What inspired you to join the social work profession?
Laura Daughtery: Well, it's a long answer. I had been a journalist for 22 years, and during that time the nature of that business changed. In the 70s they discovered that news could make money. So, I had the opportunity to go to Chicago to do a fellowship at the University of Chicago. I was there for nine months with other journalists who were all mid-career people talking about the changes in the industry. And I met a woman named Dr. Dolores Norton of the University of Chicago. She's a very famous social worker. She wrote a little pamphlet about the dual consciousness of social workers who were members of minority groups. I got to work with her on a project that eventually became a five-part documentary that aired on PBS, called Making Peace. So I started talking to her and other people about this field of social work. She asked, so what do you do when you're at work? And so I said, “what I do is there's 50 to 60 people who are working on the news of the day and we're all fighting for the best representation of every story that's out there. And so what I do is go around and talk to the editors, and talk to the people. I make a plan about what we're going to do and I make a format, that's what it's called, and I make sure we have the stuff that's going to make the story possible. And then I talk with the reporters about their story and the reporters are always stressed out. Then when I was in the control room I’d have to work with the production crews to make sure the cameras worked and the show got on and off on time. So, this person says, well, Laura that just sounds like you're doing social work. And I was like, social work? And she said, ya you’re community organizing everybody and trying to get the whole community together on one page. And I was like, really? So I started doing a little reading. And so I fell in love with the language of social work. The dignity and worth of the person, the importance of human relationships, integrity, competence, all those things. I fell in love.
What was something that you learned from your Ph.D. that you thought made you a better social worker?
Laura Daughtery: Well, one of the things when you're a Ph.D. student that you learn to appreciate is research and documentation. When you're out there practicing social work it’s easy to think that it’s just a bunch of nonsense. I gotta write down everything that happens and that’s tiring. But you can't change anything until you have proof that it actually happened. And so documentation is very important.
Being able to create and analyze the actual design of systems is important. What's going on? What are we doing here? I was famous for making charts when I worked at PG County because it was a graphic representation of what we were doing and where we were dropping the ball. There's this woman named Ann Hartman and she developed this theory using echo maps of the ecology of the child that is essentially a graphic representation of the child’s life. She’d focus on who's the grandma? Who's the auntie? Who are the church people? Who are the neighbors? Who's mommy's best friend? And this was important because it identified where you might find the resources for this kid. I learned that in the MSW program. I remember my other social workers were like, “It's another piece of paper.” But it helps you! It helps you see what's going on with this kid and what we can do to help.
What was your favorite class that you taught?
Laura Daughtery: Probably the 101 class. With most of them being new to the university we're not only teaching them about the content, we're also socializing them to become students and social workers. That was the most fun because then you see them four years later when they're getting ready to graduate and you're like, “oh my God, look at you! You're a real person now! You're a critical-thinking adult.” I like watching them grow and expand and learn more things and their excitement about what they're doing in the world. Because they'll write to me and give me updates on their life and I love that stuff.
What is some advice you’d give to students who want to be social workers?
Laura Daughtery: Well, I always emphasize to them that social workers are born, they're not made. I say this because there are so many parts of being a social worker that we can't teach. We can't teach people to be empathetic. We can't teach people to be interested in other people. We can't teach people to respect other people's choices. And either they're naturally that way or they are a little bit that way. And then the more we talk to them about it, the more they realize it’s a significant part of who they are. I do one class on foster care and social work 101. And I say to them, it is very hard, tough work. So don't do it if you don't love it, just don't do it because you’ll end up hurting people. If you don't love getting in the middle of a big mess because that is so often the case with foster care cases, you’ll end up causing more damage.
When I wrote my dissertation, the first paragraph of my dissertation stated that foster care is at the nexus of every single social problem that we face in this country. Addiction, homelessness, poverty, that's what child welfare work is. It's children getting caught up in a whole bunch of things that have nothing to do with them. But we have to figure out a solution for them to be healthy and productive in the middle of all of these very challenging, situations.
