Annette Baran. Photo courtesy of YouTube.

Social worker, psychotherapist and National Association of Social Workers member Annette Baran revolutionized the world of adoption.

Beginning in the 1950s Baran, ACSW, was director of adoptions at what was formerly called Visa Del Mar Child-Care Service in West Los Angeles. According to this obituary in the Los Angeles Times adoptions then were closed, with adoptive parents and adoptees not given information about or contact with birth parents.

However, Baran began to change her mind about this practice when a birth mother wanted to interview the adopted parents before relinquishing her child. Baran arranged the meeting without her agency knowing.

“And I sat there listening to the three of them,”  Baran said in this interview  posted on YouTube.  ”And I thought there is nothing wrong with this. This is really pretty good. Why does everything have to be this secret? What is all that nonsense about?”

Baran went on to become of the nation’s leading advocates for open adoptions and co-author of  “The Adoption Triangle,” a 1978 book that helped shaped the open adoption movement.

Baran died on July 11 at age 83 from complications from an infection. However, her legacy lives on.

The research from Baran and others proved adopted people who are connected to birth families feel more normal and whole and birth parents are relieved of lingering anxiety over what happened to the children they gave up.

“She became the Joan of Arc of open adoption,” her son Joshua said. “To the adoptees, she was their hero. At conferences, they would cheer her and weep.”

Valerie Persaud (right) interviews HIV counselor, author Petra Mangum.

When National Association of Social Workers member Valerie Persaud, MSW, tells people about her profession she often gets the same response.

“Every time I tell somebody I’m a social worker they assume I work in the Division of Youth and Family Services or that I’m a case worker,” said Persaud, who lives in Essex County, NJ.

Instead of getting upset, Persaud decided to do something to give the public a look at the wide range of things social workers actually do. She launched “Inside Social Work,” a public access television program that airs on Cablevision and Comcast in New Jersey and YouTube on the Internet.

Persaud also does a live, call-in radio program on Blogtalkradio.com/Deltatron every Sunday at 8 p.m.

Persaud, a senior pastor, conducts the programs in conjunction with J.R. Media Ministries, the media outreach arm of the Jehovah Rapha International Church and Ministries. She has already taped more than 15 half hour television episodes, enough to air weekly into the summer.

“Inside Social Work” now airs in three New Jersey towns. Persaud hopes it will be shown in 15 to 20 New Jersey counties by the end of February.

The program covers many of the issues social workers help clients grapple with, including living with disabilities, moving from welfare to work, getting a job after leaving prison, sexual assault, HIV/AIDS, breast cancer awareness and spirituality and recovery.

Coming up with episode ideas, booking guests and taping programs is a lot of hard work, she admits. But Persaud says it is worth it.

 ”Well, I love what I do,” Persaud said. “I want people to know about it. It seems like (social workers) are in the closet.”

To learn more about the many kinds of services social workers provide, visit the NASW’s “Help Starts Here” Web pages by clicking here. You can also follow Persaud on her “Inside Social Work/The TV Show” Facebook page and Blog Talk Radio Web site. To go to her Facebook page, click here and to hear her radio program click here. Persaud also has a Web page, www.valeriepersaud.com.