National Center for Healthcare Advancement and Partnerships
HAP Partnership Impact
VHA social workers provide relief to Veterans and address implicit bias
Ms. Soni Adams, the chief of the Veterans Health Administration’s (VHA) Social Work Service in Seattle, began working on the VHA Social Work National Emergency Tiger Team (Tiger Team) in 2020 to address challenges from the coronavirus pandemic.
“Tiger Team” is used for a team of specialists form to work on specific goals. This team ensures that social workers across the nation have support, guidance, and resources to help them assist Veterans, families, caregivers, and civilians. They’ve already created more than 15 resource documents to help people during COVID-19 including tip sheets, staffing plans, and a field guide for VA Video Connect.
In the past two years, the Tiger Team expanded to include a natural disaster response team and a human-created disaster response team. These sub-teams tackled disasters and provided resources for affected populations, and they noticed different health outcomes within underserved populations and communities.
“We realized that the pandemic was morphing itself into the pandemic of systemic racism,” Ms. Adams said. “We needed to do more, and so we shifted and refocused.”
The National Social Work Program and VA Social Work workforce recognized that they could not and should not stand silent regarding conversations about race, racism, and systemic racism.
“We needed to have space to talk about what happened to George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and all the others,” Ms. Adams said.
The Tiger Team developed the “Addressing Systemic Racism Using the Transtheoretical Model of Change” project to address human-created disasters like shootings and murder. This project is available on an internal resource hub and helps leaders and frontline staff have difficult conversations and examine themselves and the facility in tackling systemic racism.
Ms. Adams started doing a series of presentations and trainings to social workers and other specialties using the transtheoretical model of change to help workers get comfortable utilizing the tools and materials in their field.
By understanding where they are in the stages of change process–pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination–individuals can better frame conversations and actions taken to make a positive change.
“Soni helped cultivate an environment where a level of vulnerability was available,” said Ms. Endsley Real, a licensed clinical social worker in VHA. “Vulnerability and courage go hand in hand, so that has given this team the courage to do all the great work that we have been able to do.”
Ms. Adams said the Tiger Team are successful because of the team members’ strengths and talents.
“I grew tremendously from the experience and the gifts of others who I was proud to work alongside,” Ms. Adams said.
The Tiger Team also provided the “Helping Social Workers Address Implicit Bias in Healthcare” project on the resource hub and began leadership support calls.
These calls fostered a safe environment for social work chiefs and executives to discuss the challenges, opportunities, and strengths of being a leader during these unprecedented times.
In addition to helping facilitate challenging discussions, they used the calls to clarify the role of social workers during natural disasters and standardized the process for outreach calls to Veterans.
The resources and projects the Tiger Team developed improve the quality of health care for all Veterans, employee relations, families, caregivers, and the community while strengthening social work practice across the country.
The VHA’s National Center for Healthcare Advancement and Partnerships supports the efforts of VHA Social Work and the Tiger Team. For more information, visit https://www.va.gov/HEALTHPARTNERSHIPS/partnerships.asp.
External Link Disclaimer: This page contains links that will take you outside of the Department of Veterans Affairs website. VA does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of the linked websites.
Posted March 4, 2022
