Jack White, a social work lecturer and executive director of the Good Neighbor Settlement House, has been awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Association of Social Workers.
Founded in 1955, the National Association of Social Workers is the largest membership organization of professional social workers in the world, with more than 120,000 members, according to its official website.
The purpose of the association is to “enhance the professional growth and development of its members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social policies,” the website states.
White, who has been working in the social work field for 50 years, said he was surprised to receive the award because it means a lot to him.
“It means a great deal to me,” White said. “I’ve been involved in social work for 50 years and I have served in communities where respect and recognition don’t occur, but here, in Brownsville, where sometimes it’s awfully hard to deliver services to the [neediest] but recognition is part of the culture here. It was an incredible honor to have been recognized.”
The award, which White received on March 20 in Weslaco, is a recognition for someone who has and continues to serve as a professional in the field of social work.
“I’m honored to have been recognized by my peers and friends,” he said. “To me, the opportunity to be a part of serving families and individuals in my community has been really important.”
White, who also served in the military, said he loves the United States but there are still a lot of things to be improved.
“I love my country, but I do know there are things that we need to correct or fix and I have been able to work in communities where we dealt with poverty, with racism, with lack of resources in major ways,” he said. “To me, it is satisfying, and it gives me a sense of having a role with the members of the community.”
White has been the director for three years at the Good Neighbor Settlement House in Brownsville, where he helps oversee employees and get funding to keep the nonprofit agency viable and functional.
The settlement house assists the homeless and those seeking political asylum in the United States.
“We provide meals, three meals a day, showers, a change of clothes, medical services, a place for them to receive their mail, call those people that are important to them [and] interpreters services,” White said. “We picked up refugees that have not been processed but have been picked up by Border Patrol.
“Because their lack of space, they have been discharged to their families in the United States. So, we managed something like 90 mothers and children last [Tuesday].”
White encourages students from any field to volunteer at the Good Neighbor Settlement House because it gives them the opportunity to build employment skills that they will never get in other settings.
“Volunteering here gives a person an incredible opportunity that they’ll never get in any other setting and it leads directly to building employment skills that they will find important as they finish school and move on to any other field, whichever they choose,” he said. “Here, you will learn how to be a part of a team, you will learn to fulfill specific objectives, you will learn to be flexible and able to respond to crisis and at the end of the process, you will acquire skills that apply to any work setting.”
