The UMB Pulse Podcast
The University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) is working to strengthen social impact and galvanize innovation. This season of “The UMB Pulse” podcast is featuring stories about how UMB is taking creative action to overcome barriers and solve social problems. Be sure to tune in – new episodes drop on the FIRST FRIDAY of the month! “The UMB Pulse” is produced by the UMB Office of Communications and Public Affairs. Co-hosted by Charles Schelle, lead social media specialist and Dana Rampolla, director of integrated marketing.
The UMB Pulse Podcast
Rooted in Care: Social Work Alumnus' Journey to Nurturing Families and Futures
Join hosts Charles Schelle, MS, and Dana Rampolla as they interview Michael Allen, MSW '03, chief executive officer of Therapeutic Connections and chairman of the University of Maryland School of Social Work Alumni Board. Allen shares his inspiring journey navigating through being a social worker at the R Cowley Adams Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center, employee assistance program (EAP) consulting, and his innovative work at Therapeutic Connections. Learn how he leveraged his experiences to make impactful changes in behavioral health services and hear his advice for aspiring social workers.
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Dana, we're just going to call October Social Worker Month on the UMB policy, even though it's observed in March.
Dana Rampolla:Hmm, why do you say that?
Charles Schelle:Well, last year we had a recent graduate from the University of Maryland School of Social Work, Melanie Yates. She talked about the passage of the Josh Siems Act that she was intimately involved with to test for fentanyl in Maryland emergency rooms. The previous October, we had Dean Judy Postmas talk about financial abuse and intimate relationships.
Dana Rampolla:Oh my gosh, I didn't even realize that. Yeah. It just happened that way.
Charles Schelle:Yeah, time has flown, and it kind of makes sense because these are all different topics, and October is filled with social worker adjacent months like National Homelessness Awareness Month and Bullying Prevention Month, and just mentioning those, I feel like I have deja vu talking about all these months, but the reason I mention that is that being a social worker, you have to have a wide range of skills, and our guest this month is a great example of that.
Dana Rampolla:Yeah, Michael Allen is the chief executive officer of Therapeutic Connections where he's responsible for day to day operations He's a He graduated with a Master's of Social Work in 2003 from the University of Maryland School of Social Work, and he is the current chairman of the University of Maryland School of Social Work Alumni Board. What I really like about our conversation with him is how he talks about being a student, graduating, what he thought his trajectory was going to be, and how he worked in some really interesting places that eventually led him to be at Therapeutic Connections. Therapeutic Connections.
Charles Schelle:Absolutely. And as you will hear him talk, you can choose pretty much any job you can think of being a social worker and help people. So without further ado, here is Michael Allen on the UMB Pulse.
Jena Frick:You're listening to the heartbeat of the University of Maryland Baltimore, the UMB Pulse.
Charles Schelle:Michael, welcome to the UMB Pulse. Can you tell our listeners a little bit how you first came to Baltimore and what led you to social work?
Mchael Allen:Yeah, good afternoon. Thank you both for having me here. I moved to Baltimore back in 1996 a couple months after graduating from college. I went to the State University of New York College at New Paltz, upstate New York, and I had a really good friend that moved to Baltimore about a year prior to me. Right after graduation, like many recent graduates, it was really challenging finding employment in New York City. And my friend encouraged me to come down here and take advantage of a lot of the opportunities. So I took them up on that invitation and been here going on 28 years now. And one of the best decisions that I've made.
Dana Rampolla:Wow, that's a long time. Quite the journey. I'm sure you'll be telling us a lot of things that happened from there to here. Michael, before we get started, I have like to do a little thing with you that occasionally we do with our guests. It's called two truths and a lie. So we would love to get to know you a little on the personal side. Tell us two things that are true. One, that's a lie. And we're going to try to see if we can figure out which is the not truth.
Mchael Allen:Okay, let's go for it. I think the first one I'm a grandfather. I speak Portuguese and I visited Argentina.
Charles Schelle:Hmm. Well, the last two seem to coincide together pretty well. Grandfather?
