by Brad Forenza, MSW, PhD, and Betsy Szilvassy, MSW, LSW, IMH-E
Several weeks after shelter-in-place mandates were put into effect in New Jersey, a flurry of social media posts caught our eyes. One featured a young man and his partner wearing homemade face masks, sitting in a car and holding up dish soap and bananas. The caption read, “Doing our part with Rockaway Mutual Aid! Spent the day buying groceries for immune-compromised neighbors who are self-isolating.”
Social worker and activist Jane Addams with children, representing her work with children through her life, taken in 1930 by Underwood & Underwood. Photo in public domain.
Prior to that moment, many in our often transient orbs had only encountered the notion of “mutual-aid” in didactic, classroom contexts. There, social work students learn about the benefits of mutual aid and peer support in therapeutic group work. They learn about how settlement houses formed early mutual aid groups to help immigrants adjust to new environments, or find employment and education (Steinberg, 2013), all fitting memories to recall in honor of Jane Addams Day (December 10). (1)
By the 1960s, social workers valued mutual aid more than any other discipline or profession, and the practice was theoretically validated in 1965 when social psychologist Frank Riessman published “The Helper Therapy Principle.” In essence, Riessman theorized that when an individual with a problem helps another individual with a problem, both the helper and the recipient benefit (Steinberg, 2010). Today, social worker and scholar of mutual aid groupwork, Dominique Moyse Steinberg, DSW, considers problem solving as only one aspect of mutual aid, alongside “sharing information and mutual support” (Steinberg, 2013, p. 15). As such, advocacy groups, social change groups, and support groups are forms of mutual aid (Steinberg, 2013).
As the shelter-in-place orders continued deeper into spring 2020, we saw more examples of mutual aid in the national news, bringing a practice historically reserved for social work into our mainstream consciousness. Across the country, communities organized into empowering, mutual aid networks as they attempted to meet the needs of citizens, when government aid was too slow or unable to provide. In Washington, DC, neighborhood-based mutual aid groups emerged to help vulnerable residents at a high risk for COVID-19 run errands and buy groceries, so they could safely stay at home (Samuel, 2020). In Maine, Maryland, Oregon, and California, mutual aid organizations assigned a volunteer “buddy” to regularly communicate with older adults living alone. The volunteer ensures that the elder’s needs are met (such as having enough prescription medication), but also provides social support and counteracts the isolation and loneliness that older adults notoriously experience (Winkie, 2020).
Historically, mutual aid groups target the most vulnerable and disenfranchised members of society. This idea of helping people who are excluded from governmental or institutional resources was once considered “radical” or even “anarchist” (Tolentino, 2020). Perhaps the most notorious example of mutual aid occurred in 1969, when the Black Panther Party collected food donations from grocery stores and gave low-income children free breakfast in school, five years before the federal government developed a school breakfast program (Blakemore, 2018).
One of the best unintended consequences from the COVID-era shelter-in-place mandates was the renewed desire to create and maintain mutual aid groups aimed at helping communities that are already neglected, marginalized, and/or victims of structural inequality. In San Francisco, the Disability Justice Culture Club provided meals, medical supplies, and social support to individuals with disabilities, with the goal of preventing a physiologically vulnerable population from being harmed by the locally stressed hospital system (Tolentino, 2020). No Justice, No Pride, an LGBT activist organization in Washington, DC, collected emergency funds for sex workers (Tolentino, 2020). The Abolitionist’s Mutual Aid Fund for Incarcerated Comrades, a coalition of prison abolitionist organizations, deposited money into commissary accounts, so that incarcerated individuals could buy soap (Tolentino, 2020).
In the tri-state area (New York, New Jersey, Connecticut), we sheltered in place for roughly three months. For some people, quarantine represented a loss of personal freedom, with endless days stuck at home. This resulted in an upsetting lack of human connection, loss of income, and significant stress. But for others, the shelter-in-place mandates signified a positive lifestyle change, with a new opportunity for mutual aid work that was communal, supportive, strengths-based, and unexpectedly empowering.
While years removed from those COVID-era mandates, this post-election Jane Addams Day (December 10, 2024) may find some social workers in need of a similarly bonded and rejuvenating experience, as we look for purpose in our inherently progressive and interventionist work with, and on behalf of, society’s most vulnerable. We are again confronted with a polarizing new normal; however, this time we move forward in solidarity with deepened and fortified roots in the strengths-based practice of mutual aid initiatives.
This Jane Addams Day, let our post-pandemic practices and networks further bond us, and help us find purpose in being radically kind. This Jane Addams Day, let us not forget to celebrate the small victories in our professional lives and the inherent value of intrinsic, human relationships.
References
Blakemore, E. (2018, August 30). How the black panthers breakfast program both inspired and threatened the government. The History Channel. https://www.history.com/news/free-school-breakfast-black-panther-party
Samuel, S. (2020, April 16). How to help people during the pandemic, one Google spreadsheet at a time. Vox. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2020/3/24/21188779/mutual-aid-coronavirus-covid-19-volunteering
Steinberg, D. M. (2009). The mutual-aid approach to working with groups: Helping people help one another. Routeledge.
Steinberg, D. M. (2010). Mutual aid: a contribution to best-practice social work. Social Work with Groups, 33(1), 53–68. https://doi-org.ezproxy.montclair.edu/10.1080/01609510903316389
Tolentino, J. (2020, May 18). What mutual aid can do during a pandemic. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/18/what-mutual-aid-can-do-during-a-pandemic
Winkie, L. (2020, June 5). New “call a senior” programs are sparking unexpected friendships during quarantine. Vox. https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2020/5/29/21273545/coronavirus-covid-19-seniors-old-people-isolation-loneliness
(1) While recent discourse casts doubt on Addams’ failure to use her platform to explicitly empower the due process of Black men (or demonstrate a nuanced understanding of both vigilante and subtle forces oppressing them), it should be reiterated that historians—and even Addams’ contemporary, Ida B. Wells, who issued the charge—still consider Addams a historically bound radical, who—per Wells—went on to be a founding member of the NAACP.
Brad Forenza, MSW, PhD, is a recognized scholar, writer, and practitioner. His public scholarship regarding primary prevention and empowerment includes facilitating self expression for clients and students.
Betsy Szilvassy, MSW, LSW, IMH-E, manages the mental health department at Center for Family Resources Head Start in Northern New Jersey. There, she is able to combine her love for infants and toddlers with a practice in early relational health.