Panel participants from left: Tricia Bent-Goodley, Stacy Owens, moderator Elizabeth Laviter, Kathy Gurland, Jacki McKinney and Colleen Keenan.

Social worker Jacki McKinney, with her sweet smile and silver hair, could be your grandmother.

But the stories she told a group of screenwriters at Writers Guild of America, west in Los Angeles on March 31 were not sweet fairytales you would expect to hear from a grandparent.

McKinney, 76, MSW, was sexually abused as an infant and was later ostracized by her community because of it. She later developed depression and mental illness, which is common among people who experience severe trauma in their youth.

“There were people who wouldn’t let their children play with me and I was cute and bright,” said McKinney, who now works with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) as a consumer advocate for other people with mental illness.

Tricia Bent-Goodley

McKinney was part of a panel to educate Hollywood writers about women’s health issues. Other social workers on the five-member panel were Kathy Gurland, MSW, LCSW, who founded the Peg’s Group cancer care navigation consulting service in New York City after she lost two sisters to cancer, and Tricia Bent-Goodley, Phd, LCSW-C, a Howard University social work professor who is a nationally recognized expert on domestic violence.

 The other members of the panel were Dr. Colleen Keenan, a nurse and interim director of the University of California, Los Angeles Nurse Practioner Program who is an expert on women’s reproduction issues; and Stacey Owens, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2005 at age 20 and is now in remission and works with I’m Too Young for This! Cancer Foundation, a support group for young people adults with cancer.

The event was produced by the Entertainment Industries Council in partnership with the National Association of Social Workers, NASW Foundation and SAMHSA. Also in attendance was past NASW President Suzanne Dworak-Peck, who managed a Hollywood-based entertainment consulting organization for 20 years, and NASW Communications Director Gail Woods Waller.

Kathy Gurland (left) and Suzanne Dworak-Peck.

McKinney, Gurland and Bent-Goodley answered questions from the writers about their work, weaving in stories that could be turned into plotlines or developed into social work characters.

For instance, writers asked Gurland what it is like working with doctors.

There is a slew of medicals shows on television, including “Grey’s Anatomy” and ABC and “Nurse Jackie” on Showtime. However, writers rarely depict the fact that social workers are in hospitals advocating for treatment and services for patients and their families, Gurland said. Often, this advocate role is given to doctors and nurses, which rarely happens in real life.

 Bent-Goodley said the treatment of domestic abuse in Hollywood is too narrow and does not show the complexity of the problem.

The stories that do not get told are that girls as young as 11 to 13 can be the victims of abuse at the hands of boyfriends, and since Americans are living longer women over the age of 55 can also be victims of abuse as they form new relationships.

Domestic abuse also affects women of all socio-economic levels, the effects of the violence can haunt victims long after they escape the abuse, and Hollywood writers fail to capture how resilient and resourceful domestic violence survivors can be, Bent-Goodley said.

Bent-Goodley’s other pet peeve is that Hollywood shies away from how spirituality and religion can sometimes harm victims.

She told the story of a minister’s wife whose husband went online to get sex. When she confronted him alone at church he banged her head against the pulpit.

Jacki McKinney and Tricia Bent-Goodley.

The woman is trapped because her husband is a respected member of the community and no one suspects he is an abuser, Bent-Goodley said. He also plays the role of a faithful husband, driving her to doctor appointments.

“She now has epileptic seizures — she blacks out,” Bent-Goodley said.

Gurland urged writers to go “straight to the source” and seek out social worker experts when writing about medical care and other social issues.

 McKinney said television shows and movies never show people who suffer from mental illnesses getting well — instead they are made fun of or portrayed as psychopathic murders.

Bent-Goodley challenged writers to better educate the public about violence and other issues social workers help people overcome.

“You have the power to break the stigma, to show women are resilient and not just sitting around as victims,” she said. “They are trying to come up with solutions.”

 Maria Elena Rodriguez, a writer who has worked on the 2003 miniseries “Kingpin” and the television series “Resurrection Blvd,” said social workers must work hard to gain influence.

 Rodriguez has written a pilot television program about a social worker in a teen group home but has not sold the project.

She thinks this is because Hollywood is now obsessed with police shows. Crime programs continue to be popular so studios have little motivation to try other formulas, including plotlines that include social workers or issues important to that profession, Rodriguez said.