Dana Rampolla:And I would not have guessed a grandfather except you just said 28 years. So,
Charles Schelle:Let's say
Dana Rampolla:Portuguese.
Charles Schelle:Yeah, I'll, actually I'll say you didn't visit Argentina.
Mchael Allen:Okay, so the winner is It's Charles. I haven't been to Argentina before, but I do speak a little bit of Portuguese, and I am the grandfather of two boys Owen, who is 11, and Orion, who is 3 years old.
Charles Schelle:Congratulations.
Mchael Allen:Thank you.
Dana Rampolla:Yeah, as a recently new grandparent, it's, it's funny how those little grandbabies change our lives, right?
Mchael Allen:Absolutely.
Dana Rampolla:Well, and Michael, what I think has really I'll say been a big part of your life is changing other people's lives. You've had an incredible career journey. What was it like working at Johns Hopkins in the community psychiatry department? And how did that experience shape your decision to pursue your MSW at UMB?
Mchael Allen:Wow, it was an incredible experience for me professionally coming from New York to Maryland. I knew nothing about social services, nothing about community resources, and Johns Hopkins community psychiatry was one of the best places for me to start that journey. But my supervisor at the time was just incredible. She was also a University of Maryland School of Social Work graduate. And one day she invited me to her office. I thought that I had did something wrong. And she sat me down and, and really encouraged me to submit my application to the school of social work. She was able to identify a lot of potential within me and told me that she thought that I would be an incredible social worker. And I took her up on a deal. And she had a recommendation in hand. She says, now you just have to get two more and get accepted and you're off on your journey. And I did, and I'm incredibly grateful to her for doing so. Prior to that, I didn't think. about going and applying to the University of Maryland School of Social Work. I thought that just getting my bachelor's degree was just, you know, top tier and there was no, no other place to go at that point, but she saw that potential in me and believed in me and got me on the right course. And again, Johns Hopkins the community psychiatry program was just a really incredible opportunity. Uh, Be introduced to work with some really challenging individuals who had some significant diagnoses that were homeless adults with, with mental illnesses many of them living on the streets for several years and really making that connection with them. And, and getting them to really trust me and, and also allow me to help them to get connected to the things that they wanted and needed and deserved was it's definitely something that I'm very proud of.
Charles Schelle:One of the more interesting parts of your journey, I think, is when you were at the University of Maryland School of Social Work, you did your field placement at the R. Cowley Adams Shock Trauma Center at the University of Maryland Medical Center, right? And so most people think field placements, shock trauma, trauma surgeon potentially. So what was that experience like? What did you do in shock trauma?
Mchael Allen:Yeah, and it was overwhelming. I think doing an internship there, that was the last time that I had hair after that, I totally lost my hair, as you can imagine but I worked with the violence intervention program, and I was uh, at the time, I worked with individuals who were intentionally injured due to interpersonal acts of violence. So we saw a gunshot wound, stab wounds beatings with inanimate objects, and it was actually a research program. So, it taught me a lot about how to Identify the questions through the internal review board and get them accepted. But it was a total of 150 questions. So in the mornings, I would go on the screen and identify who came to the shock trauma center overnight with one of those various injuries and then I would go to their bedside and see if they wanted to participate within this program. The, the idea behind it all was to approach individuals at their most vulnerable time. You know, sometimes folks when they're not You know, hit with those types of challenges. They're not thinking about change. But once you almost lose your life, you see life a little differently. And we were able to connect them and provide case management services for them. Therapy services for them. We would go into the home, meet the families of these individuals. We were all over the place. If a client was incarcerated,we would d go down to the detention center and visit them there. We would advocate for those clients and, and court. We would share with the judges, with the attorneys all of the positive things that those individuals were able to accomplish. And it, it meant so much. And for a lot of those individuals, This was the first time for many of them that they felt that someone outside of their family, like, believed in them and, and trusted them. And they tagged me with that. And I can recall my, my last patient that I've ever worked with. He was a 54 year old African American male. And I can