Jaimie Homan

I learned hard work from my dad, who's a carpenter. I'm a first-generation college student, so I watched my parents work really hard, and they taught me how to have integrity. Beyond that, all of my mentors who I've worked with have been really helpful in guiding me along the way. But there's also been this third factor that's been huge for me, which is the ability to take risks and believe in myself. You have to take risks if you're going to do things as a professional woman. I've had to tell myself several times in my life, 'you know what, I think I can do that,' even when people ask 'you're really going to do that?' I have to go, 'yeah, I am going to do that. And I think I can do it.' That self-belief and willingness to take chances has been instrumental in my success.

The best career advice I've received is really about sustainability in my field. Burnout is huge in social work and therapy, so if you're doing this work, you have to take care of yourself and you have to have support. You need to monitor your professional boundaries. I'm a mother also, so I'm always trying to balance my children's needs versus my work. I've been lucky to have people give me advice that helped me keep perspective about how to help people in a way that doesn't lead to burnout. You have to set boundaries and make sure that the work that you're doing is sustainable, because yes, you can help people, but if you do it the wrong way, you're going to burn out.

I think the most important thing is to reach out to people that you admire and ask for help and guidance, because women can help each other. Another key piece is that self-confidence, that belief in yourself. I think a lot of times we get taught that things are very difficult, and then you get into it and you're like, 'well, I can do it. It's difficult, but I can open my own business, I can do this.' In the social work field in particular, though, I would definitely give the advice to go all the way and get your license. There's so much burnout in this field because if you don't have your license, you kind of get into this place where you're working for agencies that can't pay a sustainable wage, doing very difficult work with high caseloads and unrealistic expectations. So positioning yourself to be a person of influence has meant getting the credentials for me.

Burnout is definitely one of the biggest challenges in this field. But the opportunities are really exciting. The reason we all get into this field is to make a difference and to help create a positive impact in the world. Social work is interesting because you can do so many different things. You can work in substance use recovery for women, reunification with children in the foster care system, adoption, crisis response, or private practice like I do now. We also talk about work on the micro level, like private practice, but there's also mezzo and macro level change, which is advocacy and policy work at the community, state, and federal levels. I think the field of social work has developed into a national influence, and we're trying to help governments implement policies that advocate for justice for all people, which is really important to me.

I think integrity is incredibly important to me, which means honesty and courage. I went into social work because it matches a lot of what I believe as far as justice, equality, and treating people like they're inherently worthwhile no matter what. So unconditional acceptance and non-judgment come into play a lot in my work and in my personal life. These are values I learned from my parents, who taught me how to have integrity and be open to learning new things.