Social Work to Wealth Podcast

In this episode, I talk with Rachel Duncan, Certified Financial Therapist™, trauma-informed money practitioner, and founder of the Money Healing Club, to explore the psychology behind emotional spending, impulse buying, and money avoidance.

We talk about why rigid budgets tend to backfire, how the stages of change apply to money, and why setbacks are part of the process. Rachel also shares how she thinks about spending in a world where we're marketed to constantly and where housing, food, and interest rates rise every year.

Rachel also shares practical strategies for building a healthier relationship with money, from tracking spending without judgment to creating friction around impulse purchases, preparing for unexpected expenses, and breaking the cycle of credit card debt. We also get into why financial therapy belongs in more of our training and how to check your own biases around income, spending, debt, and savings.

We chat about:

• The difference between emotional spending, problematic spending, and compulsive spending
• Why restrictive budgets and willpower alone often don't create lasting change
• How financial trauma, shame, and avoidance influence our money habits
• Recognizing when spending is becoming a problem
• The impact of consumer culture, rising living costs, and financial stress
• Practical strategies to reduce impulse spending and build financial awareness
• The importance of addressing money in the therapy room

Resources mentioned:

• See the expanded show notes here for all resources mentioned

Connect with us!

• Social Work to Wealth Newsletter — a money & career newsletter for social workers
• Find Social Work to Wealth on: TikTok, Instagram, & YouTube.

Disclaimer: The information presented in this podcast & on any affiliated platforms is for educational, informational, & entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as legal, financial, or professional advice. Consuming this content does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal advice pertaining to your particular situation, consult one-on-one with an attorney.

In this episode, we talk with Taylor St. Onge, MSW, a veterinary social worker at an animal specialty hospital in Los Angeles. We chat about what her job looks like day to day, with most of her work being grief support, including euthanasia, quality of life conversations and pet loss support. She also supports veterinary staff navigating moral injury, compassion fatigue, and burnout.

Taylor shares some of the other settings where veterinary social workers can work and offers advice for social workers interested in getting started in the field. We also talk about the connection between animal cruelty and human violence and why asking about pets can be an important part of a social work assessment.

This episode is for anyone interested in animals, the human-animal bond, grief and bereavement, end-of-life support, or finding a unique way to bring their social work skills into the veterinary world.

We chat about:

• What veterinary social work looks like day to day
• How social workers support families through euthanasia, quality-of-life decisions, and pet loss
• Ways veterinary social workers support veterinary professionals
• Where veterinary social workers can work
• The connection between animal cruelty and human violence
• Why asking about pets can be an important part of a social work assessment
• Tips for social workers interested in getting started in veterinary social work

Resources mentioned:

• See the expanded show notes here for all resources mentioned

Connect with us!

• Social Work to Wealth Newsletter — a money & career newsletter for social workers
• Find Social Work to Wealth on: TikTok, Instagram, & YouTube.

Disclaimer: The information presented in this podcast & on any affiliated platforms is for educational, informational, & entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as legal, financial, or professional advice. Consuming this content does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal advice pertaining to your particular situation, consult one-on-one with an attorney.

CE Info: This episode is approved for 1 CE credit through the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) ACE Program (#2807) and the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) Provider Program (#8078). To receive CE credit, you must pay, register, and complete the required post-test and evaluation. Listening alone does not guarantee credit. It is your responsibility to verify that this course meets your licensing board's requirements. Click here to purchase the course!

In this episode, we are joined by Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, LMSW, a certified financial therapist, to talk about the intersection of money and mental health. She shares what financial therapy actually is and why you don’t have to be a financial expert to start talking about money with your clients.

Lindsay shares practical ways clinicians can start uncovering these patterns with clients and reminds us that you don't need to have your own finances perfectly figured out or become a financial therapist to create space for these conversations. If you've ever had a client bring up money and weren't sure what to say, this episode is a good place to start!

We chat about:

• What financial therapy is and how the field has evolved
• The difference between financial therapy and financial planning or advising
• How financial stress can affect mental health and overall well-being
• How money beliefs and early experiences can influence financial behaviors
• Ways money can affect friendships, romantic relationships, families, and workplace dynamics
• Why money remains such a taboo topic
• Resources for clinicians interested in training in financial therapy

Resources mentioned:

• Financial Therapy Association
• Certified Financial Therapist (CFT) credential
• Financial Social Work training
• Trauma of Money Method
• Money scripts research by Dr. Brad Klontz

Connect with us!

• Social Work to Wealth CE Updates — CE only updates
• Social Work to Wealth Newsletter — Get updates on money resources, events, salaries, and more straight to your inbox
• Find Social Work to Wealth on: TikTok, Instagram, & YouTube.

Disclaimer: The information presented in this podcast & on any affiliated platforms is for educational, informational, & entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as legal, financial, or professional advice. Consuming this content does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal advice pertaining to your particular situation, consult one-on-one with an attorney.

We've got big news to share!!! Your Social Work Job, our new job board built just for social workers, is officially live! In this episode, we get into how it came together, why we built it, and what makes it different from just scrolling Indeed or LinkedIn for the hundredth time.