remember it like it was yesterday and I went in to go through my two part questions with, with this gentleman and he was sleeping when I entered the room and I was about to leave and he woke up and when he woke up he was crying and I, I re entered the room and, and then I asked him what was wrong and he was crying because he realized that, you know, he was shot multiple times with a, with an assault. gun and He realized that he would never walk again and he had a dream that he was playing basketball and that realization just hit him at that same time that I had entered the room. And you know, I'm a young man at the time and I'm thinking about. Like what impact like what can I do for this gentleman and, you know, I go back to my office and I get online and I'm trying to find resources I didn't really know, like what I was looking for, and I came across a proposal a request for proposal through the American Trauma Society. And it was for about$10,000. So a really small RFP. So I said, what the heck, I might as well apply for this, for this RFP. And in a couple of weeks, I received notification that that we were approved for the 10, 000. I went back to my supervisor at the time and I'm like so excited that, you know, we were approved for this 10, 000. I'm like, yeah, we got 10, 000. So she's like, well, what are you going to do with it? And I was like, well, I'm, I did my part. I put RFP and got it. So she's like, no, you got it. So you can decide what you want to do with this with this money. So, I thought about that 54 year old man and I, you know, for him, it may have been too late for me to really make a change within his life, you know, may have some of the life decisions that he may have made prior may have gotten him in that situation, but I thought more along the lines of, You know, what about some youth? What about some Children in this great city of Baltimore? How can we impact them so that they are not in this situation where they're in the hospital bed or leaving in a body bag? So at the time I created a program called Promoting Healthy Alternatives for Youth. And we call it the PHAT program, which is P H A T and that was very popular about 20 years ago, not so much with some of the youth nowadays, in terms of slang. But what the program entailed was to partner with community youth organizations and have them to visit shock trauma and see all of the careers that that were available such as social workers, such as doctors, nurses, technicians, and so forth. And we would do like an inaugural. photograph on the helipad with the physician Dr. Carnell Cooper started the violence intervention program. We tagged on the PHAT program. We had two adult victims of violence who were like peer counselors. They would share their stories with the youth that, that came to the facility and that program went on after I left Shock Trauma because they ended up hiring me after my internship and that. Program was in place for 18, 19 years since, since I left. And I'm very proud of that.
Charles Schelle:That's amazing. That's an incredible pipeline program that, that I wasn't aware of. So thank you for sharing that. Absolutely. Yeah. Dana looks like you were about to say something.
Dana Rampolla:I was just going to ask, what were the ages of the youth? Were they, were they all ages? Like up to 18 year olds? Yeah,
Mchael Allen:about five years old was like the youngest that would come all the way up till, you know, early adulthood, 21, 22. We have a couple focus groups with them as well. They really, really enjoyed it. Yeah. Again, it was a safe space for, for the participants of the program to come to yeah, we, we helped a lot of those individuals in some of their darkest times, some of their darkest hours we were there with them. It really gave me an opportunity to flex a lot of the, the skills that I learned in the School of Social Work clinically. But also just to connect with a human to human. It was, it was amazing opportunity for me but also a stressful draining, you know, to the point where you give as much as you can give to someone when you really just leave home totally exhausted. I did experience some significant vicarious trauma by seeing trauma day in day out every day. It's, I don't know who can deal with it and go home and just. And then skip into their, their, their regular life. But it was it was a lot of challenges. It was a lot of individuals that look just like me young black males. And yeah, it was, it was significant.
Charles Schelle:And I'm sure we can touch on that more that later about that part of, of hearing these stories and processing them. A lot of it's a tough subject to tackle. And, and, you know, as we kind of continue on talking about your career journey, employee assistance programs, EAP, where people in distress employees need help at a moment of, of time, need to use these programs, and they need to talk to somebody and get resources and share their story. You later worked in this space as a consultant for the federal government. What inspired you to explore these these different areas of social work and, and get to know EAP is put together?
