Leslie Blake, Outstanding Grant Writer
"Yes we learn the skills, but it's more about fostering the person. It's only when the person is whole that the profession can be whole."
By Vicki Marsh Kabat
Not long into the first year of her masters of social work program Leslie Blake went to Dean Diana Garland and told her she wanted to leave.
"She said to me, ‘Stick with me,' and you'll make it," Leslie said. "Not ‘stick with the program,' but stick ‘with me.' Relationship. It's all about relationships here."
It's a lesson Leslie (MSW 2009/MDiv 2010) has learned repeatedly and in different contexts in the last two years. She likens the program to having a mirror held in front of you. "It puts right in front of you who you are, and for the first time, you may see the negatives in yourself. But they walk you through that and you deal with it. Then it's no longer something holding you back but a tool you can use. That's when social work comes alive."
Leslie says that is the heart and soul of the School's faculty and staff. "Yes we learn the skills, but it's more about fostering the person. It's only when the person is whole that the profession can be whole," she says.
This spring, Leslie moved into a completely different world from what she had known. She interned with Together for Hope in Arkansas, a poverty initiative utilizing mentoring and microenterprise programs sponsored by the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in West Helena, Arkansas. Leslie worked with a group of nine African-American girls, ages 9 to 18, and their adult female mentors, volunteers from different churches in the community.
This group, called the Delta Jewels, was part of a business cooperative in which they made jewelry to sell. Leslie met with the group two hours on Wednesdays and three hours on Saturdays.
"They don't want relief work, they want a sustainable way of living," Leslie says. "The program is trying to find a microenterprise model for the guys in the community now. It has huge potential."
The girls did not warm up to her readily. It took almost two months of just being with them before she began to see a change. She noted that "anger is huge" in this poverty-stricken area, and often a result of low self-esteem and a need to self-protect.
"I just had to do something about it," says Leslie, who wrote and received a grant requesting $10,000 from CBF to develop a puppet ministry to teach conflict resolution in K-sixth grades in the public school system.
She remembers one girl who would never look her in the eye, but one day, out of the blue, she asked Leslie, ‘Do I have to go to church to be a Christian?'" It just took one person letting her guard down and the others followed with their own questions.
"At that moment, I had a vested interest in these girls. That's when I knew in my heart, I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. Plus, I no longer felt like a complete dud!" she laughs.
Leslie is glad she stuck it out in social work, saying she has grown and changed so much. "I'm leaving the School of Social Work as a better person. I'm confident in who I am and that's when God can shine through your life."
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