By Patrice Gaines, May 11, 2020, NBC News
"The big issue that black social workers are having to contend with is the devastation happening in our communities."
Michael Guynn, a social worker in Los Angeles, would show up at a foster family's home unannounced to make sure that the house was clean and livable and that a child was being fed and going to school.
Kevin Holder, an emergency services clinician, would meet police officers at the jail in Richmond, Virginia, to interview and observe a person picked up and suspected of suffering from a mental health crisis.
"We are now at high risk while also being the helpers. We can become our clients so quickly," said Dr. Tanya Smith Brice, a national relations co-chair of the National Association of Black Social Workers, or NABSW.
And Charla Lauth would sit with a woman who has experienced domestic violence, hold her hand, help her fill out the necessary hospital forms and take her clothing for DNA tests. Then she would give the woman new clothes.
That was before the coronavirus pandemic.
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