You've been in the foster care world for some time now. What has changed since when you first started working versus today?
Laura Daughtery: Well, we now understand that a lot is going on. Years ago there was a cookie-cutter approach where the field would do the exact same thing for every single case. Now we understand a lot more about how trauma impacts children. When I first started working in social work, we never talked about trauma. But we now know that trauma is everything. The fact that you're no longer living with your mom and dad is traumatic. We didn't pay attention to that and we didn't really pay attention much to mental health issues. I used to get in trouble all the time over getting evaluations for kids. I’d want to take them to the psychiatrist, the psychologist, and then the social worker. I would do that all the time. And management would ask “Is it necessary to do that?” And I always said yes because trauma happened and we needed to address it. But back in the day, it wasn't and my boss would say, “Laura, you know, that psychiatrist costs $1,500 every time you take somebody there.”
Which students did you enjoy teaching the most?
Laura Daughtery: Students who are trying to figure it out. They may be in my 101 class, not because they want to major in social work, they're just curious. So they come in there and they learn stuff, and then some of them switch their major to social work, right? They, you know, once they have taken the class they realize this is what I always wanted to do. I just didn't know what it was called. Those are some of my favorite students, and then they go out and do amazing things.
What’s changed since you began teaching at Catholic University? How have the department and students changed?
Laura Daughtery: I think that fewer students know about social work because one of the things that the pandemic showed us is that students talk to one another in the dorm about their different disciplines and what they have to do. And what we didn't realize is that our discipline is one of those disciplines people accidentally run into. It's not their first choice. It's not something they leave school saying, oh, I want to do this. We would start a class with only 6 or 7 students, and then we would graduate 20. So where do they all come from? They came from other students. Our best marketing is other students who explain to them what social work is all about.
Do you have any advice for students who might be nervous about what happens after they graduate?
Laura Daughtery: This is what I tell students because they're always nervous about this. I'm 70 years old. I still don't know what I want to do in life, but I ain't worried about it because my approach to life has been to do the next right thing. When you get bored, it's time to move on. So look around and see what might interest you and then just keep going.
Here's my thing, as a woman of faith, I believe that God has a plan for everybody, right? What am I doing? Messing up the plan? If God has a plan for me, the next thing is out there and I'll find it and know it and know what to do. So what am I worried about this for? What I gotta do is just roll with the punches, right? If this is the next right thing, let's move. This retirement thing. Did I know this was going to happen this year? No, I did not. It just came up out of the blue and I realized that's the next right thing.
What is the next right thing for you?
Laura Daughtery: Two days a week I come to NCSSS to work on a grant with Doctor Pete Delaney and Doctor Joe Shields. I teach at my alma mater, Morgan State University. One doctoral class a semester. So I work on dissertations for Catholic and Morgan State University. I’ve got church stuff I got to do and they know I'm retired now. So it's more church stuff. I want to travel.
What makes Catholic University students unique? What makes NCSSS unique? And why should students come here for their MSW, BSW, or Ph.D.?
Laura Daughtery: Well, we're very small. It’s close-knit. It's more like a family. So when people say, oh, you're going to retire! I’m like retire from what? I get calls from people I work with. They've been retired for five years but they just call me up like we saw each other yesterday. It's also an intense work environment because, in addition to the academic work that we're responsible for, we are also social workers. So it's one thing if you're in the education department and a student comes to say I couldn't turn in my paper because I had a family emergency. As an academic, that means ten points a day are deducted from your assignment. But what we hear is the family emergency. And so then we start getting worried about the student. Did she tell you what the family emergency was? Did she disclose? And what can we do to help her? I think that's the difference between what happens in our department and what happens in other departments. In other departments, these are the rules. You either do them or you don't. We're like, you know better. How come you didn't follow the rules? What happened to you? Do you know what happened there?
This is my first teaching and last teaching experience and when they asked me why did you want to work there? I said it's the collegiality of the faculty. They all know each other. They all know each other's quirks and each other's weirdness.