10 Licensed Clinical Social Worker
What is it Like Being a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW)
On this episode of the Unboxing Careers Podcast, we unbox the career of a LCSW with Serra Gray.
Guest: Sera Gray is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and owner of Wild Lotus Therapy, an online therapy practice dedicated to providing neurodivergent-affirming therapy for neurodivergent adults with ADHD and trauma.
Sera’s career in social work spans over 18 years where she’s had the honor of working in hospice, foster care, long term care facilities, ICU, obstetrics, hospitals and in community-based case management programs. She has developed and led trainings for healthcare providers and community members on a wide variety of topics ranging from postpartum depression, perinatal loss, and trauma-informed care.
Connect with Sera:
Listen: Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music
What We Discuss:
Sera's Journey to Social Work and Finding the Right Career Path
Work-Life Balance in Different Social Work Settings
Specializing in Working with the Neurodivergent Population
Advice for High School Students Interested in Social Work
Exploring Classes and Organizations
Authenticity and Support in Job Interviews and Supervision
Dispelling Misconceptions about Social Work
Being Mindful of Injustice and Corruption in Organizations
Key Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) Career Takeaways:
Licensed clinical social workers have a wide range of career options, including administration, education, and therapy.
It's common for people to change their career paths, so it's important to support and encourage exploration.
Proper diagnosis and treatment are crucial for individuals in the neurodivergent population.
High school students interested in social work should take classes in psychology, sociology, human development, and diversity and inclusion.
Supporting and exploring diverse interests can help students discover their passion and career path. Explore different classes and organizations in high school and college to discover your interests and passions.
Prioritize self-care and personal growth, including taking art or movement classes and seeking therapy.
Be authentic in job interviews and find a supportive supervisor.
Dispelling misconceptions about social work, such as the limited scope of work and the belief that social workers can't make money.
Be aware of the presence of injustice and corruption in some organizations and trust your intuition when evaluating potential employers.
Full Interview:
Greg
Welcome everyone to the Unboxing Careers podcast where we shed light on what different careers are really like so you can choose a career you'll really love. Today we are unboxing a career of a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with Sera Gray.
But before we do, let’s talk briefly about unboxing thoughtful gifts. At ThoughtfulCollection.com you can shop from a wide selection of curated products you can feel good about, helping you express friendship, gratitude, and love.
The next time you need to, don't just gift. Gift thoughtfully at www.ThoughtfulCollection.com.
Greg
I'd to welcome to the show Sera Gray, a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. Sera, welcome to the Unboxing Careers podcast. Thank you for being here.
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Greg
Let's start with this. So, licensed clinical social worker, I have an idea what that might be, because I have a good friend that does exactly that. But you're a private practice owner as well, which we're gonna get into a little bit later, but let's break it down to the most simplistic terms.
What exactly would a licensed clinical social worker do?
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Well, licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) can do a lot more than what I could do several years ago with my undergrad degree in social work. with an LCSW, you can do things like be an administrator of nonprofits. I've known some social workers who are administrators of hospice companies, things like that. So it kind of opens you up to greater leadership positions. And you can teach at universities, community colleges, all those kinds of things. And what else?
Well, you can do private practice. You can be a therapist.
Greg
Very good. And you mentioned undergrad. let's talk therapists don't just pop out and they're like, I'm going to go do this. So we're obviously talking about a level of education here. We're going to get into some education things here in a few minutes as well. But, kind of walk us through, did you know it in very early age, you want it to be a therapist? Is it something that kind of you figured out as you were going through? Did you go to school with the intention of being a therapist? Can the walk us through when you realize you want to do what you do and that progression as you move through education.
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Okay, so as I was coming to the end of high school, I loved writing and I photography. And I think Aaron Brankovitch came out at some point around there and I was like, I'm gonna be the next Aaron Brankovitch. So I wanted to do like investigative photojournalism, kind of help the underdog expose all kinds of corruption, those types of things. That was my plan. So I actually studied journalism in undergrad for three-ish years.
And I was an editor on my university's newspaper and I think I realized after a semester I was like I love writing and I thought this was going to be what I would do with my life but I was finding I'd go to class all day, go to the newsroom, I'd be there till at least 10 o 'clock at night, oftentimes writing stories that other people hadn't gotten in on time and I was exhausted and then I'd have to go home and study and do all those things.
So I'm really grateful for the opportunity to have that position as an editor because I don't think I would have had an idea. I knew I wanted to have a family someday and I thought if this is what it's like, I can't be working until 10 o 'clock at night. I'll never see my kids. So I called my advisor at the university and said, you know, this is not my jam. These are not my people. It was very ruthless too. It was like everyone was kind of cutthroat, trying to get to the top, trying to be better than everyone and that's not my jam. So.
I talked to my advisor and she said, well, based on what you like and who you are, I think you should take Intro to Women's Studies and Intro to Social Work, see which one you like and that'll give us an idea. So I took both of them, loved the Women's Studies class, but I fell in love with social work. It was a lot of the values and ethics of the profession where I was like, this describes me as a person and there's a whole profession around it. So things like social justice, looking at people's strengths, advocating for people, things like that.
I added an extra year onto my schooling. Still remember calling my parents and telling them like, hey, almost done with school and I have a new plan. They were awesome though. They were fantastic. So at that point, I wanted to work with kids and it took one job out of undergrad to make me realize, not so much. It was so hard. It was so hard. I worked with an in -home program. I did not work for DCS or CPS.