“There is no shortage of cop shows, no shortage of crime,” she said. The studios “feel it is a place where the well will never run dry.”

Tom Bourgeois, who works in the standards and practices department of CBS, said there is hope Hollywood will turn more to social workers for expert advice and story ideas. Bourgeois said social workers can do this by appealing directly to executives who run television shows, who in turn will direct writers to include more social workers and their issues in storylines.

Bourgeois also said he and other entertainment industry officials came away from the meeting with an interesting new angle for possible future storylines — that social workers in the healthcare field are part of an interdisciplinary team that works with doctors, nurses and others to help the sick and mentally ill.

“That is fresh and new,” he said.

The Entertainment Industries Council, in collaboration with NASW, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores Foundation, and the National Association of  Broadcasters, previously hosted “Picture This: Women’s Health.” The event was a forum for health experts and advocates to recommend priorities for writers, directors, producers and other creative talent. To read the report on “Picture This: Women’s Health” click here.

Review by Kathryn Gurland, LCSW

RATING (Out of 5 SocialWorkersSpeak.org Megaphones):

Plot: ”The Big C” is about 40-something Cathy Jamison (actress Laura Linney) who has been recently diagnosed with Stage IV melanoma cancer. 

Why social workers and the public should not watch this show: Although there are many ways that humor, irony and light, funny experiences could be tastefully portrayed when developing a storyline about a person diagnosed with a late stage cancer, the producers and writers of this show did not accomplish that at all.

The acting performances are of a very high caliber and the characters and dialogue are very entertaining.  However, it is clearly apparent  they did not consult with any real cancer patients, and certainly did not consult with an oncology social worker.  The mere fact that they show Cathy (the diagnosed character) going out to lunch with her doctor at a lovely restaurant by the water and then going house hunting with him is so extremely unrealistic that the plot loses its credibility even to those viewers who have never worked in healthcare. 

Photo courtesy of Showtime.

Five episodes into the series, there is still no appearance of a nurse nor social worker, only Cathy’s doctor.  Hard to believe that no one on the script writing team noticed that oversight…

And I can’t imagine that anyone who has endured a late stage diagnosis of cancer for themselves or a loved one, would find any enjoyment in seeing Cathy impulsively cash out her 401K , buy an extravagant car, hire a contractor to dig a pool in her yard, and walk around throwing out her hundred dollar bills wherever she feels like it. Really? Did this production team speak to anyone who is facing their mortality in the possible near future? 

 I’ve heard many angry comments from patients with cancer about how frivolous and “easy to pull off” these impulsive behaviors seem on the show.   And their response is “who can really do things like that when they get diagnosed?”   They feel the show makes light of and mocks how extremely difficult it is to actually find a balance between impulsively wanting to live out your days to the extreme fullest, while maintaining some reality and hope, and focusing on beating the odds and living longer.

Kathryn Gurland is a private cancer navigation consultant in New York City and runs Peg’s Group. She is also a member of the National Association of Social Workers Communications Network Advisory Committee.

Social workers Kathy Gurland (left) and Marleen Wong.

Social worker Kathy Gurland stood before an audience of more than 50 Hollywood writers, producers and researchers in Los Angeles on August 25 and told stories.

Stories of what it is like being on the front lines helping clients cope with cancer and mortality. Gurland talked about battling hospital colleagues to decorate a patient’s room in white because that color comforted her dying client. And funny stories, like the one about a man who wanted a Viagra prescription so he could enjoy his last days with his wife.

“Over the past 11 years as a licensed clinical social worker I have been afforded the honor and privilege of fulfilling the most satisfying roles I have ever played in my life — ones that far surpass any role I ever played on a stage,” said Gurland, who was an actress before going into social work career.

 She now runs “Peg’s Group,” a cancer navigation consulting company she launched to honor two sisters who died from cancer.

Gurland was part of a four-member panel at an Entertainment Industries Council Inc. briefing on Women’s Health at CBS Television City. The event was partly aimed at getting Hollywood writers and producers to include more social work issues and roles on medical, crime and other television programs and to use social workers as expert consultants. EIC held the event in partnership with the National Association of Social Workers Foundation and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or SAMHSA.

