Sarah Hood, assistant director of field education. Courtesy photo.
When Sarah Hood was 18 months old, she was left on a train in Seoul, South Korea, with nothing but the clothes on her back.聽
A fellow passenger spotted her and took her to a local orphanage, where she stayed for two years until she was adopted by a family more than 6,700 miles away in Newton, Massachusetts.聽
Her experience set in motion a chain of events that have shaped her career path, she says, and culminated in a rewarding career as an assistant director of field education for the Boston College School of Social Work.
鈥淚 strongly believe that your experiences lead you toward your true calling,鈥� says Hood, who joined the field education team in 2011.聽
Since then, she鈥檚 worked with more than 1,000 master鈥檚 students, particularly those in the clinical program who specialize in children, youth, and families.聽She says she places up to 100 students in internships at agencies each year, working closely with the social-workers-in-training to find their perfect professional match.聽
Her relationship with students is based on a belief that she developed as a kid growing up in a racially and ethnically diverse household less than a mile from campus, daughter to an Irish Catholic mother and Russian Jewish father: You shouldn鈥檛 judge people based on what you perceive without digging deeper into who they truly are.聽
鈥淓very single person, you look at them and you think one thing and you literally have no idea,鈥� says Hood. 鈥淪o any time someone walks in my office, I think about how there is so much there within them that I have no clue about.鈥�
So, she listens and asks questions. The first question she asks every student is: 鈥淲hy do you want to become a social worker?鈥� Students, in turn, often reveal personal reasons for wanting to join the ranks of the social work profession, opening up what Hood calls a 鈥渨orld of conversation.鈥澛�
Sometimes, Hood steers students away from the path they think they should take. As an example, she points to a hypothetical student who struggled with an eating disorder and now wants to work with others who are wrestling with similar problems.聽聽聽
鈥淚鈥檒l say, 鈥楬ave you addressed those challenges for yourself, because it may be difficult for you to work in a place that鈥檚 so close to your own experience.鈥欌��
“I strongly believe that your experiences lead you toward your true calling.”
Hood鈥檚 interest in the helping profession dates back to her youth. As an adoptee in her teens, she knew she wanted to take the support she received from her parents and pay it forward by improving the lives of other children who had difficult upbringings.
What she didn鈥檛 know is that she would reach her career goal through social work. That is, until she earned a bachelor鈥檚 degree in human development from Boston College in 1991 and spent a year with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, working with children with autism in St. Louis.
鈥淭hat changed everything for me,鈥� she says. 鈥淎fter that, that was it. I 100 percent knew that my destiny was social work fo