12 Whole Person Librarianship To that end, we begin with Sara’s story of using relationships to support community-embedded library work. We then offer practical descriptions of types of social work, along with a worksheet to begin identifying community social services. We conclude by explaining some basic social work concepts that are useful for understanding a social work approach and applying it to library services. The approaches we describe in this chapter form a foundation for libraries to prepare for the opportunities presented throughout the book. Sara’s Story Sara Zettervall,1 coauthor of this book, works as a community embedded librarian at the Cedar Riverside Opportunity Center (CROC). The neighbor- hood of Cedar Riverside packs nearly 8,000 people into a few blocks near downtown Minneapolis, and most of those residents are East African immi- grants and refugees. Many are Somali, but a significant number are Oromo, an ethnic group from Ethiopia who have their own separate culture and lan- guage. Sara serves these immigrants as a public librarian through Hennepin County Library, but she doesn’t work in a traditional library space. Instead, the library is one partner in a collaborative office focused on education and job readiness for residents of the Cedar Riverside neighborhood. At CROC, the primary tenant is an employment services nonprofit, EMERGE. The library provides two full-time staff to deliver educational programs and ser- vices. Other partners in the space include Hennepin County more broadly the City of Minneapolis, which funds a full-time Somali community coordi- nator and Minneapolis College, which supports recruitment, enrollment, and funding leading to career-specific credentials. One of the main priorities for CROC from its opening in early 2017 has been to increase employment among young people from the community. With high unemployment among young men in particular, CROC’s partner- ing organizations were eager to find a way to connect them to opportunities. Sara explained, “EMERGE provides career prep things like resume help, GED classes, job readiness for immigrants, and Minnesota Family Invest- ment Program (MFIP) coordinators . . . providing welfare-to-work service for families.” These services, along with those provided by the City of Minne- apolis and Minneapolis College, primarily reach adults. All of the partners support and help to promote each other’s programs. They also share connec- tions with various other groups and individuals in the community, including mosques, Somali TV, and youth sports programs. Sara’s first priority as a librarian shaping her new role was to build those relationships. She 1. Sara’s story uses real names.
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