Contact:
Denise Krause, Western Division Director
Western@naswnys.org
Voicemail: 1-800-724-6279 ext 35

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2010 AWARDS NOMINATION FORMS:
Lifetime Acheivement Award | Public Citizen of the Year | Student Awards | Social Worker of the Year

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2009 Social Work Month Honorees & Luncheon Highlights

2008-09 End of Year Western Division Newsletter

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Western Division Social Worker Spotlight

April Social Worker Spotlight
Tara Hughes

Tara Hughes, LCSW-R is “the calm one“ in an emergency. Her strong ability to handle situations during emergencies has helped her achieve the position of the New York State Disaster Mental Health Lead for the American Red Cross. Whenever there is an emergency, the Red Cross calls upon her to respond immediately. While there are many times Tara can work from her office organizing relief efforts, there are some times where Tara chooses to deploy to offer her assistance.

For example, when the devastation of Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, Tara was in Louisiana organizing shelters for those who literally lost everything. Being involved with the Buffalo Chapter of the American Red Cross has been a major part of her life since 2002. At the time of this interview, she was arranging her schedule to fly to the Red Cross national headquarters to assist in the efforts for Haiti. She is the ultimate volunteer.

When Tara isn’t responding to emergencies, she is teaching others how to respond to disasters for the Red Cross. She also teaches four courses at the University at Buffalo’s School of Social Work, and supervises MSW students interning at the Red Cross. Tara also works independently as a trainer and consultant working with schools to develop their emergency aftermath plans.

Did I mention that she does all of this while her three children are in school? Tara recognized early in her career that she wanted and needed to know her children as they grew up, and not after she retired from her career. To assist in her endeavor to be a great mother, she decided to close her private practice to focus on her family. Yet, she fulfilled her role as a social worker by getting involved in volunteering. Even before her Master's of Social Work, Tara was a Jesuit volunteer in Alaska working with teen mothers.
When asked about how she started in the disaster response area of social work, she said that she was always drawn to emergencies, and that her career is this field was immediate. Two months after graduating with her Master’s degree from Boston University, she and her husband moved to Tennessee. At her first job, she was given a half an hour to prepare to talk with the survivors of a terrible chemical explosion at a local plant. And that was the beginning of her career as a disaster response social worker.

With Tara responding to emergencies within the community, one wonders how she takes care of herself. She admits that she constantly thinks about her self-care due to her role as a teacher, and the important role it plays in her life. Tara exercises regularly with the encouragement of her family. Tara also spends a lot of her time driving in the car, and this allows her to lose herself in music. She described listening to music, especially the music of the regions where she was responding to emergencies, as a way to cope with the difficulty of the work.

Tara stressed the importance of taking care of herself as not only as a benefit to her, but to the people in her life.
The biggest question of all, how does she do it? “My Blackberry”, Tara laughs.