The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast

Can you do genuinely ethical social work inside a jail — or does the setting corrupt the work no matter what? Deb Goldfarb has spent her career living inside that question. A self-described abolitionist, she built a behavioral health program from nothing inside a Boston jail, and she joins Professor Ace to talk honestly about the tension, the compromises, and the moments that make it worth it. In...

What if everything social workers have been told about how the public sees them is wrong? Dr. Joe Hanley joins Professor Ace from the United Kingdom to challenge the myth, name the politics, and trace the quiet privatization of public service. In this episode of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast, Dr. Joe Hanley — lecturer in social work at the Open University and aut...

Four practitioners sit down with Professor Ace to talk about horses — what they teach us, how they heal us, and why being in their presence asks something different of us than the rest of modern life does. Dr. Penny Lloyd is an equine veterinarian of 35 years and the founder of Connection Medicine. She talks about therapeutic partnership — the idea that healing between people and animals can move...

Niteesa Brooks is a Master of Science in Social Work (MSSW) — a degree most social workers don't even know exists — and she's built a career most social work programs won't prepare you for: regulated tech. She's run pharma research programs for Eli Lilly, scaled inside a 400-person FinTech company, and she's launching her own execution advisory and consulting firm (announced pu...

Richard Flyer joins The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast hosted by Professor Ace for a conversation about Birthing the Symbiotic Age, symbiotic culture, spirituality, rebuilding community, mutual benefit, love, Indigenous perspectives, and the future of social work in a fragmented world. In Episode 90, Richard Flyer discusses his book Birthing the Symbiotic Age and refl...

What would social work look like if nature was not treated as background, but as part of the healing relationship? In Episode 89 of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast, Professor Ace is joined by Kit Kline, founder of Nature Based Therapy, clinical social worker, educator, and trainer. Together they explore the relationship between nature-based therapy, Indigenous know...

Maria Guido joins Professor Ace for a powerful conversation on abolitionist social work, trauma, attachment, therapy, and the realities facing court-involved youth. In Episode 88 of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast, Professor Ace speaks with licensed clinical social worker Maria Guido about developmental trauma, emotional safety, attunement, abolition, love in socia...

Episode 87 of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast features Lori Jones, author of Spared: A Memoir of Risk and Resolve. Lori joins Professor Ace for a powerful conversation about growing up in a family shaped by Huntington’s disease, living under the weight of secrecy and stigma, facing a 50% genetic risk, and navigating caregiving across generations. This episode explo...

Ukraine war trauma meets Alaska’s service realities. What does effective social work look like when systems are strained? Episode 86 of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast (hosted by Professor Ace) features Dr. Nataliia Gusak, associate professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage and a Ukrainian scholar whose work focuses on building and evaluating community-based...

Episode 85 of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast , hosted by Professor Ace , features Causha A. Spellman-Timmons (they/them) , a Black, queer, non-binary visionary and SOULcial worker grounded in over two decades of radical service, community-rooted leadership, and healing-centered justice. This conversation moves through heart wisdom , authenticity, cultural competen...

Episode 84 of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast hosted by Professor Ace features Mark Tuggle, editor of Cultural Silence and Wounded Souls: Black Men Speak About Mental Health. In this conversation, we dig into cultural silence, stigma, emotional expression, Tupac’s legacy, community support, and what it looks like to create real spaces where Black men can speak abou...

In episode 83 of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast, Professor Ace talks with Travis Misurell, founder of FiNC (America’s civic utility), about what’s broken in US politics and what it could look like to build a citizen-owned civic infrastructure that expands real choice and accountability. We dig into money in politics, the “lesser of two evils” trap, and Travis’s Up...

Social workers are expected to carry everyone else’s weight while quietly carrying their own financial stress. In this episode of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast, Professor Ace sits down with Taylor Gilbert (LCSW, CFSW), founder of Social Work to Wealth, to talk debt, pay, money stigma in the profession, and practical ways social workers can build real financial st...

In Episode 81 of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast, Professor Ace sits down with Kyle Hillman (NASW) to talk about where social work is headed, and what happens when the profession drifts too far into “clinical-only” identity at the expense of advocacy and policy power. We dig into the push to ban AI “therapists,” ethical risk in AI-supported practice, the interstate...

Episode 80 of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast features Natalia Tuipulotu (LCSW, CSAC, PMH-C). We talk honestly about social work burnout, the complicated move from community behavioral health to private practice, harm reduction work, and how motherhood reshapes identity, priorities, and boundaries in this field. Natalia is the founder of Mana Behavioral Health Serv...

Episode 79 of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast features Relando Thompkins-Jones, a macro social worker and social justice educator. We talk about storytelling, cognitive dissonance, and the kind of dialogue that actually shifts institutions from “values statements” to lived, felt equity. Relando’s work centers cultural humility and intersectional equity, helping org...

Artificial intelligence is already reshaping social work and social work education. In episode 78 of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast, Professor Ace sits down with Dr. Marina A. Badillo-Diaz, LCSW (aka The AI Social Worker) to talk ethics, transparency, privacy, environmental impact, and what it looks like to engage AI without outsourcing professional judgment or hu...

What happens when we stop treating “clinical” as the default and start taking macro social work seriously? In episode 77 of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast, Professor Ace sits down with Nicki Sanders, Chief Visionary Officer of Nicki Sanders Leadership Consulting, to talk about redefining social work, building community, and helping students advocate for themselves...

In episode 76 of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast, Professor Ace (Christian “Ace” Stettler) and co-host Christie Robinson sit down with Niketa Pechan, LCSW for a wide-ranging conversation on cultural identity, historical trauma, and what social work misses when it reduces people to frameworks. We talk land preservation, language as power, and why culture is not an “...

In this episode of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast, Professor Ace (Christian Ace Stettler) and co-host Christie Robinson sit down with Manicka Thomas (Clinical Social Worker, mentor, and creator of the Social Work Success Path) to talk career direction, social media as a tool for community, avoiding burnout, and learning to advocate for your worth. Manicka is on a...

Hawaii, food sustainability, and emotional healing come together in this conversation with Dr. Daniel Min, where nourishment is understood as both relational and political. Professor Ace and Dr. Min examine how food culture, nervous system regulation, forgiveness, and conscious choice shape the search for wholeness in community. Their dialogue moves through Hawaii’s reliance on imports, the power...

Workplace trauma & suicide prevention in social work take center stage in this episode of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast, hosted by Professor Ace and brought to you by the University of Alaska Fairbanks Department of Social Work. Episode 73 features Dr. Heliana Ramirez, PhD, LISW, a clinician, researcher, and organizer whose work focuses on workplace abuse, tr...

In Episode 72 of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast with Professor Ace, we sit down with Dalton Castor—long-time friend, former meth addict and alcoholic, and now over five years alcohol-free—to unpack a story of near-death, radical transformation, and the ongoing work of healing. Addiction, recovery, alcohol, healing, community, personal growth: these aren’t just key...

In this episode of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast, brought to you by UAF Social Work, Professor Ace sits down with Gary T. “Tre” Taylor — licensed clinical social worker, author, and assistant professor at Virginia State University. A family man and social work futurist, Tre brings over a decade of experience working with Black men and families while pushing the p...

In this episode of The Critical Social Worker: A Revolutionary Storytelling Podcast, Professor Ace sits down with Dr. Jonathan Singer—pioneer of social work podcasting and nationally recognized expert in suicide prevention. Together, they explore the evolution of podcasting in the profession, the role of storytelling in community-building, and the ethical and practical challenges of addressing sui...