I was with a contracted agency. So I would go in the home and actually with a therapist, the therapist would do intensive family therapy and I would teach the parents life skills, parenting skills, all those types of things. And if they didn't improve in our program, then that was the last resort and their rights would probably be severed. And I wanted nothing to do with it. I think it might've been nine months that I was in that job and.
I could not do it anymore. couldn't sleep at night. The stories haunted me. And it was just, ugh, I didn't want to be a part of that system. I saw it kind of ruin a lot of people's lives too. So left that, didn't know what I was going to do. And there was an ad in the newspaper for a hospital. I think they call them social case workers at the time. This was a long time ago. I had no qualifications for it. I knew nothing about the medical field.
I had worked at one job, not even a year after my undergrad, but I went and interviewed and I love learning new things and I'm a pretty outgoing, bubbly person. And so I did the interview and I'm answering all the questions. We get to the end and the woman interviewing me said, you know, I shouldn't hire you. You have no experience in the medical field. You don't know a of medical terminology, but she's like, there's something about you. I think I want to give you a chance. And I was there five years. Loved it. Absolutely loved
Let's see, after that, I've worked in nursing homes. I've been a social service director in nursing homes. I've worked in community -based programs with disabled or elderly people who are homebound, helping them get meals on wheels or housekeeping and things through grants from the government. my goodness, all kinds of stuff. So I don't know that answers your question. That's a lot of information, but.
Greg
No, you did it. First of all, it couldn't have been that long ago because you look extremely young. So think of what it is, but it could have been that long ago. Second, so I was going to touch on this later in the interview. I don't want to be jumping around here. We'll still touch on this probably a little bit deeper in a couple of minutes here, but I want to get it through your experience in college. So journalism, I joke and that was kind of the genesis of this podcast is.
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Thank you. You're my best friend today.
Greg
no one works in the field they went to school for, right? They always transition out, especially if they're communications or journalism, myself included. So you're going through and you're doing something, you're getting the experience in college and you just realize like, this is not for me. I'm not going to be happy doing this. You're smart enough to talk to your advisor. I think a lot of people would just kind of grit and bear and go, the next one will be better. This is just college. You the real world will be different, which it will not be most of the time. So you took these two classes, you gravitated toward the one.
In retrospect, is there anything through your experience of being in child protective services that was just not fitting of your, you know, what you want mentally out of that job? Is there anything in retrospect you look back at now and say, you know, there were signs for this before and I didn't know the questions to ask and I probably would have realized this early on or is it, was it really just trial by fire and go, you know, I like this, I don't like this, I don't like this, I like this and let's do it.
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
That's a good question. No, that's great. I loved the kids. I loved working with the kids. That was super fun and I like trying to help the parents learn new things, but for the majority of them, by the time our program got involved, they really weren't willing to do what they needed to do. So I think if I, your question was like, if I could look back, what would I do differently or what I wish I would have known?
Greg
Maybe wish you would have known or just signs that when you're changing, signs you look at and go, you know what, I probably should have just sunk in all on this from day one. And there was something telling me I should do that.
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
I think I should have left a long time before I did. Thankfully, I wasn't there a year. It was just under a year. But at that point, I was fresh out of school. I remember thinking, if I don't, there's kind of this unwritten rule of you need to stay at a job for at least one year, because otherwise it looks really bad on your resume. No one will take you seriously. So I was naive, very green, very new to the field, and didn't really have a good supervisor, which is a huge red flag.
So if there's not someone who is really committed to supporting you, helping you process things in this field, get out, get out, because it will do a lot more harm to you. So I think that was a red flag. I'm noticing I didn't have a good supervisor and really feeling, I felt like I was in the middle of a lot of really corrupt things. Our court system is kind of, it doesn't always work the way we wish it would.
Child Protective Services. Again, I don't work for them. I just worked with families and DCS. But gosh, there are certainly instances where children might need to be removed from homes or where intervention is needed. there's a lot of things, there's no consistency. So you would see things that were, there would be black and white proof of this kiddo is being abused or neglected. We have proof and those families wouldn't really get much attention. They'd kind of get away with
And then you'd have reports of things that were much more minor and they would just get the hammer. And it was just too heartbreaking seeing what was going on with families. And I think I was too young. I wasn't assertive at that time. I'm still finding my own voice. So I think I had a hard time speaking up or asking like one of the supervisors in my agency, if not mine, just like, Hey, can I talk to you about the really...
absolutely banana stuff that I saw today. Like this is a lot to take in and to hold. So I think that's something that I wish I would have done sooner. I do remember I had a 45 minute exit interview, so I didn't hold back there. I did tell them at the end, but I certainly wish that I wouldn't have subjected myself to staying. I think I also I'm very stubborn, super stubborn. And I think I had to like prove to myself, no, you can do this. You should be tough to do this. Not the case. You don't have to be tough. If it doesn't feel right, get out.
Greg
So you mentioned that going through the day to day while you're in college was what you made you realize that journalism wasn't going to make you happy the rest of your life, especially with wanting a family and things like that that you mentioned. So let's talk about your day to day now. So let's give younger listeners an idea about, so I mentioned earlier, you're in private practice. You just went through a litany of other experiences you've had. So I think it might be helpful to start with the private practice side.
Say this is what my day to day or my week to week, whatever makes most sense, looks like from a private practice. And then maybe touch on one of those early days, it may be the aspect of the career you liked and say, this is what it's like. And kind of walk us through that if you can. Balance of meetings, paperwork, research, anything you might be doing.
