SPECIAL HONORS: Clinical Social Worker
Alethia Watford (Photo by Jay Paul)
There is more to patient care and recovery at the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU than physical evaluations. Alethia Watford, the hospital’s clinical social worker, does everything from coordinating patient transportation to allocating patient funds for diapers and working with sexual assault survivors. Watford addresses social needs as she tackles disparities that can diminish a child’s health outcome.
“Social work is helping the most vulnerable people [to] meet their basic needs and empower them to live their best life,” she says.
Watford has been responsible for all high-risk patients for the past five years. High-risk patients are those whose insurance, transportation and housing can negatively impact their physical health.
Research suggests that these social factors account for approximately 30 percent of all health outcomes, says Elizabeth R. Wolf, assistant professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU. “We know that there are social disparities in Richmond,” Wolf says. “Within adjacent neighborhoods, life expectancy can differ almost 20 years.”
Addressing these disparities is Watford’s responsibility. She graduated with a master’s degree from the VCU School of Social Work in 2007. “Something just kind of resonated with me about helping the poor and the oppressed,” she says.
Watford helped introduce VCU’s baby-box program, which provides free, safe and portable cribs to the mothers who give birth at the hospital. She also hopes to implement a partnership with VCU’s psychiatry department to offer services for postpartum moms bringing their babies to the hospital for checkups, she says.
Watford says her job is difficult when children suffer because they do not have access to the resources they need. Recently, a family with severely malnourished twins came to the hospital for treatment. It was a medical emergency.
“Not being able to meet family needs that are great is tough,” she says. “I don’t have a lot of answers to the problems that we see here.”
Nevertheless, many patients persevere — such as the twins — and make her job fulfilling. “To see that the twins came and that they have both had a positive outcome [was rewarding],” she says. “I work with a great team of people.”
In the hospital, Watford is known for her buoyance. “She comes in with a level of optimism, drive and passion that is palpable,” says Stephanie Crewe, chief of the adolescent-medicine division.
Some of the doctors joke that Watford does the job of two social workers, Wolf says. “She has been with us now for five years,” says Tiffany Kimbrough, mother infant unit medical director and assistant professor in general pediatrics. “We initially did not have a social worker. … “I don’t know how we functioned without her.”