Mchael Allen:Yeah, so, it was an incredible pivot, right? So leaving shock trauma to go to the employee assistance program, right? It was it was like night and day. I think, you know, just with shock trauma, I was exhausted, right? So I needed a change. So I, I applied to, I saw it was just a job working and I didn't even know it was like an employee assistance program. So I went to the, for the interview it was like working in a call center. I wanted to do something that was like really low key, like put me in a cubicle, give me a headset and a cup of coffee and I'm leaving at four o'clock. Like, I didn't want to do anything extra. Every day I came to work, I had a suit on. I was like the only guy in the it was like me and another guy, but we were on two different teams. And every day I came, I had my coffee. I'm in my cube. I knew my, my little script. I would have folks call from all over the country. About the employee assistance program. Trying to get assistance for themselves, for their family members, all the like, and I did that for six months. And then one day my the CEO of the organization called the meeting and had me come in there and they saw potential with me being an account manager. You kind of see this theme of me getting called to the principal's office for things. So it's She called me in and said, Hey, we can see you being an account manager. They were getting some positive feedback about how I engaged and encountered, interacted rather with the callers. Because again, it was not only the employees, it was managers, it was C suite people It was a lot of HR representatives, so really just kind of walking them through the program helping them make some of the tough decisions within management. I was there for them and they saw that potential within me, which kind of led me to go into that account management world. Now, once I Did the account management role then that's when like Mike Allen was born it really showed me where I needed to be in terms of like social work because as a social worker you know a lot of people sometimes they may think because you're this age this race this gender that you should be doing this specific thing. So a lot of people kind of associated me with, you know, working in shock trauma and doing those things, but that wasn't who I was. But account management, that was all me, right? So I had about. 15 contract accounts, and I would meet with them regularly, pretty much quarterly, go over their utilization reports with them and promote the benefits to the employees as well as the organizations. And it was a breath of fresh air. Little did I know that instead of and so, you know, inside my belly was a business development, ready to be born, right? Ready to be birthed, right? Because there was a sales department, because as an account manager, like that was as high as I could go, but something was really interesting me had me interested about sales. It was something that I just really wanted to find out more about. And although sales. Within EAP was an avenue that I didn't really see a lane for health and human services allowed me that opportunity to do that. So when I resigned from the EAP a recruiter contacted me from the to, to work at HHS within 30 days, they doubled my salary. I said, when do I start? When do I get my ID, right? I'm ready to come in and get started. And that was great because. I was also able to sell, right? So sell, like, automated external defibrillator devices set up behavioral basic occupational health clinics. You can go to federal buildings, you see all of the little hospitals. Well, those are customized based on what those federal agencies want. And I was able to help. These organizations to set that up and also to see my labor, right? So, you know, you can sell an ad for 2, 500 bucks, right? And and then at the end of the year my first year I made about 12 million in sales, right? So it's something that was measurable attainable for me and um It was it was lights out. You can see the excitement coming from me, right charles I'm totally getting excited I'm excited now. I'm hoping I'm staying on track with your question, but you see that light bulb was just kind of, the switch was flipped with me.
Charles Schelle:Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And it's interesting to hear the application of the intersection of social work and, and sales, especially, and, and the concept of that, of providing care, providing elements that's needed for, for people in different arenas. I was wondering if I don't know if your paths crossed at all during that time with EAP or even during your time at the School of Social Work with Professor Jody Frey who's now the Associate Dean of Research there. She's known for her work evaluating EAP.
Mchael Allen:Yes. So, I did take my first research course with Jody Jacobson at the time before she got married. And by far, it was one of my most challenging courses when I was there. However, I was able to implement a lot of things that, that she taught within her course. She was not integral in me being exposed to the EAP, but surprisingly she was. A part of me going to shock trauma and because within her class, the course was so difficult. It was just myself and another gentleman in that class. And this guy, he knew every answer to everything that I said, I want to study with you. I want you to be my study buddy. And when we went, we studied, he gave me a whole Saturday. Of his life and got me through that course, but he also was an intern over at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center, and he told me about the internship opportunity. So Jody Frey is a part of my story, but it was from her class that I met another classmate that exposed me to working at Shock Trauma.
Charles Schelle:That's fantastic.
Dana Rampolla:It's interesting how, how our worlds collide and in Smalltimore.
Mchael Allen:Yes, indeed.