What does a typical week like for an LCSW in private practice?
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Okay, so I just actually opened my practice in March of this year and I've been wanting to do this for a while. So right now, the day today is going to be a little bit different than it will be in six months or a year from now because I'm still very much doing a lot of marketing and networking and getting organized and all those things. But that's important. That's important stuff to talk about if someone wants to do that. My days, sometimes I don't know what to do with myself because I have time.
And I have never had extra time in any job in social work. I've been burned out for 18 years. So Mondays, I do not see any clients on Mondays. I might do consultations with other providers or things like that, but I'm not seeing clients on Mondays. So I can take my kids to appointments or go do fun things with them, do appointments for myself, sleep in, watch TV, whatever I wanna do, which is really nice.
I typically see clients Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Sometimes I have a couple of appointments on Fridays and I learned because I've been a therapist for several years working for group practices and I learned my brain is best early in the morning and after 12, I'm kind of like, so I make my own schedule. If I have clients, potential clients who say, hey, I'd to do therapy with you, but I need the evening or the weekend. Like, hey, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday from seven to 12.
And a lot of times they'll go, okay, and they'll move their schedule around. But I don't compromise my boundaries because that's how I take care of myself. I mean, we're talking about maybe three to three and a half days a week where I'm seeing actual clients. Other times it's things like I've done a lot of networking with other therapists, with psychiatrists, just to build those relationships with them, which has been huge in growing my practice.
I think the most overwhelming part for me now is just learning how to run a business. So I did hire a business coach because I went to school to be a social worker, not a business owner. So that's been, I will never regret that. have an amazing business coach. Yeah, so I, again, I usually start at seven o 'clock and all of my visits are telehealth. I think a lot of the jobs I had, I was in people's homes or in agencies and I've been in so many situations that honestly I don't know how I came out of them unscathed or hurt.
There a lot of dangerous situations. So for me, I chose to do a telehealth practice for one, it keeps my overhead down so I can make more money for me and my family, but I also feel safe and cozy between sessions. I can go play with my cat, take a nap, whatever. all my sessions are over telehealth. Private practice is awesome because you don't have staff meetings, you don't have mandatory trainings. And a lot of times in my experience, those things are unpaid when you're working at a group practice.
So you're doing a lot for free. Or they kind of work it into their policies of like, your pay includes the meetings, but don't put that on your time sheet, that kind of stuff. So I love not having to follow other people's policies pretty much everywhere that I've worked ever. There's always something where I'm like, that doesn't sit well with me. And doing this too, this might be helpful for anybody starting out in social work who wants to do this someday.
The pay isn't always great, but I think it's a myth that you can't make money in social work. So we'll talk about that later. But I find that my first, see, I launched the practice the middle of March and I think I had nine appointments in those last two weeks of March. And I made as much in nine appointments as I would have in a month at the group practice. Yeah. So it's so much easier to take care of myself and have time with my family.
And social workers deserve to be compensated well. We have a lot of education and training. So that's something I'm a proponent of too whenever I'm talking to undergrads or things like that. Like don't settle for crappy pay.
Greg
So you mentioned private practice, one of the benefits obviously you set your own schedule. You've mentioned work life balance before setting your own schedule will help with work life balance. Of course, a lot of other jobs, careers, especially early on, you necessarily don't get that work life balance. You also don't usually don't have families very early on as well. But let's talk just for a second before you're in private practice. You mentioned some of the unpaid things with trainings and stuff like that. But what does work-life balance look like when you're working for, at least in your experience, working for a provider versus a private practice owner.
How is the work-life balance like for a LCSW?
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Yeah, I worked at a couple of group practices. One was a huge corporation, one was a smaller one. The smaller one, did have some more freedom over my schedule. There were still productivity expectations, but I actually had a choice in what kind of clients I would see. The first practice I worked at was community mental health, and a lot of therapists will tell you that's usually where we start out of graduate school, and you're made to see populations you might not have a lot of training with, you know, people or diagnoses you might not be comfortable with and you just have to.
After I left that, went to the group practice, I had a little bit more freedom, but yeah, lots of freedom now. I think there's a few job opportunities in social Work in general, like even if you have your bachelor's in social work, even master's, there's a few things that will give you more work -life balance. I think when I worked at the hospital, just an acute hospital where people go after surgery or for pneumonia and things like that, that was pretty much set hours. So, you know, the department would open at say maybe eight and we would close at 4 30. So you do your work, you go home. I did take on call. So I would go in at like 2 a.m. on the weekend to the emergency room for psychiatric emergencies and stuff, but that's something that was part of the job and that was only maybe once every month or every two months. Other jobs,
I would say that's been one of the biggest challenges in social work is when you take a salaried position, most agencies will try and eat you alive and overwork you and try and get as much out of you as they can. And I think they take advantage of people who are fresh out of school too, because we don't really know how to stand up for ourselves or know what to
So I've missed a lot of time in my earlier, at least the first half, probably a little more of my career. I missed out on a lot of time with my kids and my family. A lot of times it'll be doing work at home, getting notes in on a certain time and impossible caseloads to manage to where you might have to bring some work home. So that's something that can be tricky. I think the best...
The best job in social work I had that gave me the most balance was hospice social work. And that might differ from state to state, but at least in Arizona, you can do hospice social work with a bachelor's in social work. You just have to have a master's level social worker who's your supervisor. And so with that, there would be, you'd be in the office really only for staff meetings or trainings, and otherwise you make your own schedule. So let's say I have 20 patients I have to see in one week.
