By S. Jolene Hui, MSW, NASW-CA Membership Coordinator
From Oklahoma lemonade stands to a group home for at-risk teenage girls in Fulton, Missouri to USC School of Social Work, where she received a prestigious scholarship, Shera Daroga has been honing her social work skills since she was eight years old.
Originally from Broken Arrow (suburb of Tulsa), Oklahoma, then earning her BA in psychology at Westminster College in Fulton in 2009, Daroga counts moving to California on her own for grad school as one of her greatest achievements. As a young child, her Zoroastrian (an ancient Iranian religion and philosophy) father and Christian mother taught her that the Zoroastrian tenets, “good thoughts, good words and good deeds,” are an “essential part of living a fulfilling life.” She believes that the social work profession parallels this and that it provides her with the knowledge, skills and abilities to impact lives on many levels.
To her, one of the most special things about social work is that people share with her things they cannot share with anyone else in their lives. She says, “…and for me to have the ability to listen and to connect with them while they’re sharing their most intimate thoughts and feelings is not something I take for granted. I cherish this process.” She loves that her career is “deep in meaning, filled with many challenges and endless possibilities.”
Graduating in 2013 with her MSW, Daroga’s first job out of graduate school was a position with USC’s Dean Marilyn Flynn and the Blue Ribbon Commission on Child Protection (BRC) as a senior analyst and advisor. She led focus group interviews “with approximately 300 professionals, administrators and front-line professionals within the Los Angeles County child welfare system, with the goal of improving child safety and protection.” Upon the completion of the BRC, Daroga began at her current job as a mental health specialist at St. Joseph Center in Venice where she serves the older adult population.
In addition to these positions, she is involved in NASW-CA leadership and has served as the co-chair of the Los Angeles area New Professionals Network (NPN) for the past year. She believes that it’s important for new professionals to network and meet other social workers. She enjoys being part of a group that supports new and incoming professionals. She says, “You never know who you’ll meet and how they can help you in your professional career.”
Daroga advises, “Put yourself first and take care of yourself.” She believes self-care is one of the most important things to practice. She also says that because social work is a small field, it’s not just about who you know it’s also what they know about you. Because of this, she suggests that new professionals to the field take as many opportunities that they can to meet new social workers.
S. Jolene Hui, MSW, is NASW-CA’s membership coordinator and can be reached at jhui@naswca.org.
