March is Social Work Month. Volunteers of Legal Service celebrates the social workers who are integral to the services we provide to New Yorkers. The National Association of Social Workers has declared that the theme for this year’s annual celebration of social workers is “Social Workers are Essential”. VOLS couldn’t agree more. Civil legal services and social services go hand in hand, and our goal is much the same: that New Yorkers can realize the dignity, security, and opportunity they deserve.
VOLS’ Elderly Project & Veterans Initiative serves low income seniors and veterans in NYC by helping them plan for the future through the preparation of life planning documents including wills, powers of attorney, and other advance directives. We quite literally could not do this work without partnering with social workers. Reaching seniors during a pandemic has been a challenge we must constantly find ways to overcome. Our senior clients are most likely to experience the detrimental effects of the digital divide, and social workers allow us to bridge that gap. We owe much gratitude to the social workers who staff the VA, senior centers, and community-based organizations with whom we work closely to ensure the provision of holistic services to meet our clients’ needs. As Elderly Project Staff Attorneys explain:
“Social workers not only help strengthen the well-being among individuals and families, but also serve as the bridge providing access to services organizations like ours provide. They interact face to face with people, screen and identify the specific situation(s) they are facing to then point them in the right direction to search for the right answers by referring them to service providers like VOLS.”
– Staff Attorney Josias Carrion
“Social workers play an invaluable role in the work of the Elderly Project. By targeting their clients’ legal needs and connecting them to us, they help to bridge what would otherwise be a significant gap in access to legal services for seniors. Their relationships with their clients help to forge this important connection. We are grateful to all the social workers we connect with and could not do our work without them.”
– Staff Attorney Alyssa Villareal
Social workers are also an essential part of our ability to serve immigrants. VOLS’ Immigration Project, Immigrant Justice Corps Legal Fellow Emma Morgenstern explains:
“For us, social workers can be essential in ensuring our clients have access to the services that so frequently are held back from them–accessing assistance from the state, navigating healthcare, and even getting state IDs becomes so much more difficult for those without status or citizenship, and social workers can be the difference makers in those types of situations–in addition to providing essential mental health support to those navigating intentionally traumatizing systems and processes.”
Social workers are also absolutely essential to the Children’s Project. Through the Children’s Project, VOLS and its law firm and corporate partners provide legal advice on a range of issues to parents of NYC school children, and children who are hospitalized. Before the pandemic, volunteers staffed clinics on-site at schools and hospitals. During the pandemic, social workers have been the lynchpin between parents and volunteers – maintaining connections, engaging in outreach, and making sure that parents are aware of the availability of free legal assistance despite our inability to host in-person clinics. The Pro Bono Team at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meager, and Flom LLP, longtime partners on VOLS’ Children’s Project, explain:
“The DREAM School’s social workers are integral to the work that that we do with the Children’s Project. They help us to connect with the parents of students so that we can provide advice regarding their legal issues that may be getting in the way of their child’s learning experience.”
More broadly and in addition to connecting clients to direct services, our social worker partners also enable us to engage in community education. VOLS conducts know your rights presentations on a range of topics – housing, immigration, public benefits, life planning, etc. Social workers help us to build an audience for these presentations by engaging in outreach and encouraging folks to attend these presentations so that they are made aware of their legal rights and current policies affecting their lives profoundly.
VOLS is proud to work alongside our social worker partners to provide holistic services to New Yorkers. We are grateful for the partnership of so many community-based organizations throughout the city that help us to connect with our clients and enable folks to access their legal rights. Happy Social Work Month!
Written by Jess Penkoff, Staff Attorney for Housing Rights and Special Populations at VOLS