I’m Hannah R. Stohry, and I graduated from IUSSW’s MSW program at IUPUI in 2015. I was in the Leadership concentration and was privileged to work as a home-based therapist for 2 years at Family Works, Inc. in Indianapolis, where Laura Green (also a graduate of IUSSW MSW program) is the Executive Director and Jeannine Murray is the CFO. Through their guidance and critical, humanizing pedagogy, I learned the clinical skills to work with families involved in the child welfare system. Through my time with their expert supervision, I gained the qualifications to become clinically licensed with supervision designation in Ohio (LISW-S) and I am also clinically licensed in Indiana (LCSW). I knew I wanted to go back to school because research and scholarly work is important to me, and I wanted to really look at how systems work.

I currently work as a Graduate Assistant in the Mindfulness & Contemplative Inquiry Center at Miami University (Ohio); I am currently a Ph.D Candidate in Educational Leadership, Culture, and Curriculum and my dissertation will focus on wholeness of multiracial identity. I have a multitude of experiences developing programming around contemplative practices, racial justice events, course development, teaching critical courses, and contemplative practices research. My current scholarly work reflects (but is not limited to): critical mixed-race studies, multiracial identity, Christian hegemony, AfroAsian Futurism, critical race studies, critical whiteness, critical contemplative inquiry, and multicultural education. I am currently involved in our local Police Community Relations & Review Commission, which has been engaged in community needs assessment and shifting how we meet the needs of our community.

Ongoing and urgent challenges within our field are reflected in our educational experiences, meaning that there continues to be a frightening and disappointing lack of criticality, critical theory application, an ignorance of the impact of anti-Black racism (as very complex across our communities), and lack of acknowledgement of globalized white supremacy’s impact on how we educate pre-service social workers. Our profession continues to be complicit by not recognizing the origins and impact of the history of our profession, erasure of BIPOC voices, disabled and queer voices. There continues to be a lack of critical consciousness (deeper dive into how power and systems work, and how this influences our direct service). We cannot fix systems by integrating more trainings; it has to be a complete overhaul of our education system, and our service system. This is because we are not reading existing literature or listening to voices who have been telling us about y/our lived experiences, or even collaborating across professions. There is lack of critical contemplative inner inquiry and direct connection to critical inquiry into grassroots change, or even contemplation of radical shifts. Yes, I said radical shifts.
A challenge to our profession is that we aren’t even trying to work ourselves out of jobs. We are complicit.

If anything, my social work degree, and credentials gave me a foundation for ethics. Honestly, what I know about our profession comes from our social worker foremothers, including my previous boss Laura Green. I learned the most important concepts of social work through my training with her, which heavily influenced how I know who I am, my critical reflexivity, my skills/limitations, and the ethical decision-making models that I use today. I credit those clinical experiences, and current inter-professional collaboration for who I am as a social worker.

What are accomplishments? Where do we place value? Is it in a trophy, or credentials?
I just want to answer this question in a way that redirects the focus to inter-community collaboration. I have “accomplished” nothing without being in a community.

My favorite quote is from my favorite scholar Gloria Anzaldúa. Her existence and life’s work changed my life because I felt community as someone whose lived experiences cross borders. It gave me language to name ambiguity, and to appreciate the liminal multiracial experience, and emphasizes raising consciousness and shifts in how we orient to the world, in ways that disrupt oppressive structures. She says “Every increment of consciousness, every step forward is a travesía, a crossing. I am again an alien in new territory. And again, and again. But if I escape conscious awareness, escape ‘knowing,’ I won’t be moving. Knowledge makes me more aware; it makes me more conscious. ‘Knowing’ is painful because after ‘it’ happens I can’t stay in the same place and be comfortable. I am no longer the same person I was before” (Anzaldúa, 2012, p. 70).