So many social work jobs don't have "social worker" anywhere in the title, which means a basic keyword search misses most of them. We built this board to address that, using job titles we have been collecting from social workers across different industries.

We also chat about how to use the board and the various features, and what's next, including a newsletter and more resources on the way. We are so excited to finally share it with you!

We chat about:

• Why searching "social worker" alone makes you miss good job opportunities
• How years of researching job titles for social workers turned into this board
• What filters are built in: education level, location, job type, and remote options
• How to read a job posting without talking yourself out of applying
• What's next, including a career-focused newsletter and more resources

Resources mentioned:

• Your Social Work Job
• Your Social Work Job newsletter
• Social Work Job Titles & Resources PDF
• Video: How to Set Up Your Candidate Profile

Connect with us!

• Find Social Work to Wealth on: TikTok, Instagram, & YouTube.

Disclaimer: The information presented in this podcast & on any affiliated platforms is for educational, informational, & entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as legal, financial, or professional advice. Consuming this content does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal advice pertaining to your particular situation, consult one-on-one with an attorney.

In this episode, we are joined by Shimon Cohen, founder of Doin’ The Work, a podcast, continuing education platform, and practitioner community for justice-centered social workers. Shimon shares his path from street outreach and community organizing into clinical social work, faculty life, and eventually building Doin’ The Work.

He shares how he sees anti-oppressive practice and what it actually means using Donna Baines’ framework. We get into how oppression shows up at both the structural and interpersonal level, and how social work is never really neutral.

We chat about:

• Shimon’s path from community organizing to street outreach to clinical social work
• Why social work is always political, even when it doesn’t feel that way
• Balancing immediate client needs with the push for systemic change
• How to tell the difference between a diagnosis and a response to oppression
• Why naming white supremacy in social work matters
• What keeps Shimon hopeful and has shaped his outlook on the field

Resources mentioned:

• Doin’ The Work
• CE: White Supremacy, White Privilege, Racism & Oppression in Social Work
• Doing Anti-Oppressive Practice by Donna Baines
• Racism Without Racists by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva

Connect with us!

• Social Work to Wealth Newsletter — a money & career newsletter for social workers
• Find Social Work to Wealth on: TikTok, Instagram, & YouTube.

Disclaimer: The information presented in this podcast & on any affiliated platforms is for educational, informational, & entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as legal, financial, or professional advice. Consuming this content does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal advice pertaining to your particular situation, consult one-on-one with an attorney.

Monae Dale is a program officer at a community foundation in LA, and in this episode she talks about how she moved from direct practice into philanthropy. She started her MSW at USC already wanting to work in macro social work, but found that her program mostly pointed students toward clinical roles. She ended up spending years in a micro/macro hybrid role at a drop-in center for unhoused young adults, then moved into management, before finally making the leap into philanthropy!

We talk about the specifics of that transition, including working with a career coach to get clarity on her interests, learning to translate her clinical experience into language macro employers actually look for, and rewriting her resume and cover letter. We also get into the details about what she does day to day as a program officer. This episode is for anyone who has been curious about philanthropy or how to transition from clinical to macro!

We chat about:

• Why a macro concentration in grad school didn't automatically translate to macro job opportunities
• Monae's take on why management roles often get mislabeled as macro work
• How to translate clinical experience into language macro employers are actually searching for
• The value of tailoring your resume and cover letter to every single job
• What the job looks like as a program officer at a community foundation
• Why looking at who funds an organization you admire can open up job leads you wouldn't find otherwise
• Working through the confidence shift that comes with stepping away from clinical work

Resources mentioned:

• Follow Monae on TikTok
• 270+ Job Titles for Social Workers PDF
• Greenhouse – job board mentioned as a resource for job searching
• Social Workers in Policy – YouTube channel featuring real social workers who have successfully transitioned from clinical practice into policy, advocacy, and systems-level leadership
• Episode 46: How to Find Quality Jobs as a Social Worker with Marthea Pitts, MSW

Connect with us!

• Social Work to Wealth Newsletter — a newsletter for the social worker wanting to level up their career and money.
• Find Social Work to Wealth on: TikTok, Instagram, & YouTube.

Disclaimer: The information presented in this podcast & on any affiliated platforms is for educational, informational, & entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as legal, financial, or professional advice. Consuming this content does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal advice pertaining to your particular situation, consult one-on-one with an attorney.

In this episode, I chat with Marthea Pitts, macro social worker and founder of Macro and Paid, to talk about finding quality jobs as a social worker. Marthea has spent over a decade moving from case management into macro-level roles, including co-leading a $2.5 million workforce development initiative in Washington, DC. She shares how one good quality job changed her life financially and how she’s seen the same shift happen for hundreds of coaching clients.

We get into what actually separates a low-quality job from a high-quality one, and it’s not just salary. Marthea breaks down the role of benefits, professional development, and workplace support systems, and why so many social workers mistake burnout symptoms for personal failure. We also talk about why the job market feels so hard right now and what’s actually going on.