I work with those families, we come up with an appointment time and I'll go visit them. Or you have a lot of patients in nursing homes or assisted livings that you can kind of just go see whenever. So that made it a lot easier to have appointments or take time to go see my kids doing a play at school or something like that. So things that where you kind of travel a little bit, I think even people kind of, some child welfare jobs or related jobs, you are making your own schedule and you're out driving a lot or doing appointments.
And so the agency gives you a little, they have to give you some flexibility with that. So those kinds of things, aside from, no, I said that wrong. If you're driving around and kind of doing home visits or things in the community, you're gonna have a lot more flexibility as opposed to a social work position where you are sitting in a desk all day where everyone's like, did you do this? Did you do this? Come to this meeting, you're getting interrupted all day.
I think community -based stuff, driving to visit certain homes, those things are going to give you more flexibility, a little bit easier to have more work -life balance.
Greg
Very good. We're going to shift to the high school slash college advice area, but I do, we haven't mentioned it yet, but I think this is probably important. You don't have to go into a lot of detail here, but your private practice, you have a specialty. So you see people from the neurodivergent population. Obviously you've made a conscious decision to treat that population of people, whatever on the scale of neurodivergency, know that covers a lot of different things, what about that? Cause you mentioned you wanted to work with kids before.
So what about the neurodiversity side gravitated you toward that? Like how did you make that decision to say, not only am I going to do private practice, but I'm going to specialize here. Like when did you come up with that?
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Yeah, that was probably, I think I probably started leading toward that out of grad school. And for whatever reason, I just kept getting clients assigned to me who had autism and ADHD. And they don't really go a lot into that specifically in grad school because it's all kind of broad. And of course, there was limited training at this place. There was one really good like four hour training on ADHD. And
I'm such a nerd. literally will read research articles for fun. I just can never learn enough. I love it. So I did a lot of self study, reading books, watching videos, reading research stuff to try and learn more. And I was like, you know what else? This kind of sounds like me. Because I think when we think ADHD, we think of a seven year old boy bouncing around a classroom. It's a lot different for women and girls.
So we're very under -representative in research. I'm going into a lot of details here. I'm going to try and wrap this up because you said keep it short. Thank you. So throughout my life, doctors would be like, well, you have anxiety and depression. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. And that's common for women and girls, even men and boys, to be diagnosed with those things because that's what it looks like on the surface. But the more I learned about it, I discovered that typically, when there's ADHD,
People aren't getting properly screened and there's not a lot of information or education for providers about it. So they have that same viewpoint of this is a little school kid just running around can't control themselves. Really a lot of the women I work with especially are over thinkers. So if you can't get those thoughts to stop and they keep going around a doctor or therapist, psychiatrist will probably be like, generalized anxiety disorder. That's actually a form of internal hyperactivity.
And as women and girls, we learn from a very young age to mask symptoms because if we are too emotional, which is a big thing with ADHD, we're too emotional, if we make too much noise, if we move around, all those things, there's words for us. People call us words. And we just try to not be noticed, so we mask, and it's absolutely exhausting. So I knew probably several years ago, was like, yeah, I think I have that. But for me, it's like, I don't think I need
do much about it. But the older I've gotten more responsibility I was taking on, it was really hard to manage my home life, my work life, keep things straight. I forget a lot of things. I misplaced a lot of things. So I was like, I'm just going to go get an evaluation and see. And they're like, girl, you have got some rage with ADHD. And so as soon as I got proper treatment for that, it was life changing. And I remember my provider, like after I tried medication, she was
Well, what do you think? And I was like, I didn't know it was possible for my brain and my body to feel this calm ever. So I lived a long time just kind of tolerating those things. So I loved the work with my clients throughout the last few years with ADHD and autism. And what made me feel so passionate about it was wanting to bring about awareness to people, to providers.
For me, it was just learning about it, getting the proper treatment doesn't always require medication. People can choose to have that or not, but it's something that's very treatable with the proper provider. And the other thing I see is a lot of damage done when there are therapists, primary doctors, or psychiatrists who don't know what to look for. They misdiagnose people with other things and people just suffer. And I have a kid, one of my kiddos, I tried to fight for an ADHD diagnosis for her for over two years, and should get diagnosed with other things until we found the right provider. So it's something I'm really passionate about and everything I do, I'm trying to look around like, what could be more accommodating to people with sensory overload or ADHD or whatever? So it's something I'm really passionate about. So I'll stop there because I could go on for hours.
Greg
No, I love the detail. think it's great. one of the themes in all my conversations so far, and I assume this is going to be others, is trying to recognize what you maybe like early on, even if you don't choose it as a career, but find those things that kind of interest you. You mentioned, hey, I'm a geek I love, or a nerd. I love researching articles, but you saw something that kind of caught your interest and you're like, I'm going to dive into this.
I think that's one thing that keeps coming up is like fine, even if you don't do anything with it, jot down those things that create a spark in you. The other thing is a lot of people want to do things that they see in themselves. So you mentioned, hey, I had anxiety. Like this is me, I want to treat me, right? Or forms of me. And this is one thing we see across not only therapists, but other professions as well, at least in my conversations. So I think the detail you gave was wonderful.
Alright Sera, I want to shift to advice for those in school now. We're going to start with high school. You can transition. We're going to cover college immediately afterwards. So if it's a seamless transition, your answer where it applies to both, feel free to go that way. We're not, we're not, I'm not iron fisting you here. So let's talk about those in high school.