Dana Rampolla:So, I'm seeing now that you've, you've really kind of been drowning and maybe I shouldn't use that word, but it's shock trauma. It was very taxing, very emotionally draining and you were feeling like you needed to get out needed to figure out where to go next and then you had this interlude with the so now talk to us a little bit about MZCN enterprises and the type of training and consulting work that you do there.
Mchael Allen:Wow. So, so MZCN enterprises was just a way for me to really get that independence. within my life at that period of my life. So MZCN, I did a lot of workplace training and development, organization, organizational development training as well. So I partnered with different human resource organizations, foster care organizations really just identify what are the organizations in this country that need this. training. And I wanted to step up and be that individual to provide those trainings to those organizations and institutions. And I did that for a good five years and it was an amazing journey.
Charles Schelle:Awesome. And that probably leads right into your next step. Therapeutics Connections, tell us a little bit about it. It's a local business and share some, you know, of your biggest challenges and rewards and running a behavioral health services company.
Mchael Allen:Oh, my goodness. Yeah. So Therapeutic Connections. That's my baby right there, right? So Therapeutic Connections. If you think about it, it's a culmination of all of those social work experiences all into one, right? Because if you can imagine there's a lot of things that I saw working at an EAP, working at Johns Hopkins, working at Shock Trauma and being an individual consultant. Through mass can enterprises and I wanted to just put it in a big ball and make it to Therapeutic Connections. So identifying not only from my personal professional experiences, but also what I saw at some of the organizations that I was providing the consultation for like what to do. and what not to do, right? I wanted to create policies that was going to be employee focused and really be an incredible place for people to work. Therapeutic Connections is an outpatient mental health clinic. We provide psychiatric rehabilitation services psych evals, medication management individual therapy really we provide the whole gamut. We are like a one stop shop for outpatient mental health services. So some of the challenges over the years has been just dealing with a lot of the regulations that have changed. As you can imagine, running a clinic, you have to follow all of the Comar regulations. And one of the things that my team and I, we live by a phrase that we live by is to learn the rules of the game and then play better than everybody else, right? But it's always challenging when you're playing a shell game and the rules constantly change. So staying steady, keeping up with the rules that that has been like a, an enormous challenge that we have been doing well. We're doing it. We are approaching our 10th year next month. We will be 10 years in business and any type of business to, to survive a decade is something to behold. So I'm really proud about that. One of another thing that makes me proud is my team the team of individuals that I have working with me. I have about 18 counselors, therapists, admin staff that, that are on a team that believe in me, that believe in the vision. Always say that we fertilize the grass or at Therapeutic Connections, because some of my team members have left in the past. It was about six of them that left the organization, but then they returned back because they wanted to be big boys and big girls, see how the world was. And they came back and they're still with us. So that that's really a proud moment to really quantify. Bye. You know how many folks really saw the value and came back to us and also we were able to churn three MSWs through the program, which is also really rewarding for me and obviously helping families in need, right? So when we have a parent that brings their children to us to get therapy or any of our services, they're coming to us at their most vulnerable time in their life. So I really take that seriously because that you're trusting us with the care of your child. It means a lot. And we want to give you that white glove service to that, that optimal care to really not only treat your child, but also to educate you on what's going on with your child. And once the therapist in the therapy session is over, what can you do as a parent? to help your child to reach their goals. So those are really some rewarding things to me as well.
Dana Rampolla:So you've talked about your, your whole trajectory where, what types of clientele are you seeming to work with most of the time these days?
Mchael Allen:So right now we work mostly with children. That's just how the referrals come and how we're counting that we, we get, we get more Children referrals, more youth referrals, Children who have anxiety as you can imagine, after Covid, a lot of adjustment disorder. So anxiety, ADHD and adjustment disorder are the 3 big ones for the kiddos. For our adults we get p rimarily a major depressive disorder is the primary one that that comes.
Charles Schelle:I'm at a follow up to that, too. I know with behavioral health especially therapy for, for adults, there is a obvious shortage of therapists. And you see social workers step into that role a lot and trying to find help may take a year in some places. So I was wondering about if you can kind of speak to what you're seeing about capacity. If, if you're at a point like other places where it's like, we want to help more people, but we need more professionals to, to reach that demand.
Mchael Allen:Yeah. Absolutely. Yep. I'm right there, right along with them as well. Well, like seeing those challenges, those are one of the things that keeps me up at night to say, Hey, how can I recruit the best talent that I can? And like I said, I've been in Baltimore since 1996 working in human services and social work. So I practice, I read this book called the proximity principle by Ken Coleman. And, and it's really talking about six degrees of separation, right? Because sometimes we look at these job posts and we want to post all, the job and really make this opportunity available for a stranger, whereas we may know somebody already that's ready, willing, and able to do the position that, that we want.
Charles Schelle:Yeah. Well, any students who perhaps are at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where our school of social work faculty teach the undergrad program and wondering where should I go? Keep going. Get your MSW because people like Mike need you and we need more social workers out there.
Mchael Allen:Absolutely. Yeah, we have an affiliation agreement with University of Maryland School of Social Work that I'm so grateful for. We definitely received some amazing interns. We hired one of our interns. We have someone who started with us like two weeks ago. We have six other affiliation agreements with colleges and universities around the country that we get interns with. Or interns from those institutions. And yeah, but University of Maryland is top tier in terms of the talent that that we get. And I'm not saying that because I went there. I'm saying it because it is true. The education that they have, it really sets them up to to be successful.
Dana Rampolla:Well, I might now that we're talking about UMB, University of Maryland, School of Social Work, you are still involved. You're not just getting interns from the university, but you are very involved with the the alumni board. Tell us a little bit about that and some of the initiatives that you're working on in that area.
Mchael Allen:Okay. Yeah. So I've been on the alumni board since 2021. I am the newly elected board chair of the alumni board. So that's something to be proud of. We only had one meeting, which was last week on Wednesday. But this my focus for my next two years is really to focus on the student experience, right? I mean, I graduated in 2003 and you know, the social worker of 2003 is way different than a social worker that's coming out in 25. Right? So I really want to hear what are the needs of those students, like why they're still matriculated. How can we assist them? Like, where's the school coming short? What need do they need? What, what assistance do they need from the alumni? How can we help them? them to succeed within their academics and professionally.
Charles Schelle:Yeah. Lots of great things to come and it is an exciting time for the School of Social Work. This month we have the. groundbreaking for a new building for the School of Social Work. Recently there is a new RISE Family Support Center that has opened that watch for UMB News. You're going to see a lot more about that what they offer and how to help. So how can alumni play a more active role in supporting the school's growth, especially when you have these new projects coming down the pike?
Mchael Allen:Absolutely. I would say donate, donate, donate. That's number one. I, you know, and I'm just not sharing that for people to do. I'm actually a donor myself. We do have the Michael Hassan Allen scholarship that assists students each year. So I'm really proud of that legacy that I'm building with the university. Obviously come and join the alumni board. We have just some brilliant minds from all walks of social work life that bring all great ideas to us to share with, with students as well. So yeah, come check out the board the alumni board share your ideas, go to the website. Just, Put alumni in the search engine and you'll get a ton of information.
Dana Rampolla:Sounds good. And in that same vein, what types of advice do you have for current students and maybe recent graduates who are just trying to start weaving their path?
Mchael Allen:Yeah, I think really, truly talk to somebody that's doing what you want to do and just ask as many questions as you possibly can get a mentor really, you know, at, at this stage in our lives, right? I mean, I'm a middle, middle aged man, so in the social work terms, we're at the, or Eric Erickson, we're at the generativity versus stagnation stage, right, where we want to give back. So talking to somebody a little bit older, folks get a lot of enjoyment and fulfillment with helping someone. And also just as that title, as a student really lean into that, right, lean into being a student and really. Use that to your advantage. So internships, like just don't go for the traditional type of internship, like see something that's, you know, if you want to go into government and you've never been in a government, federal government before, like look into that. If you want to go into an employee assistance program, like get into a space that you really don't know anything about and just learn as much as you possibly can and just build relationships. Take everybody's business cards because if you give them your number, it's not guaranteed that they're going to call you back. But if you get this, you'll call them for sure. So
Dana Rampolla:Great advice. And how do we encourage more people from diverse backgrounds to consider becoming, a social worker is so important that we have that diverse workforce and you know, to be Thank you. Blunt, you don't fit the typical demographic or socio demographic of what we would think a social worker would be. And it's wonderful that you've had all of this ambition and drive and you just kept pushing forward and going further. How do we encourage others in that same same way?
