Jana Donahoe, PhD, MSW, LCSW, is the chair of the social work program at Delta State University in Mississippi. As a clinician, she has years of experience delivering social work services in a variety of settings including hospice, community centers, and private practice family therapy. She has a passion for making sure each student at DSU has an individualized experience to be successful. She is trained in administering poverty and dementia simulations, a very unique offering through the DSU program.
MSW Online
Please, just give a little bit of background into how you got started in social work.
Jana Donahoe
Well, I got started in college in music and realized that I couldn’t do a lot with a music degree. I went on a mission trip with my church and met a social worker and thought, “I can make a better difference in people’s lives by helping them professionally than I could by singing.” So I changed my major to social work and completed my BSW. I went on and got my MSW and then my PhD and have not looked back. I still love music and enjoy it tremendously, but I absolutely love being a social worker and a social-work educator.
MSW Online
That’s wonderful. Well, as I’ve been talking to some social workers too, they talk about the importance of hobbies and having things outside of work that you can really enjoy and sort of regroup your energy, because social work can be taxing emotionally. Would you say music is that outlet for you still?
Jana Donahoe
Oh yes, it still is. Definitely. And music is important in social work in many ways. I’m not a music therapist but use a lot of music in my practice. People like music. It can be very relaxing, energizing, inspiring, and motivating. It speaks to the heart in ways that other things don’t and can’t. Plus, it’s a good memory tool. I’ve worked a lot with people with dementia and teach a class on aging and like to incorporate a lot of music in both social work practice and education.
MSW Online
That is really cool. It gives the readers some insight into how you can bring your own gifts and your own spin on the profession of social work.
Jana Donahoe
Oh yeah.
MSW Online
Wonderful. Well, you said you got your BSW. Did you go right into your MSW immediately?
Jana Donahoe
Well, I got married right after college. To put my husband through medical school I had to work full time. As a BSW, I was employed at a rehabilitation center where I worked with children with disabilities. That facility was a nursing home, school and hospital all in the same place. I was a school and medical social worker. I loved that job! At night I would work on my master’s degree part-time. After four years, I had to quit my job my last semester to do an internship for my master’s program. After I graduated with the MSW, we moved and I had to get a job while my husband completed his residency in Alabama. I was employed at Family Counseling Services implementing play and marriage and family therapy. The agency also had a big domestic-violence services center, so I worked with offenders and survivors of abuse. I had a lot of good experiences there and also taught as an adjunct at the University of Alabama in their MSW and BSW programs. That inspired me to get my PhD in social work. When my husband completed his residency, we moved back to Mississippi. It took me nine years to finish my doctorate because I had three maternity leaves and was commuting back and forth to Alabama to take and teach classes.
MSW Online
What a busy time. That’s such an accomplishment, to do all of that.
Jana Donahoe
My children are all grown and successful now. I feel like they’re my greatest achievement.
MSW Online
Please share how you ended up at Delta State University.
Jana Donahoe
Well, my husband was born and raised in the Mississippi Delta and wanted to be his hometown family physician. When I was in graduate school, one of my peers was from the Mississippi Delta and taught at Delta State. She said, “Oh, you’re moving back to the Delta– you must come work for Delta State. We need someone with a PhD in social work.” And that’s one of the reasons I completed my doctorate is because they started recruiting me in my master’s program.
So when I finished my doctorate, I immediately began working at Delta State. I did my doctoral minor at Delta State as well and wrote the history of the BSW program as my minor thesis to compliment my dissertation research on doctoral education in social work. Since the 90s, I’ve been connected with DSU and became employed there part-time the year I graduated. I’ve been there ever since and I absolutely love it.
DSU is a great place to work. I really enjoy the students and faculty and serving alongside them in the community. I’ve done a lot of practice things on the side as well. I’ve been a hospice social worker, had a private practice, and worked with the geriatric population as a consultant. I was an adjunct for a long time before I went full-time. I was raising my family and couldn’t depend on my husband to pick the kids up from school because he was delivering babies and all of that. I had to be the one to take care of the kids. They were my priority, so I didn’t want to work full-time until I got them through high school.
