ii .. -· f'C '.- , . Social work alum takes skills to PGE by Cynthia o. Stowell "What are you doing. working at PGE?" It's a question Nancy Edwards (MSW '80) has been fielding ever since her graduate placement at Portland General Electric Company. Now as a human resources specialist at the big private utility, Edwards has some ready answers for skeptics. "It's still unorthodox for a utility company to have a program like this," remarked Edwards about the five~person team that provides health and counseling services for 3,000 employees statewide. "The old position was that employees should leave their problems at home." Edwards' job is also non-traditional in the field of social work. where the stereotype of the underpaid, idealistic caseworker in the crowded office of a public agency still persists. Edwards, dressed in a business suit and speaking from a comfortable, modern office building, says she needed a lot of assurance from her PSU mentors that "Yes, this is within the purview of social work - you haven't abandoned the field." While Edwards, 32, has had to re-examine values shaped In college during the late sixties, she no longer feels guilty about making a good salary in a "work environment with a profit motive." In fact, her enthusiasm for the program she helped to design Is unmistakable. She is one of two mental health workers and two nurses who provide a "broad-brush employee assistance program" 10r PGE workers and their families. Edwards offers counseling and classes in problem areas ranging from alcoholism and family problems 10 stress management and consumer budgeting. Employees use the confidential anq_largely " free services on a voluntary basis. "I'm not a treatment provider," explains Edwards. who went through the planning and management track in PSU's School of Social Work. ''I'm a linker. I link people to services." Although she does some short-term "problem-solving" with clients who feel "stuck," she is more apt to refer them to specialists in the community. Edwards could also be seen as a link between two traditionally divergent tields: business and social service. The time is ripe for this marriage. feels Edwards, who notes that the concept of in-house employee assistance is common on the east coast but just finding root in the Portland area. "The work force today is very different," says Edwards. "Employees from PGE - and they're not untypical - are more Interested in ... options. Wage and salary alone are not Ihe incentive anymore. Employers are being asked by employees to provide more in the way of personal growth opportunities. It Is also unrealistic for an employer to expect a worker to leave his problems at home. feels Edwards. "The SOCiety we live in is changing so dramatically and creating a tot more stress and pressure. With 'Nomen in the work force now, with the bombardment of information and the growth of technology, old family structures are breaking down and people are experiencing personal crisis." The Reagan administration's cutbacks in social services are putting pressure on the private sector to take responsibility for programs that have been publicly administered for years, reminds Edwards. And companies like PGE are finding it cost-effective to assist their workers with health problems that could be interfering with their job performance. Industry opened up to Edwards while she was finishing her first year of graduate work at PSU. Faced with the inevitable questloo "What am I doing here?", the former high school English teacher, Peace Corps volunteer and Red Cross worker started talking to 4 AlUm Nancy Edwards ('80 MSW) teaches a class In sharpening communlcaUon skills to PGE employees. people who had become successful in their fields. One person she talked to was beginning to develop the program at PGE that Edwards now staffs. The graduate student arranged to do her field work there, carrying out a needs assessment and making a proposal tor the innovative idea. It was a first for the School of Social Work. This term, Edwards is supervising a PSU social work graduate student, Loraine Volz, who is helping to evaluate the young program. Both Edwards and Volz will be bringing their experience back to the classroom in February when they guest teach a class in "Mental Health in the Work Place." Edwards thinks the School is doing a good job of "nurturing the movement of social work into industry." Volz feels her supervisor is helping in that respect. "Nancy is a great resource and link to the University. We need these linking sources between the University and the community. There are ways they can help each other." Edwards goes back "willingly" to the school and faculty that told her, "You can do it." And having done it - brought community service and business together into one satisfying career - she sees how fruitful the partnership can be. "I take pride in being in on the beginning of an idea," says Edwards. "The organization gets something different and I get this feeling of being unique." THE HAPSBURG EMPIRE Auguat 20-September 5, 1983 Tour Leader: Dr. Thomas Poulsen, Director, Central EUropean Studies Center Fly with us to the Hapsburg Empire - the charismatic lands of ancient castles and cathedrals, the music of Mozart and Beethoven. the Danube, Ihe intellectual and commerci;,.1 center of Europe under the royal house of AuslriaHungary. Our first stop Is Vieona where you'll take a city tour ... visit SChonberg CastJe and Orinzing on the edge of Ihe Vienna Woods. then take the train toPrague, home of the Bohemian rulers ... where you'll see Hradcany Castle and a performance of the famous "Czech Magic Lantern" ... board a train forBudapest, with a city tour of Buda. buill as a fortress in the 13th century, and Pest, on the left bank of the Danube ... enjoy a special musical production. maybe a Blue Danube waltz before leaving forZagreb, the old Croatian capital, with dinner in Mokrice Castle in Siovina ... inspect Zagreb Uni· versity where many PSU students have continued their Central Euro· pean studies ... jump aboard a chartered bus to - Sarajevo, where the assassina· tion of Archduke Ferdinand signaled the start of WWI ... visit Middle Eastern mosques ... journey through the spectacular Neretva Canyon to the Adriatic coast, with a laSI stop at - Dubrovnik, the medieval walled city ... with Lime for a swim in the Adriatic! Fly home via Belgrade, For details, contact PSU Alumni, 2294948. (j~ PSU ALUMNI ; P,O. Box 752 '., ., '/ PortlaDd, OR 97207
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz