The Institute of International Education, a global not-for-profit organization facilitating international exchanges, requested CRISP meet with three senior-level professionals participating in the Distinguished Humphrey Fellowship Program on Leadership sponsored by the U.S. Department of State. These Fellows, part of a cohort of a dozen government and nonprofit sector dignitaries, are on an 18-day visit to the United States. They are particularly interested in expanding their understanding of human rights and social welfare programs and services in the U.S. context. After a week-long executive leadership seminar at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, they arrived in Washington, DC, to engage with selected policymakers and practitioners. The three Fellows we met are:
Dr. Erika Leonaite, head of the Parliamentary Ombudspersons’ Office, Lithuania’s national human rights institution. She has nearly 20 years of experience in human rights, working in academic, non-profit, and governmental sectors. She is responsible for promoting and protecting human rights, including advocacy, investigations, and monitoring visits to places deprived of liberty. Ms. Leonaite obtained her Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Law from Vilnius University.
Maria Maltschnig, the director of the Karl-Renner Institute, the political academy of the Social Democratic Party of Austria, is a key figure in managing its budget, staff, and curriculum development. Her role as the current International Secretary of the Social Democratic Party of Austria, responsible for the international relations of the SPÖ, showcases her leadership skills and international influence, as she represents the party in the European and global party networks.
Vijayalakshmi Bidari, a career civil servant in India, brings a wealth of experience from her 20 years in the Indian Administrative Service. Her diverse roles in field and policy-making across India’s central and provincial governments have given her a comprehensive understanding of governance. Her expertise spans information technology, urban development, infrastructure enhancement, electoral integrity, women empowerment, space, and human resource management. She currently serves as the Divisional Commissioner of Nagpur division, overseeing a population of over thirteen million.
CRISP Legislative Director Angelique Day joined me for the 90-minute session and lunch on Friday. Angelique is currently residing in Washington, DC, on sabbatical, during which she is in dual placements at the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Much of our discussion with the Fellows focused on child welfare, her area of expertise. We described our work with the Congressional Caucus on Foster Youth and several bills we worked on with former Congresswoman Karen Bass before she became mayor of Los Angeles. They were interested in learning more about our child welfare system and dealing with the polarized environment in government, which plagues their countries, too.
We discussed the differences in our childcare systems and how the American social work profession predominantly educates and trains the child welfare workforce. We also talked about the shared challenge of incorporating social work research into legislative deliberations. Despite the stark differences in the challenging mission of caring for children in the countries they represent, from the 1.42 billion people in India to the 2.8 million people in Lithuania and 9 million in Austria, we found common ground in the fact that mental health ranks as one of the primary challenges in all our countries. I got a laugh from the group when I suggested narcissism is the biggest untreated mental problem in the U.S.
We talked about politics, with the U.S. presidential election just a month away. Unsurprisingly, it is carefully followed in India with the possibility of the election of Kamala Harris, a woman of Indian descent who would be the first woman to head the American government, noting that Indira Gandhi served as the first and only woman Prime Minister of India from 1966 to 1977, and again from 1980 until her assassination in 1984. We discussed the rise of Austria’s Freedom Party, the far-right party that won 29.2 percent of the vote in last week’s election, eclipsing the 26.5 percent gained by the Austrian People’s Party, the ruling conservatives, and policy implications.
Social workers in the United States have much to offer the world. I think of Gary Bailey’s tenure as president of the International Federation of Social Workers, Michael Sherraden’s work in Singapore and China, Fred Ssewamala’s work in Africa, Darcey Merritt’s frequent travels to the Middle East, and my doctoral cohort colleague Hyeouk Hahm’s work in Korea, to name a few. We look forward to future opportunities to share our experiences.