We chat about:

• Why one good job can change your entire life
• Low-quality vs. high-quality jobs and how it’s more than just salary
• How to reframe your relationship with money as a social worker without feeling like it conflicts with your values
• Why work-life balance is impossible in a low-quality job
• What’s real and what’s fear-based content about the current job market
• The shift employers are making toward skills-based hiring
• Why career clarity, not more job applications, is usually the missing piece for people who feel stuck

Resources mentioned:

• Macro and Paid
• Macro Social Work Your Way
• Connect with Marthea on LinkedIn
• Follow her on Instagram

Connect with us!

• Social Work to Wealth Newsletter — a newsletter for the social worker wanting to level up their career and money.
• Find Social Work to Wealth on: TikTok, Instagram, & YouTube.

Disclaimer: The information presented in this podcast & on any affiliated platforms is for educational, informational, & entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as legal, financial, or professional advice. Consuming this content does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal advice pertaining to your particular situation, consult one-on-one with an attorney.

CE Info: This episode is approved for 1 CE credit through the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) ACE Program (#2807). To receive CE credit, you must pay, register, and complete the required post-test and evaluation. Listening alone does not guarantee credit. It is your responsibility to verify that this course meets your licensing board's requirements. Click here to purchase the course!

Patrick Taylor, LCSW, joins us to talk about something he has studied and calls the "micro pipeline in social work". He states it's the way our profession funnels people toward clinical, client-centered work while macro practice gets treated as an afterthought. Patrick coined the term as part of his doctoral research at USC and walks us through how education, licensure, and the job market all reinforce this pattern.

We chat about:

• What the "micro pipeline in social work" is and why Patrick Taylor coined the term to describe it
• How Patrick's own path from military service to clinical social work to a DSW program shaped his research on the micro-macro divide
• Why calling macro work "non-traditional" reinforces the exact problem it's naming
• What Patrick's national survey revealed about how many social workers want macro work versus how many can actually find it
• How licensure and practicum supervision requirements quietly steer social workers toward clinical practice for years before they ever explore macro options
• Why Patrick believes social work has a complicated relationship with power

Resources mentioned:

• Connect with Patrick on LinkedIn
• Check out the expanded show notes for resources mentioned

Connect with us!

• Social Work to Wealth CE Updates — CE only updates
• Social Work to Wealth Newsletter — Get updates on money resources, events, salaries, and more straight to your inbox
• Submit your podcast episode idea!
• Find Social Work to Wealth on: TikTok, Instagram, & YouTube.

Disclaimer: The information presented in this podcast & on any affiliated platforms is for educational, informational, & entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as legal, financial, or professional advice. Consuming this content does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal advice pertaining to your particular situation, consult one-on-one with an attorney.

Welcome to our Salary Series, where we bring social workers on to specifically give us all the tea about their income. Salary transparency matters because it gives us real data to advocate for ourselves and each other.

In this episode, I talked with Lillie, a school social worker in Florida. Lillie shares her path into school social work, which started with a few years working as an investigator on death row cases before she went back for her MSW.

We get into what her job actually looks like day to day, how she's negotiated her way from a $65,000 starting offer to $75,000 today, and the mindset shift that's helped her ask for more. I also pull from our salary database of over 1,500 social worker submissions to talk about what some school social workers are actually making by region, degree, and years of experience.

Resources mentioned:

• Follow Lillie on Instagram
• 1,600+ Social Work Salary List

Connect with us!

• Social Work to Wealth Newsletter — a newsletter for the social worker wanting to level up their career and money.
• Find Social Work to Wealth on: TikTok, Instagram, & YouTube.

Disclaimer: The information presented in this podcast & on any affiliated platforms is for educational, informational, & entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as legal, financial, or professional advice. Consuming this content does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal advice pertaining to your particular situation, consult one-on-one with an attorney.

In this episode, I chat with Niteesa Brooks, MSW, a program manager who took her social work degree into health tech, pharmaceutical research, and financial technology. Niteesa graduated from Columbia University in 2018 and has spent her career building out programs and processes at the intersection of healthcare and technology.

Niteesa gets specific about how she navigated the job search, how she networked her way into roles, and why she stopped marketing herself as a social worker and started marketing herself as someone who "solves problems". This is a great episode for those who are interested in practicing social work in a non-clinical setting, but are not sure how to get started down that path.

We chat about:

• How Niteesa went from wanting to be a sports psychologist to working in health tech and pharmaceutical research
• What program management actually is and how social work skills translate directly into it
• Why she didn't market herself as a social worker on her resume and what she did instead
• How to use LinkedIn to find social workers working in non-clinical spaces and learn from their career paths
• What she witnessed while working inside pharmaceutical research

Resources mentioned:

• 270+ Job Titles for Social Workers PDF

Connect with us!

• Social Work to Wealth Newsletter — a newsletter for the social worker wanting to level up their career and money.
• Find Social Work to Wealth on: TikTok, Instagram, & YouTube.

Disclaimer: The information presented in this podcast & on any affiliated platforms is for educational, informational, & entertainment purposes only and should not be construed as legal, financial, or professional advice. Consuming this content does not create an attorney-client relationship. If you need legal advice pertaining to your particular situation, consult one-on-one with an attorney.