Editor’s Reflection
In August I will be starting my 11th year at the WVU School of Social Work. Over these past 10 years I have had the pleasure of meeting, working with and teaching a phenomenal group of students. The scope and context of their practice is varied. And from what I have witnessed, many have become excellent social workers.
Two extraordinary young women came to mind as I thought about writing an article featuring our BSW Alumni. They graduated with their BSW degrees in 2007 and 2008. Through the magic of social media, I have been able to stay in contact with them and follow their personal and professional journeys. I am sure you will be as proud of them as I am when you read their stories.
BSW Alumni Spotlight – A Tale of Two Friends
Caitlin and Courtney
Courtney Tokgoz (Alfieri)
1. When did you graduate from WVU?
I graduated from WVU with my BSW in May of 2007.
2. Where did you do your BSW Field Placement and how did that lead to your first job after school?
My field placement was at Head Start in Monongalia County. It was an amazing placement. I learned case management with low-income and/or special needs children and their families. I served as a liaison between the school and the home. I conducted monthly parents meetings and assisted in home visits. I established healthy and positive relationships with parents and their children. I developed family partnership goals with parents and assisted the families to achieve these goals. I designed a fatherhood initiative program and event. And I served as a link between the families and community resources. It was a great placement and provided me with a good foundation for my social work career.
3. Tell me about your work after you completed your BSW.
I have worked with my agency, Providence House Domestic Violence Services for the past 6 years. I have been promoted a few times and feel now that I really found my calling in my relatively new role which I received after I finished graduate school. My current position is a very unique position that was just created a few years ago. I am the second person ever hired for this position in my county. My role is Domestic Violence Liaison between the Department of Child Protection and Permanency (DCPP) and Providence House.
What I do:
• Partner with DCPP caseworkers on site and on home visits.
• Provide Clinical Domestic Violence assessments, DCPP child safety protection and case plans.
• Assist with Domestic Violence safety planning and advocacy for the non-offending parent.
• Through case consultation and staff presentation, I educate and mentor DCPP local office staff in the their efforts to identify individual needs and offer appropriate interventions to address those needs for victims of emotional, mental, physical, sexual and financial abuse.
• Model best practices in working with families experiencing domestic violence and help facilitate family team meetings.
• Offer the training “Maintaining Offender Accountability: Working with Men Who Batter.”
There are many wonderful rewarding things about the work. The truth is domestic violence does not discriminate, it happens in every sexual orientation, racial and ethnic community, as well as in every socioeconomic group. The goal is to help empower our clientele. However, there is a large amount of reunifications with the batterer and that can be disheartening at times. I try to think that maybe they have taken a tool they have learned when working with us that may increase their safety next time. I find being genuine works well. I seem to get through talking about all the concerns but I am really conscious about never pushing them to leave if they are not ready.
4. What made you decide to attend Monmouth University for your MSW?
I went to Monmouth because they have a really great Clinical Practice with Families and Children MSW program. It was a reasonable commute and they had a part-time program which I needed because I continued to work full-time to keep our health benefits. I graduated in January of 2012 with my MSW. I have my LSW and will be taking my LCSW exam in a few weeks. I will not have all of my clinical hours completed until January 2015 but I am very excited to be “almost done” with the clinical hours piece.
5. Tell me about your friendship with Caitlin and how you have stayed in contact since you left WVU.
Caitlin is my best friend. She is one of the funniest, kindest, and compassionate people I know. We hit it off immediately at WVU and we promised to never lose touch after school and we have worked hard to bridge those gaps in geography. We see each other at least once or twice a year and speak weekly on the phone. I have recently returned from visiting her in Colorado where she is finishing her MSW. We had so much fun and she took me on quite an adventure.
We have both fell in love with men from other countries – which we think is funny because it is very “social worky” of us. We both appreciate learning about different cultures and I think we both have the power to look beyond the initial differences and focus on the similarities. Funny enough, I met my husband at the gym 6 years ago. I’m not one who frequents the gym very often but when I would go we always seemed to bump into each other. We made small talk for a long time here and there and finally I asked him to go grab a drink. He took the bait and here we are now married 5 years this August 19th! His name is Ilkay and he is a very good man and makes me laugh every day. He is Turkish born but came to high school here in New Jersey. He has a very thick accent but speaks amazing English. He actually speaks Turkish, Spanish and English. He owns his own painting business and works really, really hard. He is a diehard soccer player and fan. He plays every Friday night on a team not far from our home. He’s super supportive of my work and really encouraged me to go back to school. It was a hard decision to make because graduate school was very expensive, but we somehow made it work. We bought a house in November of 2013. It is expensive to live here in Jersey – but we searched and saved and finally made it happen. We live 6 miles from the beach now and luckily did not buy before Hurricane Sandy destroyed our area. They are building things here better and stronger so we lucked out there. Things are getting back to normal 2 years after the storm. We love the area and would not trade it for anything. We love being so close to the beach.
Caitlin and I have been skyping and I am so happy for her with her wonderful opportunity in Brazil. Her boyfriend, Daniel is a great guy and he and Caitlin were able to attend our wedding. I can’t wait until she calls me to tell me she’s engaged so we can head to Brazil for her wedding.
