things that they needed.”
Missouri Western has received funding from the state to expand its Social Work program.
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