David Quackenbush (Host): Welcome to the Golden Voices Podcast, a journey of health and healing. This is a podcast that is being launched by Golden Valley Health Centers, which is a community health center in California Central Valley. This podcast is really about journeys. I've always been fascinated about people's journeys. I'm a native Californian, my world's very small. My whole life was probably a one-mile radius. And so, I come across people who have these fantastic journeys where we've kind of ended in the same spot doing something similar. It's always very, very fascinating to me.

So, this podcast is really just that. Our first guest who's with us today, is Jorge Fernandez, Golden Valley Director of Behavioral Health. Jorge, I have your bio here. But really, this podcast is about the journey. We're really just going to talk about your journey. Why don't you just introduce yourself. You'll probably do a better job of explaining your bio. Let's just talk about your bio for a minute, introduce yourself and how you came to Golden Valley.

Jorge Fernandez: Sure. First of all, thank you, David, for this invitation. It's an honor to be the first one doing this podcast. So, my journey with Golden Valley, my parents were migrant workers, we lived in a migrant camp. We used to come to the U.S. for six months, go back to Mexico for six months. I'm the first generation in my family to acquire education. And prior to becoming the director of Golden Valley Health Centers, which I'm coming on my 11th year, I was a patient of Golden Valley. We didn't have any insurance. My parents work in the fields or the canneries. They barely had insurance for one or two months a year. And we were rushing to get all the medical care done. And during those two months that they have coverage, once the season was over, we had no coverage. So, Golden Valley was a lifesaver and attended to my medical and my dental needs. And now, it's an honor to be part of that, like, kind of pay it forward to give back to the community.

Host: That's fascinating. And, you know, obviously, we work together, so I know you somewhat. But every time we talk, I learn something new. So when your parents were employed at the cannery, the cannery provided health benefits for that short period of time?

Jorge Fernandez: They were supposed to work like a certain number of hours. And once they reach the number of hours, they'll get it like for one or two months. And you know how it is difficult to get a dental appointment. By the time we got the dental appointment, the insurance coverage was over or we couldn't see the specialist. So, I mean, we did the best that we could.

Host: Yeah. Obviously, now, with everything that's going on in our world with immigration, and we've taken care of farm workers for our 50-year existence, it's always fascinating to put a little more details behind the farm worker lifestyle, especially the migratory seasonal farm worker lifestyle. I appreciate you sharing that. Some of that-- I'm curious about that. Actually, you and I've never talked about, because you are a licensed clinical social worker. That's how you started at Golden Valley. What brought you to the career of social work?

Jorge Fernandez: So, I think my upbringing, part of my culture, being a migrant minority. Just to give you a little background, my father was part of the Bracero Program, which was a contract between the United States and Mexico during World War II. And after World War II, they needed farm workers. So, bracero means manual laborers. They will contract them to come to the U.S. for six months, and then, go back six months. And during my childhood and adolescence, that's how we continued. We came to the U.S. for six months, and then go back six months.

So, I think, going through the struggles of being an immigrant, being a minority, not speaking the language, discrimination, and not having adequate medical care or social services, I wanted to use now the privilege that I have to give back to the community because I don't like to stay in the mentality, that "victim" or "poor me." I'm not responsible to what happened or what I went through, but I'm responsible to move forward and give back to the community. So, that's my passion. I want to use my experience, my struggles as a way of a resiliency to empower others and to say, "You know what? It's possible. Let me help you. Let me give you what I couldn't have at my age or at any age." And if I can do something to make your life better, I'll do it. And this is why my passion for social work.

Host: Let me kind of dig a little deeper on that, because I'm curious. I mean, Golden Valley has, you know, 175,000 patients. We provide a lot of care. The vast majority of our patients need some type of behavioral health or mental health support, anywhere from kind of in the healthcare vernacular, mild to moderate to severe. And you could have chosen of a variety of health professions. I mean, Golden Valley and most health centers, I mean, we employ over 30 type of providers, right? And social work is very specific. And, you know, because you've been in your position for a while and how you lead a team and we've prioritized behavioral health where we now doubled the size of our team to 30 social workers that ultimately you are responsible for, which is a pretty big burden.

I'm just curious to the ability or comfort that you're willing to share, why social work? I mean, behavioral health and mental health is a very difficult type of care to provide. I mean, again, you're responsible for 30 social workers. Why do folks tend to go into social work?

Jorge Fernandez: There's a joke, David, that whoever goes into social work or psychologist, because we have traumas, and we don't want other people to go through what we went through, right? And again, not taking the victim mentality, but given my background, the struggles that I went through, I want to empower people. I want to advocate for people. I want to enhance their human wellbeing and do anything that I can so that everybody has equal access to care. And this is a way for me to do it. I can connect with people. I like doing my one-on-one therapy. I also like leading my team. So, it's a blessing to give care one-on-one to my patients, but also to guide the future generation of social workers, like the Pay It Forward model, right? Like, it doesn't stop with me. I want to keep on going and moving and do well for the world for our community.