The other panelists were social worker Marleen Wong, PhD, LCSW, assistant dean and professor at the USC School of Social Work who was an original developer for the Cognitive Behavioral Intervention for Trauma in Schools Model and who has spearheaded mental health recovery programs and crisis and disaster training for school districts and law enforcement across the country; Vincent Felitti, MD, a founder of the Kaiser Permanente’s Department of Preventive Medicine and principal investigator of the Adverse Child Experiences (ACE) Study; and Paul Barkopoulos, MD, a psychiatrist and UCLA professor who has worked to increase knowledge and awareness of mental health issues among health care providers and the public.

Wong has studied the effects of violence on young people. In some zip codes more than 90 percent of children have been exposed to life-threatening violence, which can leave them susceptible to post traumatic stress disorder.

“If you have been exposed to violence before 6th grade you are highly likely to have been expelled or failing school,” she said.

Fellitti said Americans may be wrong by thinking diet and exercise are the sole ways to lose weight. His research has found that growing up in a dysfunctional home can make a person more susceptible to weight problems, drug or alcohol addiction and other issues.

“Childhood experiences affect future physical health,” said Felitti, who wants television writers to write plots that help people become better parents.

And Barkopoulos said he is interested in the interface between “mind and body” when it comes to women’s health. A woman’s experience as a primary caregiver for multiple people makes her more prone to depression and other medical and mental disorders, he said.

The two-hour long EIC meeting was hosted by Sharon Lawrence, an actress who has appeared in “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Desperate Housewives,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and other television programs and movies.

“Women usually serve as the caretakers of society,” said Lawrence, who is pushing for more attention on improving treatment of heart conditions in women. “We are normally concerned with others’ health issues.”

National Association of Social Workers representatives at the meeting included Suzanne Dworak-Peck, a past NASW president and member of the NASW Communications Network Advisory Committee; Jennifer Watt, assistant director of the NASW Foundation; Gail Woods-Waller, NASW director of communications; and Greg Wright, senior public relations associate at NASW. The NASW California Chapter was also represented and Kana Enomoto, deputy director of SAMHSA, provided the closing remarks.

Representatives from dozens of networks and television programs, including “Huge” (ABC Family), “Grey’s Anatomy” (ABC), “Parenthood” (NBC), “The Good Wife,” “CSI” (CBS), and MTV Network, came to hear the presentation, which was held in Studio 58 where “The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson” is broadcast.

Following the briefing, NASW staff talked with participants about specific issues and characters. One writer who approached a NASW Foundation staffer wanted to find social work experts who could provide technical advice for an  upcoming show. Another television executive promised to connect NASW staff with a new show dealing with teens and weight issues, and immediately followed up by email.

“There is still a lot of work to be done developing these relationships, but the rewards will be worth it,” said Greg Wright, who manages NASW’s SocialWorkersSpeak.org Web site. “Having more positive social work roles on television will ultimately generate more respect for the profession, attract more people to the field, and give consumers more information about the valuable services social workers provide.”

The Entertainment Industries Council, in collaboration with NASW, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores Foundation, and the National Association of  Broadcasters, previously hosted “Picture This: Women’s Health.” The event was a forum for health experts and advocates to recommend priorities for writers, directors, producers and other creative talent. To read the report on “Picture This: Women’s Health” click here.

Kathryn Seng Gurland.

Kathryn (Seng) Gurland, LCSW, is a cancer navigation consultant in New York City.

After several years of clinical work as a medical social worker and private psychotherapist, specializing in psycho-oncology, pain and palliative care and end-of-life-care, Kathy recently launched a pioneer private practice – PEG’S Group, LLC.

PEG’S Group was conceived and designed by Kathy to bridge the gaps and to meet the vital needs of the cancer community that the health care system is unable to provide at this time.  Having lost two sisters to cancer also motivated Kathy even further to develop this private consulting group of cancer navigators. 

 The company name, PEG’S Group, originated out of her sister’s Peg’s name:  Personal, Education, Guidance and Support.

Kathy holds affiliations with the National Association of Social Workers, Association of Oncology Social Work, Actors’ Equity Association and the Screen Actors Guild.

Biography and photo courtesy of Kathryn Seng Gurland.

Kathryn Gurland. Photo courtesy of Peg's Group.

Hats off to the New York Times for their blog on medical social worker and therapist Kathryn Gurland LCSW. The deaths of two sisters from cancer prompted Gurland to launch a cancer consulting organization called Peg’s Group to help cancer patients maneuver the health care system.

For more information on how social workers help cancer patients visit the NASW’s “Help Starts Here” Web  site.