Thanks so much for thinking of us – This was a great opportunity!
Ilkay and Courtney Tokgoz
Caitlin Delich
1. When did you graduate from WVU?
I graduated from WVU with my BSW in May 2008
2. Where did you do your BSW internship and how did that lead to your first job after school?
My BSW placement was with Family Links at the Children’s Treatment Center in Pittsburgh, PA. I was hired by Family Links upon graduation and remained with them until the Children’s Treatment Center closed about one year later. The Clinical Supervisor at my internship was a great mentor and I still carry with me the strength based approach that she modeled with each kid she worked with.
3. Tell me about your work in Pittsburgh – what you did – what you found most challenging and rewarding?
After my time at Family Links, I began volunteering at Global Solutions Pittsburgh to gain experience in the field of international human rights. Through that experience I was introduced to The Pittsburgh Darfur Emergency Coalition (PDEC) and began working with some refugees from Darfur who were living locally in Pittsburgh. That experience was amazing for me and launched my passion and desire for social work practice with refugee populations.
As a refugee caseworker it was very rewarding to be a part of a system that aims to restore dignity and give basic human rights to individuals that have been treated as subhuman by their own and other countries.
The most rewarding part of working in refugee resettlement is to witness how oppressed individuals blossom and succeed when they are given the opportunity to do so. It was an honor to support individuals through many “firsts” in the United States. For example, to accompany a nearly blind man to pick up his first pair of glasses that allows him to see again, to provide a family of five with a home where they can feel safe for the first time in years, to give a wheelchair to a woman that has spent the last 10 years laying on a mat in her family’s hut because of her disability, to stock a person’ home with fresh vegetables and fruit when they are accustomed to being rationed rotten food, or to be the first face that a refugee sees when they get off the plane and arrive in the United States after leaving everything they know behind. I loved this work, every day was filled with experiences just like these. I was able to honor social work values each day.
The most challenging part of refugee casework was gaining an understanding of each culture that I worked with. Finding ways to teach, motivate and gain trust within each culture was sometimes a pattern of trial and error for me. I had to find balance between helping refugees assimilate and honoring their own culture. Our agency was fortunate to have strong relationships with leaders from each refugee group. We were able to consult with these leaders for cultural expertise and guidance on some tough ethical dilemmas.
4. What made you decide to go to Colorado for your MSW?
I decided to go to the University of Denver Four Corners Program in Durango, Colorado for the opportunity to work with Native American populations and learning more about the different cultures in the Four Corners region of the United States. I also found the size of the program appealing. With only 26 of us there was space for more personal relationships between faculty and students. I was also drawn to the program because it was located in a small town in the Rocky Mountains. The recreational opportunities were endless! I knew the setting would make for great self-care opportunities!
5. Tell me a little about your program – what was the focus of your studies?
My program had an unexpected clinical focus. As an advanced standing student I was not able to have an impact on the decision making process where the first year students decided what they would focus on. This was a struggle for me as I am more interested in macro social work practice. The University accommodated my interests by allowing me to complete several self-directed studies. Through my directed studies I was able to focus on policy and immigration. Most of my research was on refugee resettlement and the undocumented immigrant populations in the United States. I was able to partner with a local immigration advocacy organization called Companeros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center for my final research project on undocumented immigrant’s rights. I am so, so grateful for the opportunity to have completed my research on the population that interests me.
6. Could you talk about your friendship with Courtney and how you have been able to stay in touch since you graduated?
I feel so fortunate to have met Courtney during my BSW at WVU. We were both studying social work and living in Arnold Hall during our first year at WVU. Although we have not lived in the same state and sometimes not even the same country over the past seven years – we have remained somehow, inseparable.
We manage to visit one another every year or two but it is the phone that keeps us so connected. It is not unusual to be on the phone several times a week but it is also totally OK to neglect one another when life is hectic. Our views on humanity and our sense of humor is what keeps us so connected. We really align on social issues, Courtney always understands my views – which sometimes makes other people look at me like I am an alien! It is so great to have a best friend that is a social worker. I think it creates a level of understanding between us that I do not share with anyone else.
My memories of WVU and the Social Work program are still with me. Even in my graduate program I missed the great discussions that were fostered in my classes during my BSW program. The social work foundation that I received at WVU allowed be to be certain that social work is where my heart is. And I can honestly say, I never questioned this.
7. What took you to Brazil?
I decided to move to Brazil upon my MSW graduation to join my boyfriend in Brasilia. Despite my very beginning level of speaking Portuguese, I received an internship with The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Brasilia (UNHCR). I will be spending my time with their programming department. This department is responsible for creating programs, writing reports and fundraising within UNHCR Brasilia. I will primarily assist with report writing as my English abilities will be helpful in this area. I am particularly excited because up to this point, my work with refugees has been direct practice and this opportunity is a great way for me to explore macro social work practice with a population that I love.
I will be with UNHCR Brasilia part-time so that I can focus on learning Portuguese to continue my Social Work career in Brazil.
Caitlin and Daniel
Ilkay, Courtney and Caitlin
Courtney and Caitlin
wvu-ssw 