We have people that may know they want to be a therapist, maybe not what type, but they know they want to go into therapy in some degree. We have others that have no idea what they want to do, which like most people I think, and others who maybe have an inkling that, this might be right for me. Maybe not, I've got five different interests here. What advice could you offer them? And this could be in terms of either skills to learn that would come in handy, regardless of what they do. Could be classes at stake. And I know classes will be different schools, especially with income levels have different classes offered or anything else that you may find would be helpful for you if you had to go to high school again.
Advice for high school students interested in a career as a therapist
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Yeah, absolutely. I think for parents, one thing I would say is like, support your kids no matter what. If they have five different things they want to be in six months, go with it. They're allowed to change their mind. Their brain is not even done developing until they're 25, 26, 27. So it's kind of silly that we're required to come up with what we want to do with our life when we're 18. That's bonkers to me. That's why so many people change, I think. But I think, you know, parents can just be supportive if your kids have an interest in...
helping with, if they're like, I wanna help in a domestic violence shelter someday or something, maybe connect them with the director of one or with volunteers so they can learn about that. There's so many more resources than when I was in high school. We've got YouTube, you can learn about anything on YouTube. There's free classes that are online that you can sign up for to learn about all kinds of things. So I'd say for somebody thinking about social work, if someone's like, I just wanna help people.
That I don't know what I want to do, I just want to help people. Social work could be the perfect field because you can literally do a million things with social work. You can work with babies, with elderly people, all kinds of things, right? So I think classes that would be important, things like psychology, sociology, definitely human development, human behavior, they probably have a lot cooler classes now than they did when I was in high school.
But yeah, I think anything that has to do with human behavior and I think something that's actually a lot more prominent now than it was back in the day is get your hands on classes that have to do with diversity, inclusion, all those types of things. Learn about the stuff they don't teach in the American education system. Like hunt for the actual history of our country and those things, those things will come in very handy in the field of social work because we work with a lot of marginalized communities. So anything like that would be great.
Greg
That's great advice. So I look back at it. My high school, public high school, offered a child psychology class, which I look back at it now and I go, it was kind of cool that they offered that. I did take it because I thought I wanted to be an early childhood educator, which a semester at college told me I did not want to do that with my life. Side story, I was the only guy in the class, which is cool, but I was too bit of a nerd to have any benefit from that whatsoever. So, but I look back at it now, I said, you know, there's a lot of, at least with different school districts, there's a lot of, like you said, classes that you would never thought of would be offered to people now. So I love the advice there.
Let's transition the college a little bit now. So the same advice, same question really posed to college, but college, we have other things involved in it. So, it could be clubs, organizations, you can take elective classes in college so you can kind of dabble your hands around. Or you could be a journalism major and then shift one day, right? So any specific advice you would offer to collegiate students out there?
Advice for college students interested in a career as a therapist
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Absolutely. So when you're in your undergraduate studies, like if you're going for a bachelor's in social work, you're going to have a lot of, you're not going to have as much of a choice in specialty things. A lot of that's going to be planned out for you you'll have some electives. So you can take some really interesting social work related classes. You can also, what I would recommend, and I did not do this and I wish I would have, take an art class or like a music.
class, some kind of, I don't like the word exercise, I think it's loaded, but like some class where you can move in a fun way. Maybe it's a dance class, kickboxing, whatever, because those are things you need when you're out there in the field. If you graduate with your bachelor's and you don't know what you want to do for fun or you don't know how to cope with things or express yourself, like through some sort of art, you need that stuff. And it's hard if you're just getting out there, starting your career and you don't know hobbies
other ways to cope with stress. So I totally would have taken some more physically active classes and a lot more art classes. And it's great to have your brain do something else, you know, do something fun. So whatever that is, it could be writing, digital art, whatever, but I would totally recommend taking something like that. Clubs, organizations. Did I answer your question about classes?
Greg
You did. Yep.
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
So clubs and organizations, typically most schools are going to have some sort of a club related to every major. So I would definitely check those out. Sometimes they might be kind of clicky. So I would say it's certainly not a requirement, but go see if it feels like you're people and you can kind of learn a lot. Outside of that, make friends in your classes. In undergrad and graduate school, your classmates are going to get you through a lot. They're going to be the biggest supports.
So that's a great place to find your people and friends with a lot of people from undergrad and graduate school. So that's really important to have that social support. But I think another thing, if you're going into social work, if you know that you're doing that, you had mentioned earlier how a lot of people gravitate toward what they recognize in themselves. And in social work, that can be very good or very bad. Because if you haven't worked through your own stuff,
then you're working through it with clients or patients or whoever you're working with. I have seen, like I've had, you know, therapy clients come to me and they're like, yeah, I went to this other therapist and like 30 minutes she was talking about her divorce and how her kid, and I'm like, oh God. So you need to, I say like, you need to handle your stuff. You deserve the support for one, cause it's a really hard field. So you deserve the support, but it's, I feel like it's really irresponsible to your clients or your patients. I'll just say it's irresponsible if you don't take the time to deal with your own stuff.
because it will bleed over and affect your work with them. And that's not fair to them or to you. So I think if I could change anything about the education system in this field, would be, you gotta go to therapy for a while. So I think that's really important.