MSW Online
Right. Tell me a little bit about your role at Delta State now, and what courses you teach, and what specialties you would say you have.
Jana Donahoe
After I was an adjunct, I was hired full-time. And I’ve always been an assistant professor, even as an adjunct because I was the only one in the program with a PhD in social work. Apparently it’s a pretty rare degree in the MS Delta. When I became full-time I was assistant professor. Now I’m an associate professor and have taught almost every course in the program. My favorite course is the aging course. I also teach a beginning social-work skills class and volunteering classes. I’ve also taught policy, research, and other things. But as chair of the department I have a lighter course load due to the administrative duties. I get release time for that.
We have four faculty in the DSU BSW Program because we’re relatively small. Our class sizes, particularly in the practice courses, have anywhere from 10 to 15 students at the most. Now, some of our other classes, like our diversity and volunteering in the community courses, are general-education classes, so we may have upwards of 45 to 50 in those classes sometimes. But they’re fun classes and easy classes, so they’re popular with the students and are great for introducing them to social work. We only offer the BSW degree program plus a Child Advocacy Studies Certificate program at DSU.
MSW Online
Do a lot of your students then continue on to MSWs? Or do they feel like the BSW helps them have the career that they want?
Jana Donahoe
Well, it just depends on the student. I was talking to a graduate yesterday who works at Youth Villages and she has nine DSU BSW alumni working with her there. A few of them got the MSW, others did not. But some of our students go for the MSW, and some of them don’t need to. They do very well in social work as a BSW, especially if they become licensed as a professional social worker. Sometimes, our graduates go in other directions, but their degree and professional knowledge, values, and skills serve them well regardless of where they end up.
MSW Online
What would you say sets Delta State apart from other programs?
Jana Donahoe
Well, there are other BSW programs in Mississippi and in the surrounding area. Delta State is quite unique as a BSW program because we offer not only the BSW, but also offer a certificate program in child advocacy studies. And so students who choose to do the certificate program get the BSW and the CAS certificate on their transcript, which makes them more employable.
Also, we are the only BSW program, probably in a tri-state area, that offers a full program of simulative education. We developed a simulation center called the Interprofessional Center for Empathetic Action Simulative Education. It’s called the EASE Center, E-A-S-E. And through that center, we are able to offer the poverty simulation and the virtual dementia tour. We have some mental health simulations, as well as obesity and chronic obstructive pulmonary disorders (COPD) simulator. Plus, we also have the In Her Shoes domestic violence simulation. As for our CAS program, we are the only school of social work, besides the University of Illinois that offers a virtual child abuse simulation as far as I know. This puts us on the cutting edge of baccalaureate social work education.
MSW Online
Wow, that sounds extremely valuable and unique.
Jana Donahoe
We are very unique in our simulative education program. Also we are unique because most of our practice courses have volunteer experiences in them. Students have to volunteer with children when they take our child classes and volunteer with older adults when they take our aging class. For their Methods One class, they volunteer with individuals and families. And they do some group volunteering for the Methods Two class. They don’t volunteer in their Methods Three class, but do a community assessment where they really get out in the community and talk to people. So they get a lot of direct contact with people and diverse client systems of all sizes during our program. They don’t just sit in the classroom.
The simulations are designed to produce empathy and increase their understanding of client population groups. So when they do have their volunteer experiences, and their 440-hour supervised field placement in their last semester, they know what to expect. They know what questions to ask clients because they have put themselves in the other person’s shoes. They know how to have empathy with clients which enables them to provide more compassionate and competent care as a helping professional.
We are CSWE accredited, so our students must demonstrate competencies and our program must meet high standards. Our simulations and volunteering experiences really enable them to have those competencies and to demonstrate them. But even before they graduate, they get out and practice so they know what they’re doing.
MSW Online
Right. That sounds incredible.
Jana Donahoe
And it really prepares them better for their licensure exam too.
MSW Online
Yes. Is the simulation only used with social work, or do they use them with other programs as well? These experiences seem key for all healthcare providers.
