“Transparency builds trust,
kindness is a must.”
About USW Founder Sarah Wolf
Undercover Social Workers founder Sarah Wolf fell backwards into the social work profession. It all started with her very first job as a 16-year-old working at the neighborhood pet store. This was no ordinary after school job — in addition to any of the usual retail responsibilities, she was also charged with the care of dozens of puppies, kittens, and baby birds. More than that? Her boss Kathy, the store’s owner, took her under her wing (pardon the pun) and taught Sarah how to run the store. The experience was beyond empowering and put Sarah on a path of leadership that continued for the next two-plus decades managing small businesses both in Ohio and Massachusetts.
17 years after Sarah’s first job at the pet store, she landed another pivotal role, this time with a family-owned yoga and wellness center. It was during the 7 years Sarah shepherded that business that she noticed something: her office had become a place of refuge for the studio’s teachers, staff, volunteers, and students alike. “I had a really comfortable couch,” Sarah joked — and that couch was often occupied by someone looking to process something important going on in their lives. It was honoring to have so many people feel safe coming to her, but she admitted she didn’t feel qualified to support everyone the way they needed to be supported. She started to wonder if maybe this was a skill she could develop — maybe she should go to school to become a counselor.
After consulting with a few friends who worked in the mental health field, the messaging was clear: go to social work school, they said. There, she could learn the skills needed for that 1:1 work but there were so many other options beyond that.
Sarah, like many people, had no idea how many different career paths social workers had.
So she started to research, determined that social work school was the right call, and applied to the Jack, Joseph and Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University, where she went on to earn her Social Work Masters in 2021.
Both as a student and as a practitioner, Sarah devoted herself to the community-practice, macro, policy-centered side of social work. She realized while still a student that many of her inherent leadership skills fit almost squarely in the strengths-based community model, Asset Based Community Development (ABCD), and has continued to hone her skills with greater precision and purpose using this framework. “Turns out I was a social worker all along!” she said with a grin.
Since 2019, she has been prolifically involved in community-building efforts in Cleveland Heights and University Heights, Ohio both through professional and volunteer efforts.
“When I first started working in the field,” Sarah noted, “I quickly realized that most of the community members I was serving had no idea I was a social worker. Maybe we’d sit down to talk about the community garden they were organizing and the next thing you know, they’d be telling me about their mothers. They always wondered how that happened so fast.” Sarah paused and chuckled before adding, “It’s because I am a trained social worker, that’s how!”
The more she grew in her role, the more she wanted people to know she was a social worker — that she’s proud to be a social worker! Not only did she utilize a social work frame with what she was teaching in community, she started to identify community members who exhibited the same kinds of ethics and values common in the social worker profession as “Undercover Social Workers.”
This, by the way, is the highest compliment Sarah gives.
Our founder often says — and means — that the world would be a much kinder and better connected place if everyone went to social work school. Undercover Social Workers offers a happy medium as a place to develop some of the same skills, tailored to an individual’s own professional or personal background.
In addition to her Social Work Masters from CWRU, Sarah has a BA in English Literature from Kent State University (Kent, Ohio), an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College (Boston, Massachusetts) and is a licensed social worker in the state of Ohio. Besides her work with USW, Sarah is an adjunct professor at the Mandel School where she has the distinct pleasure of spending time in the classroom with emerging social workers.
Additionally, Sarah has kept a promise to herself since 1/1/11 to write something new every single day, considers herself to be in a long-term relationship with the Cleveland Guardians, and aspires to have her own dog someday. Oh, and she hasn’t owned a car since 2002 — people always get a kick out of that one.
Sarah can be reached directly at undercoversocialworkers@gmail.com.
Undercover Social Workers 