Scune Carrington, M.S.W.'09. Courtesy photo.
Scune Carrington was 13 years old when her father died and her mother brought a social worker into her life to help her cope with her grief.
Carrington says the social worker encouraged her to stay active in her community, persuading her to join a public speaking program and become a peer mentor for a tobacco prevention initiative. As Carrington grew older, the social worker served as a job reference and toured college campuses with her.
“I was so young and trying to make sense of my life, and it helped me to continue to do different activities so I wouldn’t focus so much on my grief,” says Carrington, who graduated from the part-time master’s program in the Boston College School of Social Work in 2009 with a specialization in macro practice. “It was really a gift. I still talk to the social worker and thank her for helping me.”
She says the guidance she received in her time of sorrow set in motion a chain of events that have led to her own rewarding career in the helping profession, one that combines clinical and macro social work to help individuals and communities alike.
Today, Carrington runs a private practice, serves in a leadership role at the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers, a primary care association made up of the state’s 52 community health centers, and routinely gets appointed to prestigious boards and committees to lend her expertise.
Just last year, for example, she was named to the Massachusetts Board of Registration of Social Workers, which establishes professional standards and enforces licensing regulations. And in 2021, she was appointed chair of the Board of Health for Malden, Massachusetts.
“It was a social worker who helped me,” says Carrington, explaining one of the reasons she chose to join the helping profession. “And I was like, ‘Whatever it is that they’re doing, I want to go ahead and do that.’”
Among other things, we asked Carrington to discuss her path to social work, her academic experience at BCSSW, and her dual roles as a clinician and leader at a major nonprofit.
You received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2004, studying women and adolescent health, and then contemplated a master’s in public health, public administration, or social work. How did you land at BCSSW?
I loved that BCSSW had a part-time program with the same academic rigor as the full-time program but with the flexibility that allowed me to continue working. I also really fell in love with the School and what it stood for. At BC, you are constantly encouraged to not only be in service to others, but also to challenge and engage in critical thinking. I have really found myself applying that mindset after I graduated, engaging in critical thinking to solve difficult problems. I’ve made many really good decisions in my life, and going to BC was one of them.
You serve as director of integrated care at the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers. What are your primary responsibilities in this role?
I’m responsible for overseeing initiatives focused on oral health, behavioral health, and integrated care at health centers across the state. It’s as macro as macro gets.
My favorite part of the job is teaming up with community health centers and the committed people who work there to improve health equity. I recently visited a health center on Martha’s Vineyard and found that a limited number of dental providers on the island accept patients who have MassHealth, the state’s health insurance program. So it was literally a dental desert—if you have MassHealth and providers on the island don’t accept your coverage, you have to get on a ferry just to get your teeth cleaned. So we’re talking to a health center now about investing and building our own dental program.
You launched a private practice called BennuCare in 2021, focusing largely on helping clients cope with grief. What sparked your interest in opening the practice?
I opened BennuCare because I wanted to continue doing clinical work. But helping people who have experienced grief and loss became my accidental speciality in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID caused a lot of grief. There was so much mortality. I talked to one person who had gone to 13 funerals. And so many years after I lost my dad, as well as my first husband and my grandmother, I’ve become something like a grief expert or a grief coach.
I’m also the helper’s helper. I see other therapists, hospital executives, surgeons, and other people who are in the helping profession. I understand where they work and clinical work that they do, and they like that I’m a social worker in the system.
What do you say to clients who are grieving?
American society is a death-denying culture, and there is a certain speed at which people want you to move on from a big loss. “When are you going to date again?” they might ask. When are you going to get married again? When are you going to get back to work?” But each person has their own sort of relationship with death and grief and what it all means, and they don’t have to be ready to move at the speed at which other people expect them to.
I tell my clients that it’s OK to be angry or sad or whatever they might be feeling. Death is like a seesaw, and they will have their up days and their down days. They just experienced something that their body will remember, they’re often in shock, and sometimes they just need space to scream or cry.
What did you learn at BCSSW that you have applied to your work at BennuCare and the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers?
I did my final field placement at the Center for Violence Prevention and Recovery at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. One minute I was writing a grant, the next minute I was advocating at the State House, and the minute after that I was running a group therapy session with survivors of domestic violence.
The experience taught me an invaluable lesson that I have carried with me throughout my career: Once you graduate, it doesn’t matter if you specialized in clinical or macro practice, you’re a social worker. Some of the best people that I know and look up to have had some inkling to do clinical social work even if they’ve specialized in macro social work.
I also constantly use what I learned in the Program Evaluation course. It’s one thing to look at raw data; it’s another thing to use that data, whether it’s quantitative or qualitative, to showcase the value of the work that you do. You may know that you’re doing great work and that you’re helping people, but having the data to back you up is invaluable.
What advice do you have for MSW students?
An M.S.W. degree is so versatile. If there is a faculty member doing research that you care about, knock on their door and say, “I read about your research. I think it’s absolutely fabulous and I want to learn more about it.”
Also take advantage of electives that are offered to M.S.W. students outside of the School. In the future, you will almost certainly work across disciplines, and getting a different perspective can break the blinders that we may have as social workers.