Jana Donahoe
Our simulation center is interprofessional. Now, the pandemic kind of changed that. We had to try to do some of our simulations using the health and safety protocols that the CDC mandated for us. We haven’t been able to offer the poverty simulation because it’s a very high-touch simulation. We haven’t implemented our COPD and obesity simulators either because they’re very up close and personal.
Normally, we’ve partnered with our nursing program and speech and hearing sciences program to offer the Virtual Dementia Tour. The nursing program liked it so well that they purchased one for themselves through Second Wind Dreams. We have students from all over campus in many different disciplines participating in our simulations, especially the poverty simulation and the In Her Shoes Domestic Violence simulation. Our campus Diversity Inclusion and Equity Program advertises them. We used to take some of the simulations into the community, such as the Virtual Dementia Tour, but we do not have the funding or the faculty to do this at the present time. We would love for some private donors or corporate sponsors to contribute to the EASE Center through the DSU Foundation so caregivers and people in the community can benefit from our simulations. That would really make a big difference in providing competent and compassionate care in the MS Delta!
MSW Online
That is amazing.
Jana Donahoe
I’m a certified trainer for the poverty simulation and for the virtual dementia tour, so I’m one of the few in the state that can offer those simulations. We have a very, very unique program as far as that is concerned.
MSW Online
That is really, really interesting how it can help prepare students to truly put the shoes on of the people they’ll be serving.
Jana Donahoe
Yes, it’s really great for them to be able to provide better care in the community. And we partner with our (it used to be called quality-enhancement program) world-class experience diversity program. They post the announcement for the simulations so students from business or other programs can participate. But yes, it’s an interprofessional, simulative, education program, which is also good for social-work students because they know how to work on a multidisciplinary team when they leave. Many graduates from other programs have no clue what it’s like to do social work like that in the real world.
We actually established the new Delta Children’s Advocacy Center in connection with our program, and we also developed the Statesman’s Shelf campus food pantry. So our students get real-world experience just by volunteering in our food pantry on campus, and partnering with our children’s advocacy center. We’re the only school I know about in the South that’s going to have a Child Advocacy Studies program in partnership with a children’s advocacy center on campus.
MSW Online
Wow. Thank you for sharing all of that. Well, you kind of mentioned it earlier, COVID, how else has it affected the program and your work?
Jana Donahoe
Well, when it hit us in March of last year, we were forced to move all of our classes online. We didn’t have a choice. Most of our classes were face-to-face. I think we had two online classes before the pandemic. It was a huge shift really. We had to learn how to teach online. That was quite challenging. But we have mastered it. I’ve got faculty who are very technologically savvy. They’re young. I’m older than they are so it’s taken me a little bit longer to learn these things, but I think I’ve done a pretty good job. I received a Connected Educator Award this year and was thrilled to get that.
MSW Online
Nice. Congrats!
Jana Donahoe
So now we’ve moved all of our classes online, just for right now. We’re going to go back to face-to-face or use a hybrid format in the fall of 2021, but we may consider keeping some online components so our students who are working can have their jobs while they attend school. We have a lot of non-traditional students in our program. They don’t usually come to us as freshmen. We get them as transfer students or students who have been raising a family and decided later in life that they wanted to be a social worker. Maybe they’ve had some unique life experiences, some tragedies that made them want to help other people because they needed help themselves. We attract a lot of rural, non-traditional students. They don’t always have technology, but their life experiences often help to really prepare them for professional social work practice.
MSW Online
Absolutely. It’s so interesting because I just feel like so many industries had to get creative, and had to explore things that they would have never had to do before. I guess if there’s any pro to the pandemic, it’s the creativity that schools and healthcare in general has had to do.
MSW Online
I recently talked with another social worker who works primarily as a clinician. She said her agency had to shift a lot of their clinical care to virtual. We would have never probably done this now. This would probably have been years down the road otherwise.
