Humans of NHC: Meet Paola Zavala!

We’re so excited to introduce Paola Zavala (she/her) from Curry Senior Center! Paola is a case manager and social worker for senior clients at Curry. She shares about her career path of choosing social work, and discusses the highs and lows of such meaningful, life-saving work.

Paola also shares advice for anyone interested in social work to, “get as much experience as possible! School is great, but I do think… being hands on is such a better way to learn in this field. And just make sure that you actually want to do it. I think a lot of people get into social work because they see it as an easy thing, but it’s not super easy - and just take care of yourself.”

Thank you so much, Paola, for your hard work and compassion for senior citizens of San Francisco! Read the full interview below!

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Sarah: I know that everyday is probably a little different, but what is a normal day in the life like for you?

Paola: So I usually come in and I set up a to-do list for the day, I usually have prearranged home visits and office visits, but I set up a to-do list to see if there are any phone calls I need to make, any follow-ups I need to do, or anything I need to get ready for my scheduled appointments… So the most urgent things first usually. Then the office visits and follow-ups, but it’s kind of scattered especially when there’s meetings. As long as I don’t have any urgent cases it’s usually just as it comes.

Sarah: As far as home visits and office visits, what kind of thing do you usually help clients through?

Paola: [Before] I was working primarily with the homeless population, so I was working a lot with clients who were coming in and didn’t have anything. They didn’t have any documents, no IDs, no proof of income, some were about to get evicted, so I was working on various different things with them. In San Francisco there’s this access point center where everyone who is homeless has to go through to get on a list for housing. More recently I transitioned into long-term case management so that’s usually with clients who are already housed. I help them with their day-to-day things, most of them have dementia or other cognitive issues so they need a lot of assistance with reading mail, making sure they go to their appointments, making sure they pay their rent, it’s kind of on a case by case basis. And then there’s also more critical clients, let’s say they’re housed but maybe they have substance use or they have another chronic illness so they need a lot of support with just understanding what’s going on in their everyday lives and having somebody to vent to. It’s a lot, honestly. If people were to ask me what social work is, I wouldn’t even know where to start– it’s everything.

Sarah: Right, it’s easier to say what it isn’t!... Is there something that originally interested you about social work? Did you think you would end up in this field when you were in college?

Paola: It kind of just fell in my lap. So I went to UC Santa Cruz, and when I first got in I changed [my major] a lot. I didn’t know what I wanted to do, but I started taking more classes and I was like, “oh, this isn’t really for me,” I wanted to work with people. Then I started taking psych and I really enjoyed the classes. I enjoyed sociology too, and that was my thing, I really wanted to work one-on-one with people. I wasn’t really too sure how I was going to do that, and then I graduated and I still wasn’t too sure. I graduated peak pandemic, in June 2020. I landed a job at a nursing home and that was my first job, and I didn’t really like working at a nursing home because the support from staff and superiors just wasn’t there, but I did really enjoy working one-on-one with people, I did really enjoy working with seniors. So then I started applying to other places because I wanted to learn more about community case management and social work, and then I got this job [at Curry]. I think like 6 months into working here, that’s when I was like “yeah, I want to do this.”

Sarah: Either in your field or just your day-to-day life, is there anyone in particular who inspires you and/or the work you do?

Paola: Honestly I learn from everybody I can, not just from the work but how to just approach anything that I do. I’ve definitely learned a lot from my coworkers, they have been great, my boss is also great… She’s an amazing teacher. Somebody that came to my mind is my grandpa, he’s always taught me that even if you get to a certain place you have to be humble about it and that’s something that I really hold high– humility. I’m first generation and I’m an immigrant, so it’s a lot.

Sarah: Is there a specific event or experience that you can remember when you knew this was the field for you?

Paola: Well there’s a few. With social work you get a lot of different clients, some people that don’t want services, some people that do, some people that kind of just want to talk to you that don’t really know what they need, and I’ve been lucky enough to get quite a few that are very grateful for the services that have said “Without you I wouldn’t know what to do” and things like that. I want to say a specific case that does come to mind is a client of mine, and he is undocumented, and his whole case was very complicated because he didn’t have income so he couldn’t afford a lawyer to figure out what he needed to do to get his work authorization– there was a lot going on. I remember I was seeing him like 3 times a week, it was a very intense time, and you know I’m not a lawyer so I had to research a lot. I put a lot of effort into it and he noticed that and said, “You’re the first social worker who has actually helped me in the past five years,” because he was homeless, “and I want to thank you for that because you put in the work that probably no one else would have.” And it’s true, there are a lot of people I think that are in this field that don’t really have the heart for it. But I was just very appreciative of him saying thank you. He was one of my biggest cases where I was like “yeah I really want to do this, I really want to help people.”

Sarah: Wow, yeah. Like you said earlier, social work is so many things, and you have to learn on the spot. I guess to go in the other direction, has there been anything in particular that’s discouraged you or almost kept you from pursuing this field? I know there is a lot of opportunity to feel burned out in helping professions, how do you work through that?

Paola: When I was working at the nursing home, I think that was probably the worst time emotionally because I had so much pressure from administration. Social work in the nursing home setting is very much driven by the need to make money, because they’re for-profit. As a social worker, you’re an advocate for the patient not for admin, so that was very hard… I think in those moments it’s important to realize what you’re there for. I knew I was there for my patients. It’s important to realize what you’re doing there even if you’re feeling pressured, which is another reason why I really appreciate working here [Curry] because I’ve never felt that way at all. I’m able to actually be a social worker here, with a lot of support. I do think the work we do is really heavy. I do take time to decompress, I go to the gym as often as I can, and I really try not to think about work when I’m not here, which is really hard because I’ve had dreams about my clients. I think I’m still learning how to separate the fact that I’m home, I have my own life, I can’t think about them the whole time. But, yeah, it’s important to decompress as well.

Sarah: Do you have any advice for people who are thinking about going into social work or who are just barely starting their careers?

Paola: Get as much experience as possible! School is great, but I do think with social work being hands on is such a better way to learn in this field. And just make sure that you actually want to do it. I think a lot of people get into social work because they see it as an easy thing, but it’s not super easy– and just take care of yourself