Host: Yeah, that's great. And doubling our social work staff to 30, and you being part of most of those interviews, that recruitment process and the onboarding process, can you talk a little bit about what our social workers deal with our patients? Because our patients, again, we have patients of all types. We have patients that are new immigrants. We have patients that have been Valley residents for generations. Being around 50 years, we take care of grandparents, great-grandparents, to all the way to pregnant mothers, right? So, we take care of patients the whole life cycle. Can you give the audience some sense of what we're seeing and what your colleagues are seeing as we're providing care to these patients on a daily basis?

Jorge Fernandez: Sure. There's a misconception in general that social workers are the ones who work in foster care or CPS, right? The ones who take away the children from their parents or foster care. Social workers, we do a lot of diverse work to help individuals meet their whole health needs. So, patients might come here with a mental health condition, a diagnosis of depression, anxiety, but also they might lack food or housing or they don't know how to access daycare, childcare. So, we do a whole health approach where we do assessments and screenings. Okay. What else is missing in your life? Are your social determinants of health missing? If you're hungry, if you don't have transportation, it is going to be more challenging for you to make it to our sessions. If I can give you those resources so you can get your basic needs met, you will be more inclined to come to the therapy because sometimes therapies look like a luxury. Like, I need to eat first. I need to find transportation. I need to find childcare. And right now, with telehealth, that's a big blessing because now they can do it from home. In short, we help the patient meet everything, every social determinant of health need that they might have so they can have healthy, fulfilling lives, not only mental health, but any basic need they might need.

Host: And as a career choice-- because, you know, in our world of community health, there's always a shortage of providers, primarily for every provider type we have. You know, we take care of low-income families and they tend to have multiple comorbidities, mental health and other things. You know, with what we do-- and I shouldn't say we, because I'm not a clinician-- what you do and your fellow clinicians do is difficult. Our patient population, they have real life challenges. What are you seeing in the new social work workforce? Because part of this podcast is also talking about your journey and I appreciate you sharing some of your background. What are you seeing in the behavioral health workforce and what advice would you provide to people that are newly social workers? Which you do on a daily basis. Because we have social workers that have just started in their career to still working on their hours to been social workers for 20 years. What are your advice for-- let's kind of separate it into two questions. What is your advice for people considering social work as a career? Let me stop there, then I'll ask my other questions. So, what's your advice for folks that are thinking about going into social work as a career?

Jorge Fernandez: Social work is a very fulfilling career. There's a lot of diversity, so you can work in many, many aspects. You can work in a clinic, you can work in foster care, you can work in CPS, you can work in hospitals. So if they don't like the clinical work one-on-one, they can do policy, they can do foster care. There's a lot of diversity in that. The need is there. We have such a shortage of social workers. So, there is a lot of opportunity for employment and for career advancement. It's a great career. And it's not limited like other careers. For example, in psychology, it's more like therapy-based versus social work. It is more diverse.

Host: Thank you for all that. I mean, one thing I want to do with this podcast is I want to take the guest journey, share the journey with listeners and the audience. But also, I want the guest to have an opportunity to provide advice to the audience about what they should be thinking along their life path and their career path. You kind of explained social work, but you also explained why you ended up being a social worker. Based on your journey and, you know, lots of folks that have gone through many, many life's challenges, what is your advice to the audience about what they should be considering along their own career and personal journeys?

Jorge Fernandez: Do something you really feel passionate about. You will come to work every day and feel like, "This is what I went to school for. This is my passion." Of course, we're going to have difficult days, right? But at the end of the day, we're going to say, "I love the work I do, and I love passing the torch to future generations," right? This is not a sprint, it's a marathon. So, we have to be able to say, "This is what I want to do for the rest of my life." And if they're not sure, explore. Explore if you like it or not. Take a few courses. Shadow or do volunteer work before you commit to this career, because this is very fulfilling. But it could be, I don't want to say demanding, but it requires a lot of you and you need to have that passion, that drive, that motivation to keep on moving forward.

Host: That's great. Thank you for sharing. You made me think about my last question to you. Obviously, your passion always comes through and your appreciation for patients. What are you hoping for the remainder of your journey? I mean, you still have lots of years in front of you in your career, in your life. What are you looking for as you continue your journey?

Jorge Fernandez: I see myself continuing being a leader in behavioral health, and also a provider. I see here at Golden Valley our program further expanding so that patients can be seen sooner. And we can provide more access. Educationally, I'm thinking about maybe if I want to get another master's or a PhD. I always want to keep on growing. I don't want to feel like I'm stuck, so I want to keep on growing and growing, growing. Explore what other avenues we have to provide services to our patients, whether it's groups, whether it's letters of support for anything they might need. So, not stay in a square, in a box. We want to explore and expand and be in sync with the times. Times are changing. And we have to adapt to meet our patient's needs.

Host: That's great. Thank you for sharing. And so, thank you for being here. I appreciate you being on the inaugural Golden Voices podcast. I think it is exciting for us at Golden Valley to do this and share our leadership's juries and messages. And so, we'll leave it there. Thank you, Jorge Fernandez, the Director of Behavioral Health at Golden Valley Health Centers. And we'll see you next time. Thank you very much.

Jorge Fernandez: Thank you, David. My pleasure.