Our volunteering and field placements have had to move to virtual formats as well. Our students have become more technologically savvy. They’ve learned how to do client interviews using Zoom and protect confidentiality for them ethically by using protective software, encryption and things like that, so it’s actually been very educational. There’s been some positives. Lots of creativity has come out of the pandemic.
We’re also incorporating some virtual-reality simulations due to the pandemic. The students love it because they can use their cell phones and a cardboard headset that they purchase at Walmart for $10 or $15, to actually get a glimpse of what it’s like … It’s cool. They can do the Walk through Dementia, etc.
We’re trying to help them with experiential learning, so they don’t just have to watch videos to get the course content. We’re trying to make it interactive so that they can actually engage.
MSW Online
Yes, very cool. Well, it sounds like you are doing some really innovative things, even before COVID. And so adapting now, as even more innovative, and the flexibility that makes you have, as both a clinician and as an educator, I’m sure there’s a lot of benefits to that as well. Well, what do you think the future looks like for social work?
Jana Donahoe
I think social work has a very bright future. Unfortunately, the future is bright for social workers because of the many human needs that exist. People are so desperate for help right now. The mental health crisis that America is experiencing because of the pandemic is just overwhelming. We’ve had more calls of people needing social workers, “Are your students ready to graduate? We need them to come help with the mental health center because we’ve got all these people calling because they’re lonely and scared.” We’ve seen an increase in depression and anxiety, apparently, at our mental health centers locally.
And of course the Mississippi Delta is already an underserved area with lots of poverty and many social problems that a lot of other communities don’t have. There is such a human need for social workers. Our motto is, “Educating social workers who can provide compassionate and competent care in the community.” That’s our goal.
I think that we’re going to have a big surge in our student population group here in the future. I’m hoping that we’ll be able to get some government money and private scholarships to help students in social work. The need seems so great.
MSW Online
Well, what advice would you have for people considering going into social work?
Jana Donahoe
Well, I think it’s a great thing for them to volunteer to get an idea of how they want to help people. Are they interested in healthcare, or mental health, or working in the schools, or in prisons? There’s so many fields of practice with social work that they could go into. And if they don’t like working with people, then maybe they should consider working doing research or policy advocacy, so that even if they’re shy, they can still find a niche in social work. And volunteering helps them to find where their interests and skill set lies. Volunteering is always good and it looks great on a resume. It makes them more employable anyway.
I also think self-care is very important, especially if they’ve had trauma in their own lives. They need to take care of themselves so they can take care of other people. Finding support groups and peer mentors is always helpful too. Hobbies, of course, like we were talking about earlier. It’s very important to have those kinds of things because social workers get burned out, especially if they work in Child Protective Services. The turnover rate in that area is really high, so they need to know how to take care of themselves to be able to take care of children and families in distress.
MSW Online
Anything else you’d like to share?
Jana Donahoe
Well, if students in other parts of the country besides Mississippi want simulative education in their practice, if they’re a kinesthetic learner, if they learn by doing and feeling, then this would be a program that they might want to consider. We do have a wonderful program. I’m partial of course, but believe our program is one of the best around, especially since we do offer the simulative-education component and the volunteering experiences. That really makes us different.
MSW Online
That’s wonderful.
Jana Donahoe
We’re not a perfect program, but we care about our students. We have three clubs that we offer, our Social-Work Club andPhi Alpha Honor Society. We’re also the only school in Mississippi that offers a chapter of NACSW for spiritual support. NACSW is a national organization that we partner with to do that.
We’ve got great opportunities for our students. It’s a family and a community. We have great community support with our field instructors and local agencies. Students get a really good experience in our program. We love to keep in touch with them. When they graduate we’re still here to support them with continuing education. We use them as field instructors after they graduate as well.
MSW Online
That definitely sounds like a family, that you really care, and as a student you’ll be known. It’s not going to a big university where you’re just going to maybe fall into the crowd. But it sounds like you get to know every one of your students and they get a chance to know you as well.
Jana Donahoe
Right. Very well, we know them all very well. Probably better than other programs do I think.
MSW Online
That’s wonderful. Well, thank you so much for sharing your story.