Greg
That's, I think that's awesome advice. I, so talk to another therapist about a week or so ago, we talked about exactly this, like, and the good thing is the stigma of therapy is really come off a lot in the last probably 10 years or so, right? Which is great. So people are a lot more open than just being like, Oh yeah, I was talking to my therapist last week, you know? So I think that's a really good thing. So if you, I mean, most college kids, hopefully they're under their parents' insurance, right? Go use their parents' insurance. You can worry about that later.
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Yeah.
Greg
I would say the other thing about clubs and organizations, which we let off this conversation with you saying is that I joined, I think it was an organization, it could have been a club, but one of the two, you join the student newspaper, right, or whatever it was, and you were the editor of that. And you realized that was not what you wanted to do by being in that group. So I would say the other thing is join them, regardless of your major, and figure out, is this actually what I want to do here?
So I love the advice. Thank you, Sera. New in the workforce. You mentioned this and this is not, not the only story I've heard like this over the last two weeks of I was not qualified for this job, but the person looked at me and said, there's something about you. And I talked to someone who hired someone like that. The boss didn't want him to, and she went ahead and did it anyway. Someone was one of her best workers. So the challenge with any new graduate in any field is getting experience when you really don't have experience. Now you're going to have hours, internships, things like that. So I kind of phrase it this way. You've got 10 resumes in front of you. You need to hire one person. They're all fresh out of school. What are you looking for? Like what's going to set someone apart in your eyes?
How to stand out as a new LCSW graduate when applying for a job?
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Sure. think, well, if I'm looking at resumes, there's certain things that I think a resume where it would be like, we're going to check this one. I don't look for perfection. think that that's not fair and that's not realistic. No one should hold themselves to perfection. So if there's like some typos or a little bit of, know, if it's filled with stuff where it's like they didn't ask anybody to proofread this, this is really sloppy, there's still coffee on it, like probably not going to be taking that person as seriously.
But I would say if someone has, if I'm looking at what I'm seeing, and you can volunteer in high school and college. So if I see somebody who has done volunteer work, even if they're going into social work, but they worked at an animal shelter as a volunteer, I would wanna see that. Like someone who's kind of been involved in their community or done some things, has some experience. Not to say that I wouldn't be looking at somebody who didn't have those things, but I think that can kind of give you some edge.
The resume needs to be good enough, again, not perfect, but good enough. And the interview is really where the magic would happen because like for me, the person interviewing me could tell that I was like, I don't know that word. What is that? And she's like, this is what it is. I'm like, cool. And it was a lot of like her social work is talking to people, right? And you're listening to people's stories and paying attention to them, making them feel heard and seen. And I think that was a big part of what she saw was
you have a really good personality. think you would help people in that way. So if somebody comes to an interview, I say, be yourself. I was so nervous the first few years of my career interviewing for jobs. Like, must be perfect. I must look a certain way, talk a certain way. And quite a while back, I was like, you know what? I'm going to be myself.
And if they give me a question, like I'm going to give them a very honest answer. And if they don't like me, I don't want to work with them. I'm just going to be me. So I would say be yourself in an interview. If you're silly, if you're nerdy, if you're nervous, you can say like, my gosh, I'm so nervous. had a panic attack coming in. Say that. It's OK. It makes you human. And if someone's going to judge you for that, that's a sign that they're probably not going to be a fantastic boss.
So I think somebody's eagerness, if they're passionate about something, if they seem like they want to learn, those would be things where I'd be like, yeah, let's get you on board. And like somebody who just is willing to hear feedback. And obviously someone who's nice. If anybody's just kind of rude or making offhanded comments or anything like that, that would be an obvious no. But I think it should be yourself. Be excited about something.
Greg
Very good. I'm going to ask you this question. You may have just answered it 25 seconds ago, but maybe there's something else that neglected here. So I was going to ask about personality types. So someone who has this job, this is going to go across the board, obviously based on the field they're in and things like this, but is there a specific type of personality or trait? you think someone should or really needs to possess to really be successful in a field like this?
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And so I think those traits, that's kind of two sides to a coin, because the traits that make you a good social worker are also things that could really set you up for burnout if you don't have a plan for taking care of yourself. So the good social workers, good colleagues that I've had over the years are very empathetic people. They're people who, if you're going into this field to fix people, please find a different job.
Don't, don't, just don't. So there's one of the core foundations of social work is self -determination of the client. And so if you think you want to get into this to fix people or tell them what they need to do, that's baloney because they know themselves better than you do. So someone who's very respectful of other humans who is, I think when I was in undergrad, there was this idea of cultural competence, which has now shifted to cultural humility, which is this idea
you accept that you will never be able to know all the things about other cultures or other people who are different from you. So you approach your work in a very curious way. If you mess up, you apologize for it and you just really have this attitude of like, I'll never arrive at this place but I'm gonna work hard to be aware of these things. So I find that a lot of my colleagues too are people who feel other people's emotions.
You know, like if somebody's crying, they might cry. Or if somebody goes through something, they might physically feel like, my gosh, they might feel that pain. Makes you a really good social worker. And also, if you don't have proper supervision or a therapist or good ways to take care of yourself, good boundaries, that's going to bite you. But I think those people are really good social workers. Boundaries is huge because you need boundaries with clients. No matter what kind of social work you're doing, clients are going to push that.
The interesting thing is though, I saw this all throughout my career. Employees are the social workers, they've got those, you know, they might be really sensitive, they might be very empathic and those things. The bosses often are super mean, super mean.
