We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alissa Adler. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alissa below.
Alissa, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
Overall throughout my life I have always found joy in helping others. Having grown up in a family that could be pretty dysfunctional at times, I experienced a lot of challenges and internalized a lot of these things which impacted my self esteem, mental health, and how I interacted with others. When I was in high school I thought I had found my purpose in math, science, and social justice classes because those are subjects I enjoyed, found challenging, and excelled in. But once I got to college, I realized I didn’t really have any idea of what I wanted to pursue. Finding my purpose was a lot of trial and error, through taking classes, changing my major multiple times, and getting involved with different internships to try to find a path that made sense for me. I remember sitting in my dorm room my freshman year in college, and literally looking through every page of our majors/course catalog (yes, it was a literal printed book back then haha) and going through and circling/highlighting things I could possibly see myself doing as a career.
Overall I felt rushed and like I was already “behind” because I didn’t know what my next steps would be, or what career I would choose, and I put a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself thinking that I wasn’t at the same level as my peers, which I think actually slowed down my process because I was putting a lot of energy into worrying about others. As college went on I took a sports psychology class, and I LOVED it, it was a class that I was excited to attend, learn, and study for, and I had not felt that level of interest for quite some time. Psychology also helped me to start understanding myself more, how my brain worked, and the beginning of learning healthier ways of thinking, and this healing process led me to want to help others heal as well. This class led me to changing my major to Psychology, which ended up being finalized my senior year.
Throughout my time in college I was also exploring and learning about my interests by working at internships. A theme that I realized by working at various internships was that I liked learning about and understanding how people think, and I like interacting with people during the process. I found that working is research labs was very interesting, but that the data collection and analysis was not my passion (but still very important!). I was searching for ways to learn more and gain more hands-on experience, and luckily found a social work internship at an agency in a nearby city, which helped to cement that my passion was helping others to overcome challenges, through support, understanding, and empathy. Even while finishing college and working at this internship, I still wasn’t very clear on what my next steps would be. Luckily, I had a very supportive supervisor who understood me better than I understood myself, and opened my eyes to the field of social work, which combined my passions for social justice, psychology, and helping and advocating for others. She suggested that I look into Master of Social Work programs, and although it took me some time to see it was the right option for me, I finally realized it and applied to a few schools and my career developed from there.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in Los Angeles, California. Most of my experience has been in Community Mental Health providing therapy and case management services to children, adolescents, and families. I have been in the field for over 10 years as a therapist, clinical supervisor, working at a mental health start up, and shifted from the non-profit sector to starting my own business as a career coach, and more recently working as an EAP specialist.
I have experienced burn out a few times which has led to shifts in my career that I wasn’t expecting, and overall I felt like there was a lack of information and support for navigating the field of Social Work which led me to starting my page @SocialTwerkers on Instagram. Throughout my career I continued to learn through A LOT of trial and error, going to my own therapy, and working to find what part of the field of social work is most sustainable for me. My page started out as a place for community, resources, humor, and sharing my experiences in the field to hopefully help others avoid some of the obstacles I experienced along the way. Over the past 6 years the page has grown into a large community, mental health awareness merch store, career coaching, and in 2022 became an LLC.
I never expected @SocialTwerkers to grow as much as it has, but I am grateful for everyone that follows and engages with my page and merch shop, as well as all of the opportunities and people I have met through networking. Currently I work full time as an EAP specialist supporting people to get connected to support and resources, offer career coaching to clients to help them reach their professional goals, run @SocialTwerkers on social media, and sell mental health awareness and social work merch to help break the negative stigma against mental health.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Some of the most important qualities and skills in the field of Social Work are empathy, self-awareness, and being adaptable. Social Work is a profession where it is impossible to know everything, and you are and will always be learning new things. It is important to have this awareness and be open to being a life-long learner, because if you walk into most settings thinking you know everything, it tends to create an uncomfortable environment for your clients. It’s also important to learn about the people you serve, and finding ways of combining the knowledge you learn in school/the profession with your clients’ lives, and finding ways to incorporate the aspects that are realistic for each of them individually.
These skills have also been helpful in developing SocialTwerkers, coaching, and creating a merch shop. It takes an understanding of the field, continuing to learn and adapt to changes, as well as creating products and services that may be lacking and help spread awareness. So being curious and identifying things that could have been helpful to know when I was navigating the profession earlier on, has been the driving force behind the types of information I share on my page, the types of merch I sell in my shop, and the career coaching services I offer to help others avoid unnecessary obstacles in our field.
There have also been many times that things did not go according to plan, so as an entrepreneur it is extremely important to be adaptable, and sometimes the more challenging part can be knowing when to adapt. I experienced this most recently when launching my coaching services, as I had researched and went in with a business model and plan, but there are some times when you have to learn by trial and error. It can be hard to know when to shift and adapt, so paying attention to my stress levels and engagement from clients led me to changing my business plan to part time coaching and full time working a W2 job within the field.
Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?
So many people! I have experienced imposter syndrome many times throughout this journey, and having people in your court cheering you on and giving feedback is huge! When I first started @SocialTwerkers on Instagram, Alejandra from @TheSocialChanger was so helpful and shared so many useful strategies and advice that helped me develop my page. When I was starting my merch shop, my friends in the field gave me feedback on my designs to help me decide which options are most relevant. It’s also been great to network with people I’ve met through the online community and in person including Deanna -one of the OG social work accounts @HilariousHumanitarian, Barbara with @Psycholobees, and Emma with @Emmpwrd- it’s amazing to be able to bounce ideas off of each other, reach out for support, or even just to vent with some of the challenges we have faced along the way. Melissa from @HowToGetItTogether is another person I met through the online community and we were able to share our experiences with selling merch and opening our shops around the same time.
I greatly appreciate their support and can’t even explain how helpful it is to not feel alone and having people rooting for you and being able to provide that in return. I love being part of a group of people who are supportive, encouraging, and we all want each other to succeed. And once again, there has been so much trial and error and narrowing things down from experience. My partner has also been a great support, whether it’s helping me pick up supplies, brainstorming ideas and strategies, dropping off orders at the post office, and overall support navigating my stress and anxiety. Lastly, another great source has been the followers on my page, people reach out with suggestions and awesome ideas for what they would like to see such as types of merch or having stickers in Spanish. I do my best to incorporate the feedback I get so that people can feel represented on my page and in my shop.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.alissalcsw.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/socialtwerkers/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/socialtwerkers
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alissaadler
- Other: Etsy: https://socialtwerkers.etsy.com
Image Credits
All photos were taken by me
