Hi, guys, welcome back to Preview Alliance podcast.

We are in March, and I am so excited to bring a awareness of what this month is to be celebrated with one of our favorites. You guys, be like, okay, what is March? It doesn't connect. Well, it's social worker awareness month. And I've brought my main one who I love adore you all do too, Paige Mountbom. Welcome, Paige, my friend. You're back again and we love it. I'm so glad to be here. Anytime you invite me, Sarah, I will drop everything.

And I couldn't be more excited to be here to celebrate Social Work Awareness Month.

In all honesty, I didn't even have this on my calendar. So when you reached out to me and told me

that it was here, I celebrated. And as somebody who teaches in a MSW program, I am going to go into class

this week and I'm going to encourage all of my students to celebrate too.

It's so wonderful. And it's, I think, and when I reached out to you, you know,

what our whole core of listeners is to really kind of get in your head what is social work and what it can

empower you as a mother. Is someone trying to get pregnant? Is someone experiencing mental health

disorder? Or someone being like, I just don't even know. I have them as this like grumpy old lady

who has like a briefcase and snarls at me. We're going to blow it all up. So Paige, let's go back.

Why did you choose social work? And what drew you specifically to mature mental health?

Oh my goodness. What an interesting question. So when I was in my 20s living in San Francisco,

trying on all kinds of different jobs that were not a good fit for me after I graduated

from college. I found myself volunteering at a homeless shelter down the street. And it got to the

point where I was volunteering more than I was working, literally. Every day I would get home from work,

I would go to the homeless shelter for families. I would volunteer with the kids. I would go through art activities, gym activities. And then I started volunteering on the weekends and I was there all day, Saturday and Sunday until finally the executive director of Hamilton Family Center said to me, you know, Paige, you're here a lot. Do you want a job here?

And at first I was like, oh, no, I can't do that. I have this other job. And then after a few days of

thinking about this, I was like, yeah. And so I started working in this homeless shelter. My first job

was working with homeless families to help them identify

affordable housing options in the Bay Area and then provide financing for them to be able to put down

a first month's rent and to help subsidize their rent over the first year. It was like such a

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