Episode Two: Ethics, Faith & Justice: Exploring the Unique 10th Competency at the Garland School
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Description
How can social workers thoughtfully engage with religion, spirituality, and philosophical frameworks in a way that promotes ethical and anti-oppressive practice?
Jon Singletary, PhD, Dean of the Garland School of Social Work, unpacks the school’s distinctive 10th competency and its implications for holistic, justice-oriented social work. Dr. Singletary explores topics like spiritual discernment, trauma-informed care, and navigating ethical tensions across diverse traditions.
Join us in discovering how grounding social work in deeper meaning can shape leaders who serve with integrity and humility.
Transcript
SPEAKERS
Curtis Isozaki, Jon Singletary
Curtis Isozaki 00:01
Dean Singletary, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast! Really excited to talk a little bit about the 10th competency in The Garland School.
Jon Singletary 00:09
Hey, thanks, Curtis! Likewise! It's fun that we're doing these podcasts together.
Curtis Isozaki 00:13
Well, I hope today is to engage in a conversation about exploring the 10th competency and how religion and spirituality and social work practice are integrated in diverse settings, and really we want to be thinking about how to consider addressing how religion and spirituality impacts ethical and anti oppressive social work practice.
Jon Singletary 00:34
Yeah, that 10th competency is a mouthful, and it is kind of funny that we're talking about 10th competency when we haven't addressed the other 10, but it is what sets us apart. We get to create our own competency, and it is the 10th one. So, it'll make sense as we talk, but it's a great statement of who we are.
Curtis Isozaki 00:53
Absolutely! So, before we dive into the 10th competency and what it is, want to kind of start off with maybe reintroducing yourself to those joining in the conversation, then we'll dive into some rapid fire questions.
Jon Singletary 01:05
All right, I can't wait!
Curtis Isozaki 01:07
Okay, so first Rapid Fire question, what is one word to describe Waco, Texas, we're currently living,
Jon Singletary 01:15
Oooh, history.
Curtis Isozaki 01:20
Why history?
Jon Singletary 01:21
Because we have such an unusual history. You know, we're trying to learn more about our namesake, the Native American tribe for whom we're named. But you also look at kind of the somewhat recent history, going back 30 or 50 years in this kind of, this, this kind of traumatic religious history to Waco. But also some, some kind of new growth and development that reframes who we are in a much more positive light. So, Waco is this phenomenal city here in the heart of Texas with this really rich and storied history.
Curtis Isozaki 01:55
Well, I've so enjoyed having conversations with you about that history, especially over a cup of coffee. And we've, we've had the chance to kind of enjoy time together over a cup of coffee. And so, we'd love to hear - what is your go to order at your favorite coffee shop?
Jon Singletary 02:11
All right, speaking of coffee, huh? Ha - I'm kind of a black coffee guy. I start my day off drinking pretty straightforward, plain black coffee. I don't put anything in it when I'm just drinking coffee. Now, occasionally, if I drink coffee in the afternoon, or if I drink iced coffee, then I want cream and sugar in it. I want something sweet. That's a little different, but my go-to is either drip coffee pourover. I had an americano this morning. So, usually just the good stuff.
Curtis Isozaki 02:45
Amazing! So final, rapid fire question, if you could have dinner with any social worker, dead or alive? Who would it be?
Jon Singletary 02:55
Now, I don't know if I ever had dinner with David Sherwood. Dr Sherwood was on our faculty 20 years ago. 10 years before that, he worked with our founding Dean, Diana Garland, at Southern Seminary at The Carver School of Social Work. There, actually they didn't work together. There, he was interviewing for a job that ended up getting Dean Garland in trouble there. He didn't get the job, and later that year, they shut down the School of Social Work. So, knowing that history is an interesting part of who we are today. He took a stand for supporting women, and it created quite a firestorm. David is was he just recently passed away. David was such a kind, sweet, intentional soul known for these kind of one liners, these maxims, and his favorite one is you cannot maximize all values simultaneously. It's kind of an ethical statement of philosophy that he would have us wrestle with. David was a remarkable teacher, social worker and friend.
Curtis Isozaki 04:11
Well, that maxim has definitely impacted my life as I've entered into the social work world, and really causes a pause for reflection for all of us. And so would you say that maximum, like, one more time?
Jon Singletary 04:23
Yeah, the idea is, it's kind of rooted in how we think about ethical decision-makings. Ethical Decision making is often a matter of, how do we do this and this? How do I make sure we're able to grow and support our history? How do we do something new and something old? How do we pay attention to this and that? So, you're often wrestling with multiple competing goods, multiple opportunities that might conflict with one another. So the statement is, you cannot maximize all of your values simultaneously. Sometimes our values conflict with one another, and we have to choose.