And there are so many other social workers or people in this field who leave because of trauma they experience at the hand of their boss or their organization. So it's really interesting how people who don't really have the heart of a social worker end up at the top and they just kind of, my gosh, I say they like destroy people's souls in a way, I'm not exaggerating. It can be really brutal. So I'd say, you know what, I didn't say this. When you're talking about classes to take,
If people can take communication classes or anything that would teach them how to be assertive, to speak assertively, that will go a long way too. So I hope that answers your question.
Greg
It does. So I want to tie two things together here. You just mentioned the class to make you more assertive, which is always, I think it's tough for anyone, right? At any age, even you could be 60 and still be scared of being assertive. You mentioned earlier, my first job, I should have, I wish I knew how to push back more, right? And that's scary for someone with their first job at a college, right? Cause you don't want to, you don't want to rustle the tree, right?
You just kind of want to show up and get to do a good job, things like that, but you wish you mentioned that you wish you would have been a more assertive. So maybe, I don't know if, if the answer is, I don't really know. it's more individualistic, but are there any piece of voice you might offer to someone who is maybe in their first job is scared about being more assertive? Like how much leeway did they have? Can they be assertive and just go, no, like this is not me. Let's figure out a different way around here. I don't, any advice you might be able to offer those people.
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Okay. Yeah, I think that's a great question. think it would be individual to the person, supervisor and the particular job that they're in. I feel like if you're two weeks out of undergrad, if you're six months out of undergrad or a year, still don't stay where you feel like you don't belong. There's a way to be assertive and stand up for yourself and make an exit with grace and professionalism and respect. I don't think that anybody should use people as doormats, so definitely don't stick around in that situation. even saying something like, you know, thank you so much for this opportunity.
I just realized this is not the population that I, you know, I thought I wanted to do this. And this has really helped me discover that I don't. Thank you so much for the support and the job and do what you can to leave on good terms, especially that first job, because you do need to build up references. That being said,
There are a lot of us in this field who leave jobs because we speak up while we're there and then we have a target on our back. This happens all the time in this field. So when I became assertive and couldn't stay quiet about things, the whole dynamic shifted between like administration and myself where it was like, this one's going to speak up about stuff. So I would see things like after giving notice, was torture.
To stay there for two weeks. Just a lot of mistreatment, disrespect, just horrible things. So give your two weeks notice, especially after graduate school, because you can be charged with patient abandonment if you just walk out of a job. You should learn about that in school. But I'd say if it doesn't feel right, if you know that, gracefully make an exit and do what you can to get a good reference. But there's also situations where
If it goes down and somebody mistreats you, you can explain at your next interview, hey, these people might not give me a good reference and I'd like to share with you why. And I have found that other employers are like, yeah, we hear that a lot or we know that's real. So not to let that stop them, because I've had a bunch of different jobs in my career and honestly, nobody's ever been like, you've really had like three jobs in the last two years. Can we count on you? They're just really excited to have someone who wants to work for them. So that's not as big of an issue as you might think.
What’s the biggets misconception about being a licensed clinical social worker?
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
okay. Well, there's not just one, there's a couple. One, thanks to TV and movies, a lot of the general public, if they hear social worker, they're like, they take babies. And there are some kids who have to be removed from their homes, but that's not this much of the social work profession. It's one job. And so that's something where we're not really trusted by a lot of people.
A lot of people have had very negative histories with social work. So we don't, we do a lot more than that and some of us won't even touch that. The other misconception is that you'll never make money. And I was talking with one of my mentors about this before I opened my practice. And she said, you know, just remember this throughout your career, because it's weird going from like making $37 an hour to $175 an hour. It feels kind of weird. And she said to
You deserve to be properly compensated. You have a lot of education. You have a lot of experience and it's a lie. So that you shouldn't make money in this field. So what a lot of places or agencies will say is you didn't go into social work for the money. You went in it to help people or you're so selfish to actually want to make money in this job. You know, that's, it's totally a lie. It's totally a lie. In a lot of cases we have the same. have nine years of post high school education because extended my grad school adventure.
So I remember, and I'm going to say this, that the other thing is you're going to be told, don't talk about money, which a lot of careers will say that, like don't talk about your co to your coworkers about money. I think that's also a way that people kind of keep, they can take advantage of people. So I will just say when I was working in hospice social work, there were months that I made take home pay of six to $7,000 a month.
And nobody thinks you can make that as a social worker. So if you go into healthcare social work, medical social work, that's probably where you're gonna make the most money and you deserve to make money. But it's totally a lie that you can't make money in this field. So that's another thing I would say.
Greg
Excellent. Love the answers. Love them. You're right. They always tell you not to talk about money with anyone. I generally don't. But I have these conversations in my household all the time. And we talk about it could be whatever. And we always say to each other, like know your worth. Right? Don't don't be like you could talk to a friend who doesn't make nearly as much as you and you don't have to shy away from that. I mean, one, those are your friend, but two, I'm not gonna feel guilty about choosing career and doing a job that I've done. Right?
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Yeah.
Greg
That's my choice. So I love the fact you said that. I think it's applicable to anyone at any career. Last question for you. Not really, but last professional question for you. What about your industry do you wish you knew sooner?