Mchael Allen:I think what we're doing now, like with this podcast, I mean, representation matters, right? Like representation matters. Like someone can see me, someone can see any one of us on this screen and connect with us. And it doesn't even necessarily mean how I look. I mean, that I share that I'm from New York, that maybe there's somebody from New York that, you know, wants to you know, they may get a connection with me and then they can see themselves or based on the industry. They want to do it. So I do think that representation really truly matters. So just having platforms like this where individuals of all types of backgrounds can share their experience because one thing's for sure about a social worker. Everybody has a story, right? So it's like, what is your story that that got you into social work because everyone has one. So, yeah, just finding out what their story is and connecting them with people would, would really be a great connection to get them started and launched in their career.
Charles Schelle:Earlier, we touched a little bit about the, the growing need for behavioral health services and, and a pathway. To there, but what do you see as the future of social work? What does a modern social worker do?
Mchael Allen:Wow. That's a great question, Charles. I'm really what, what I see is. And some people may disagree with me, I don't know, but I really see technology really being a part of this. Again, I, I lean back to, like, this is technology too, right? This, this podcast, so looking at that, I'm looking at artificial intelligence, right? I know virtual reality, that was more analog, but now AI. Is just different ways. It's all types of it's endless possibilities when you bring computers in there because you can program them and because we already know what it is, right? Like we know what the diagnosis is and the best treatment plans for individuals that have that. So plug and play, right?
Dana Rampolla:Mike, how for our listeners who hopefully we have some school of social work graduates listening and as well as others, how can alumni stay connected to the school of social work if they're from UMB and get involved in upcoming events?
Mchael Allen:Yeah, I would just say, you know, again, I'll lean back to the website. I did meet with the marketing team. A lot of emphasis, a lot of intentionality is based on really customizing the website to speak to current students as well as alumni. You're going to find information about the alumni board, about development alumni resources again. So I would really steer them towards the, the uh, website, which is ssw. umaryland. edu. And you can type in whatever you want in there. And it, it really gives you, I typed my name in there and it gave me like everything I did with the university, which was like amazing, made me feel real popular, but yeah, you can really check, check things out there. So
Charles Schelle:It's it's a wonderful website. It's a newly redesigned too. So there's all sorts of things that I'm still discovering today that's in the new website,
Dana Rampolla:Michael. I think I think just your story is compelling. It teaches all of our listeners, especially those young wannabe social workers about how you can start https: otter. ai know exactly where you're going to land in life, right? You, you follow this trajectory that you think you have, and then certain doors open and show you that maybe you're meant for bigger or better or even different things. So thank you for sharing your whole story.
Mchael Allen:Absolutely. It's been my pleasure, Dana. When I look at social work and my career with social work, it's like a quilt, right? It has all of these different patches with these different colors and designs. And you pull back and you look, and it's It's just beautiful. So, you know, you can do as if it's a young social worker out here on aspiring social worker, I really encourage you to join a profession. Do so much. You can do so much with it. We're respected in higher education and the federal government employee assistance programs. You can pivot. It's so much that you can give in so many lives that you can change with it.
Charles Schelle:Well, this has been amazing. Like Dana has said, any alumnus alumna. Listening, any student, I think we'll find a path that they're inspired to take. Thanks to you sharing your story. So, with that, Michael, thank you so much for joining us on the UMB Pulse
Mchael Allen:Thank you both for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Jena Frick:The UMB Pulse with Charles Chalet and Dana Rampolla is a UMB Office of Communications and Public Affairs production, edited by Charles Chalet, marketing by Dana Rampolla.