Curtis Isozaki 05:09
And so as we dive into our values, our competency here in The Garland School, The Garland School of Social Work's 10th competency is stated as "engage in ethical, anti-oppressive social work practice and research that considers the role and influence of religion, spirituality and philosophical perspectives," and with that in mind, how have you seen The Garland School of Social Work prepare social workers for worldwide service and leadership.
Jon Singletary 05:41
I mean, that is the defining question. I love it, and just understanding that competency is the invitation for all of us, right? How do we really think about the the influence of religion and spirituality in our lives, in the work we do, in what makes us who we are, in our social work practice. We want our we want our social practice to be ethical and anti-oppressive. That's important to us. It's important to us professionally, but also because of our our faith because of our religion and spirituality. At Baylor, we're always wrestling with that intersection of the importance of how we see and understand and experience religion and spirituality, and how we practice Social Work ethically and for the good of everyone. So, how have we seen the school prepare students to do that? Oh, so many ways. Our alumni are phenomenal, and they're doing amazing things all over the world. Some of them are in quite traditional roles, but they're still often motivated by some deep either philosophical center or spiritual center, a sense of calling something that motivates them to do good. You have to have that in Social Work. The work is so hard. We're up against so many real challenges that people face. You have to know what inspires you, what centers you, what sustains you. This 10th competency is an invitation with rest to wrestle with that - I love the way that our students and alumni get to live it out in their careers.
Curtis Isozaki 07:39
So, just before this, this podcast episode and conversation, we talked a little bit with Professor Sarah Ritter, and particularly about competency-based education. We talked a little bit about community practice, clinical practice, and our concentrations that we have here in The Garland School. As you think about our residential MSW students, our PSW students, but then also all of our students across our nation, our online students, or even some of our students practicing overseas, and our alumni across the history of The Garland School, as you think about Baylor Indeed, our strategic plan, can you explain the role and impact of the 10th competency with Social Work practice in our communities?
Jon Singletary 08:30
Yeah, so, on the one hand, I think about how students come to us because of a sense of calling, because of a deep faith because they're motivated to do good, to help people, to work for justice. That's what gets them in the door. They come here because they want to make a difference. And then while they're here, they're learning these skills, hands-on, skills. Social work is an educational journey of professional practice - so you are learning what it takes to make a difference in the lives of people and the systems that affect us. So, how do we change organizations, communities, societies to better care for people so that we're not having to respond to needs after the fact? So, students are learning these skills, and at the same time, we're learning how religion and spirituality are part of those systems. So, religion doesn't just inspire us to be here, but the very people we serve have a faith story. They have a spirituality. They have a religion that has meant something to them. So, a part of what we wrestle with is how has that journey also inspired them? We work with immigrants who have. Traveled from Central America up into North America, crossing the border at the south of our nation with their family, and they come here, and they have a faith story. Believing that God has a future for them and another place that will allow their family to be cared for. They made this journey because of that deep faith. We want to hear that story and respond in kind. How can we support you in that belief and desire to support your family the way you believe God has called you? That's just one example. So we care deeply about those experiences, but at the same time, other people have a story of being traumatized by religion, maybe a story of spiritual abuse, and they - they're trying to make sense of that trauma, coming to terms with it, seeking to be healed, to become whole in a new way. So, we have these phenomenal, phenomenal clinical interventions that are trauma-informed, help people make sense of everything that has impacted them. All of our stories of religion and spirituality aren't positive ones, but we're not afraid to talk about them, to explore the depths of these hard questions. That's what The Garland School is. That's what makes us unique.
Curtis Isozaki 11:26
As you reflect on these really deep questions. Often these questions lead to, as we've kind of talked about, already ethical decision-making. So, going deeper when it comes to these top competencies that social worker education really, truly leans into and abides. But if we can go a little bit deeper in reflecting upon overall ethical decision-making and practices and kind of going double downing on what you've already shared - How does religion and spirituality and social practice intersect, but particularly in situations and moments of addressing ethical and anti oppressive practices?