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
I think I wish I knew, there's a lot of of injustice and corruption. I know that's a heavy word, but for real, a lot of organizations that might be corporate or even not corporate and they're all about money. I did not know that going into this because I believe that whole like you should go into this and you know, you're not going to make money. People at the top make plenty of money and I think at almost every job, shouldn't say every job, but almost every job there were things
the reason that I left were for ethical reasons, where things would be going on that I would observe or that patients or clients would tell me about. And I'm like, I cannot be attached to this. There's a lot of really unethical things that happen. so prepare yourself for that, prepare to either speak up about it or to find something else. That was like, that was really a disappointment. And that's not to say that every place is going to be left. That's just my experience.
And again, if I knew different things, I don't think I would have stayed at some of those places or even worked for some of them to begin with. There's a lot of very good agencies and organizations where social workers can be, but it can be disappointing when there are things going on that are just super unethical.
Greg
So if someone's going into this field and they're at a younger age, there sort of red flags that you find carry over from places like that that maybe they should be mindful of?
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Yeah, I like to ask questions like, how come my job is open? Why are you interviewing for this job? Why did the last person leave? Or the people that would be on my team if I get this job, how long have they been here? And if everyone's been there for four months, you probably don't want to accept a job from them. I would recommend doing some research. So looking at some different sites to see what people say that it's like to work there. Sometimes that's trickier if it's a smaller organization.
If your boss never has time to help you, or if they tell you like, you can handle it, if you're asking them a question and you're really looking for advice or support and they're just kind of brush you off, that's a red flag. So not having a compassionate, supportive supervisor who really kind of pushes you in a good way to improve yourself and be better. The supervisor is going to make or break the job. really see, I would say listen to your gut too. So if you get a feeling in an interview of like, person seems kind of sketchy.
Probably listen to that. Most people who go into social work have good intuition. So yeah, there's one other thing that's super important that I forgot to say about undergrad and graduate. Can I tell you really quick?
Greg
Yeah, yeah, I thought you were gonna say I forgot it. And that was it, you know, so.
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Okay. I do forget a lot, but I was like, have to talk about this. We're in good company. I think what I wish I would have known, and this will be great for parents or students who are going into social work or literally any other type of trade school or higher education. If the students have something like anxiety, depression, ADHD, autism,
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
When they're in high school, get what is called a 504 plan or an IEP, depending on the diagnosis. What those things do is they provide accommodations under the law for things like quiet testing environments, extensions on assignments. There are people who can take notes for you in class, all kinds of accommodations. can be, one of my kiddos has an accommodation where she can always have an earbud in one ear, even if the teacher is giving a lecture because that helps her concentrate.
So if you have that in high school, it's a lot, you can take that with you to college. And then you can just get that updated and then you have a lot of accommodations. You we thought that what I have was anxiety and depression in undergrad and graduate school, right? And I didn't even think about, like, I could have asked for accommodations. So that would have made me feel so much less overwhelmed and stressed and all those things if I would have known those things were available.
If people don't get those before they go to college, they can still get them in college. So they'd want to get in touch with the student services or disability services at the school. Their advisor can also point them in the right direction. And at that point, it would require documentation from probably a therapist or a psychiatrist that the diagnosis exists. And that provider should be able to help them determine accommodations. You can also find really good documents online that say what accommodations would be good for certain things.
Even with people with medical conditions where they might have illness that's not mental illness. I wish more people knew about those things because it would really save a lot of parents and students. Stress and anxiety, there's so much support that's available. We just don't talk about it. So those things are super important.
Greg
Excellent, priceless advice, I love it. So thank you very much for that. Before we go, Sera, I'm gonna pull you out of your social work, therapy career and say if you had to choose a different career, which would you choose and why?
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Well, I would still want to work for myself because I don't want to be, I don't want anybody else telling me what to do. I'm going to do my own thing. But what I would do is I would have kind of this combination business. It would be like bookstore because bookstores are just lovely and libraries. So it would be surrounded with a lot of books, probably like used books, maybe some new ones, but like let's make it affordable.
So books and then like a little coffee shop area. And then, I'm like, I'm a little hippie, so I would have like really cool rocks and things like that. And then I'd love to have a place where like people could do yoga or take meditation classes or just do things that are good for their mind and their body and where they can kind of meet community, you know, create community in a place like that, and ideally that would be probably like in some little mountain town or like an ocean side type place. That's what I would do.
Greg
So I've got to imagine you just take a quick trip to Sedona and you're good. Pop open a shop and call it a day, right?
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Yes. my gosh. Sedona is magical.
Greg
Yes, very good. So Sera, thank you for your time today. It was pleasure having you. I think the advice was wonderful. If anyone wants to get a hold of you, ask questions, whatever, what's the best way for them to do
Sera Gray, LCSW, CCTS-I
Yeah. Best way is going to be my website. It's just wildlotustherapy .com and Lotus is spelled L -O -T -U -S. So if anybody wants to have a consultation, do free consultations if people want to do therapy with me, but I can only provide therapy to people in Arizona. So there's a little link on my website for that. And the website just talks a lot about how I show up for therapy, what it looks like with me, the different specialties I have and...
I'm just kind of getting my social media stuff out there now and YouTube and I've got a blog. So there will be more when I can have the capacity to add more things, but that's going to be the best place.
Greg
Wonderful Sera Gray everyone therapist and owner of a wild lotus therapy I knew I thought I was gonna get through this thing perfectly fine and took me to the end I'm over so to find out more about Sera will link Wild lotus therapy comm in the video description below and I hope everyone enjoyed today's episode If you'd like to unbox your career with us, we'd love to have you Please visit the webiste to find out more, and until next time, be kind of one
(Interview transcription provided by Riverside.fm. May not be 100% accurate.)
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