Jody Cope’s career trajectory provides proof that a social worker is always a social worker, no matter the job title or practice venue. Even when working mostly with non-social-work colleagues, in an organization few would associate with social work, the commitment to our professional value base, passion for social justice, and insatiable quest for systems that meet people’s needs are not about a job description. Social work is a way of life.
Jody’s MSW practica were in a nonprofit organization that seeks to prevent and respond to sexual violence and in victims’ services with the state’s Department of Corrections. Looking back, she traces the unifying theme: concern for and solidarity with those struggling with trauma after experiencing violence. It was only later that she saw other parallels to her future career journey, where she similarly transitioned from working on the “outside,” in a nonprofit organization that offered considerable autonomy but little institutional power, to fighting from the inside as an agent of large-scale system change.
Newly equipped with an MSW, Jody worked in development at a small child maltreatment prevention organization. She wrote grants, analyzed current and future funding ventures, and researched evidence-based programs to further the agency’s mission—all while maintaining a commitment to the Kansas National Guard. After a few years, as her organization took on an expanded scope of service, Jody worried that her lengthy military absences would interfere with the agency’s progress. So, even though she never imagined she would take a full-time position with the military, she began to consider it. During an extended officer training program, pivotal conversations with colleagues within the Air National Guard prompted her to more seriously consider the opportunities the military afforded to work on her priority issues of social justice and gender equity. Ultimately, the prospect of helping to transform such a large and powerful institution sold her on a career as a social worker within the military. Today, to hear Jody talk about her work, the appeal is evident. Her work puts her at the center of urgent questions about evolving organizational cultures, the clash between individual rights and institutional policies, tensions between personal freedoms and collective commitment that protects them, and the social and psychological costs of postmodern military conflicts.
Some social workers in the military provide family counseling or focus on therapeutic interventions for those recovering from PTSD, but Jody’s daily work focuses on administration. Due to the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act, her office now handles complaints of discrimination among the Kansas National Guard and its federal employees. That means learning case law, studying federal regulations, developing aligned institutional policies, and designing training to diffuse knowledge and change behaviors. More than anything, Jody employs her social work skills to cultivate the most potent catalyst for change that we have: relationships. She meets with her colleagues and commanders, provides a compassionate listening ear to those who come in with complaints, and problem-solves to improve people’s situations. These strong working relationships are particularly valuable now, as recent political changes have created a sense of “whiplash” among the career leaders trying to respond to diverging directives on diversity and inclusion.
The issues that occupy most of Jody’s work energies are the same as one might expect to find in the headlines: questions about the full integration of women into combat roles; the experiences of immigrants serving in the U.S. military; and, especially, institutional conflicts about the rights of transgender service members. In 2020, when National Guard members were tasked with intervening during protests of police violence, Jody grappled with how to ensure that servicemembers of color and others deeply affected by the struggle for racial justice had the support they needed “on the job” —which meant on the front lines of this crucial national dispute. Jody speaks of the military—especially the National Guard—as a flashpoint where diverse groups struggle to coexist, and leaders attempt to build inclusive structures. Because National Guard members mostly only serve one weekend per month, attitude and behavioral changes are sometimes vexingly slow. Jody knows that policy changes may be sanctioned, but it takes transformational practice for other adjustments to evolve with them. This is true of social workers in other fields of practice, too, where our commitment to solidarity with those oppressed and attention to problems powerful stakeholders may rather avoid often bring conflicts with which social workers must contend.
Although Jody sometimes misses the sense of professional ownership and mission that animates many social services, because she is focused on individuals who are disadvantaged and resolutely focused on removing the institutional barriers they encounter, she brings that mission with her. While she did not foresee the venue where she would employ her study of complex bureaucracies, she calls on those insights regularly as she strategizes to create consensus, when others might simply order a new directive. Just within the past year, Jody has pulled out notes from her MSW classes on financial management and program design to determine outcomes by which to evaluate new initiatives and budgets for the personnel that diversity investments will require. Although she sometimes wears a uniform, and while she calls her supervisor a “two-start” and her colleagues “commanders,” Jody is—still and always—a social worker, drawn to her position by the same pull that attracts others to the profession: a chance to make a difference.