Jon Singletary 12:13
Yeah, at the core, social work is a profession grounded in ethics. So, we have to be quite intentional about the best care possible for people, and it takes a lot of discernment. That's a spiritual practice right there. It takes a lot of deep work to figure out, what is best for the people I'm serving? Not, what do I think is best? Not what do I think they need? Not, what have my values told me is the right thing to do...but what is truly best for them? What do they have to say about that? What is - what do they want in this situation? We might think what you want is not best for you, but we have to believe in the integrity that they have as a person. That we believe is also a beloved child of God. We have to - to value what has shaped them, what matters to them, the decisions they want to make. So, this question of 'Who gets to choose what? For whom and how?' Is full of these ethical wrestlings. You know, the simple way we describe the kind of religious journey that our students might have to explore is, what if I am a social worker shaped by an evangelical background, and I'm working with a family who has made their way into our community, who are deeply Catholic in their religious tradition and their spirituality, but we're working in a Methodist organization? That right there is three Christian perspectives, kind of coming together. Methodist teaching of this organization might say this, but as an Evangelical, I might believe this, but this Catholic family might have a different perspective. What happens when you take that to an even larger level, and I find myself now being offered a job by a Jewish organization who serves Muslim families? Or someone comes in who says, "I've given up on Christianity because I've been heard by the church," and what if I'm a person who still believes deeply that the church provides the greatest good. How do I set my beliefs aside in order to do what might be best for the person? That-that is hard and intentional work that takes some wrestling to figure out. How do I really understand what is best and seek what is best for people?
Curtis Isozaki 15:18
Can you share a story of a student or alumni who exemplifies the 10 competency in their work?
Jon Singletary 15:25
Yes, several come to mind. We have alumni working with veterans who have experienced trauma. These veterans come home and they want to, you know, maybe it's a male who served in the military, and he's coming back and he's married, and his wife is saying, "I don't know the man that I'm married to anymore,"and he's saying, "I can't get these voices out of my head, and I'm not sure I'm fit for this marriage anymore," and the wife is crushed and saying, "No, how do we make this work?" Our students are there.Maybe because of their faith, believing in the value of marriage, wanting what is best for this couple, trying to make sense of that. That's an example of one of our alumni living out the 10th competency, practicing social work well, trying to figure out, how do I provide guidance, care for this individual and family in this situation. We have alumni working with older adults, older adults with dementia, and maybe it's the child, the young daughter of that older person providing the caregiving. They're tired. They don't understand what's happening to their beloved mother or father. They want to provide the best care, but they don't have the energy or the resources to allow their mother to stay in their home. How do they help their mother make a decision about where to live? How to live? How to use their finances well, and just wrestling with what is best? You know, because my faith tradition says I'm supposed to care for my family. Do I impose that belief, or do I allow this family to make a different decision? You know, that's what our alumni are wrestling with. We have alumni doing this in, of course, faith-based organizations. We have alumni doing this in secular organizations where maybe a faith isn't a part of the work, but you never know when and how spirituality will show up. So we might have clinicians, social workers who are working as therapists, and in a session, a client will begin to talk about their own spiritual journey. Maybe that social worker knows they're in an agency that's not religious, but how do they attend to the spirituality of that client? Are they prepared to go down that ethical road of still honoring talking about spirituality? Even though they know that it's not necessarily a part of what that agency values. Then we have alumni on the other side of the coin who are working in churches. We have alumni doing great work as church social workers, where maybe they're expected to talk about their faith, but they have people coming in from the community who aren't there to talk about religion. They just need help finding food to make it through the day, to care for their family, and wrestling in that context of, okay, this is still a spiritual question, but I'm not here to talk about spiritual matters. I'm here to meet a basic need. There's so many questions that we wrestle with, and those are just a few. A specific alum comes to mind in each of those scenarios, who is doing this work in such a meaningful way.
Curtis Isozaki 19:15
Thank you so much for sharing such meaningful stories and such important work and to our alumni, staff, faculty, current students, and friends of The Garland School and really our future students. Thank you so much for just being a part of this story in The Garland School of Social Work. Twenty-five plus years of the MSW. Fifty plus The Garland School, and we're just so thankful for you leaning into our community and just being a part of the legacy that we have. The living out of the 10th competency, just as a final reflection, Dean Singletary, around the 10th competency, what makes the 10th competency absolutely critical to our work? You've shared a lot, you'vetalked about various stories you've shared about ethical decisioning, but just as a final reflection - What makes the 10th competency critical for social work practice?
Jon Singletary 20:21
You know, I think about the few weeks after Thanksgiving, we're leading up to the Christmas season, and I think about the the joke, that's true, that's not a joke. Far too many families, we know, when you get together with family, you don't talk about religion and politics. Well, you know, it's a sad statement. That it's so hard to have these crucial conversations about the things that matter to us most. In my own family, it's hard to talk about about those things, and what is critical about this competency is we're saying, when you're experiencing Social Work Education at The Garland School, we're going to talk about those things. The work of policy is at the core of social work practice. We're thinking about federal policies, legislation that shapes the lives of individuals. We're talking about organizational policies that guide decisions we make. So policy, politics are there, and so is religion, in spirituality. We can't avoid those things, and sometimes, that's the easy thing is to think. I just want to be in a place where I don't have to think about these things or talk about these things, because it's too hard. It is, it is difficult, but that's the work. That is what is critical. How do we come together as students, learners, teachers, professionals, and wrestle with these ethical questions? How do we make sure that we're being attentive to the experiences people have of oppression and marginalization? How their lives have been set aside because they're not valued? We're here to say no. You are valued. You are seen. We want to care for you deeply. That is anti-oppressive practice, and we believe that being anti-oppressive is is both a social work value, but for us, it is a spiritual value as well. As Christians, we pay attention to Jesus words where he says he was called to address the experience of those who've who've been oppressed within society, and today, 2000 years later, we're still called to do that as Christians. Now we're not all practicing Christians as students in The Garland School. That's not an expectation to study here. We're not just talking about the Christian faith, but so many of our faith traditions, so many religious traditions wrestle with that calling of, how do we address experiences of oppression in society and work for liberation in society? And so in The Garland School, we want to take that work seriously.
