About Rachel L. West, MSW, LMSW

Rachel West

 Rachel West is a Licensed Master of Social Work in New York State. She holds a BA in History from SUNY Stony Brook and an MSW from Adelphi University.

Rachel’s first year internship was at FEGS; one of the largest human service agencies in New York State. At FEGS Rachel spent a year in the Continuing Day Treatment program working with clients living with persistent mental illness. While there Rachel had the opportunity to develop and facilitate groups.

Rachel’s second year internship was with Long Island Gay and Lesbian Youth (LIGALY, which is now part of the Long Island GLBT Services Network). As an MSW intern she launched the first discussion group for Long Island’s bisexual community. Two months into her internship at LIGALY, Rachel was hired as the Community Organizer for the Long Island Coalition for Same Sex Marriage, which was a program of LIGALY that advocated for marriage equality. She eventually became Center Manager.

During her foundation year Rachel realized that her passion was in macro practice; deciding that ultimately she wanted a career in advocacy and public policy. In her final semester Rachel had the opportunity to participate in a special course with NYS Assemblywoman Earlene Hooper, Legislative Activities and Community Process.   After becoming a Licensed Master of Social Work, Rachel would go on to work as a domestic violence advocate where she helped clients with creating safety plans and obtaining orders or protection.

Rachel is also serving as the Director of Community Development for socialworkhelper.com. If you like to tweet you can follow Rachel on Twitter @poliSW.

Specialties

Group development, crisis intervention, community outreach, community organizing,  community practice and advocacy.