Curtis Isozaki 23:24
Fantastic! Thank you so much for this conversation. It's given us a lot to reflect on, think about and continue dialog around. For those of you who are listening that are prospective students and thinking about that audience that we have, what advice would you give to prospective students exploring their career and Social Work at The Garland School?
Jon Singletary 23:51
Hmm, it's not good podcast practice to want to pause and allow silence, but I think that's that's the invitation for engaging this work, because it is spiritual work. I want potential students, current students, my own faculty and staff, to appreciate the value of pausing to listen. To listen to their life. To listen to how they understand God working within their lives. To think about what we are inspired to be and become. We think about those things, but we don't easily slow down or stop to listen. Well, I don't, man, I'm moving from one thing to the next. I had coffee with an alum this morning. Well before that, I got up early, made breakfast for my family. We have teenagers who are at college. We're back home for the holidays, so our house was hustling and bustling this morning. Taking the dogs out, doing all the things.Taking my son to work, running off to Coffee with an alum. Leaving coffee to come hang out with you this morning. Going from here to a lunch meeting I have coming up. "Go, go, go!" is the name of them, and that's what the Social Work life is like for so many of our alumni. They're working hard, and yet we have to learn to pause. So, I just want to offer that advice to everyone: find time, make time to slow down, pause, breathe, and just be you. That's it. Easier said than done, but hopefully that's something we can take seriously this season.
Curtis Isozaki 25:50
Dean Singletary, you value mindfulness practices. Just to kind of end this podcast, this conversation, would you like to lead us through a moment of mindfulness? Maybe even share a little bit about what that means to you.
Jon Singletary 26:09
Yeah, I grew up in I grew up in a Christian family. We talked a lot about the importance of prayer. So, I grew up, and I'm still a praying person, but most of how I understood prayer was talking to God. Listening is so much harder. Mindfulness is about listening. It's not just listening to God, although that is a part of it. It's it's just learning to listen to life, to our own soul, as well as the voice of God within us and all around us. So, the call to to mindfulness, for me, is a spiritual journey. It is a part of my Christian faith. It's not that way for everyone. So I'm really interested in diverse traditions, of mindfulness, of deep listening. I'm doing a study right now with a PhD alum who's a mutual friend of ours, looking at collectivist cultures and mindfulness and different traditions, and it's been a great way for me to learn about how different people practice this, this idea of mindfulness, which is just really about learning to to be in the present moment. Most of my time, as I mentioned, I'm thinking about "what's next, what's next," instead of thinking about "what is in the now," and the difficult thing is, is sometimes when I pause to listen to what's in the now, the scary things show up. You know, it's like, oh man, but you know, that's when that anxiety shows up, that's when that fear shows up, that's when those voices of shame might come back it, and that's a part of the work I've got to do. I've got to recognize those things, see them for what they are, and then learn to let them go, treat them like clouds in the Sky, notice them and let them float on by. You can't force them away, but we shouldn't overly dwell on them either, and mindfulness is a way of learning to do that. To be in the present moment, to not let our thoughts and fears consume us. To notice those things, but to just trust and the gift of that ancient prayer that all shall be well. So, I'll just invite us to this brief practice of using that phrase combined with breathing. So, if you've stayed with us this far on the podcast, stay with us for another one minute as we just kind of pause. Notice your breath and all for that phrase, all shall be well. Then, take another deep breath in and out. Sit with that phrase again, "all shall be well." One more time, deep breath in and out, and hear the words "all things shall be well." Now it's not a matter of forcing that to be true, but trusting that it may be so. Just practicing a 30 minute breathing and reflection practice like that is a way to step in to the practice of mindfulness, and it's something we can all do. So, I hope listeners, you can do that today, and I hope it's something I can keep learning to do better in my own life.
Curtis Isozaki 30:28
Thank you so much, Dean Singletary. We're looking forward to our next conversation together our friends listening in. Thank you so much for tuning in. We hope that all continues to be well.