Social Work

Standing at the podium outside the Montgomery County Courthouse, clutching a copy of her speech with both hands, Charena Swann leans into the microphone and begins to talk about empowering women. Though Swann is no stranger to the spotlight - she's married to a Hall of Fame football player, after all - she is nervous. She hides her fear of public speaking well, but when she's done talking, she turns to her husband, Republican gubernatorial candidate Lynn Swann, smiles and exhales quietly.

These days, Craig Aguilar feels "like I have this sense of power, like I stand high. " He, at 15, and 15 classmates from Frankford High School have published a book - What We Want to Tell You - a compilation of poetry, short stories, and reflections on their lives and views of the world. One student writes about his father, who has hepatitis C. Another writes about an absent father. Others share their thoughts on religion, happiness, and even mystical topics such as a warlock's life.

Margaret Yeakel, 89, of Havertown, a retired professor of social work at West Chester University who taught social workers in Hungary and fought for rights for the elderly in Pennsylvania, died April 17 at home of complications from hip surgery. Dr. Yeakel joined the faculty of West Chester University in the 1970s and helped develop the bachelor of arts degree in social work. She previously was director of social service at McGee Rehabilitation Hospital for several years. She and her longtime companion, Grace Ganter, a professor of social work at Temple University, cowrote Retrieval From Limbo in 1967, a book about treatment of troubled children.

Devon Drain, 17, visits an adult day-care center each week in connection with a gerontology class at Upper Darby High School, Delaware County. He calls it "one of the best experiences I've had as a student. " Drain, a senior, plans to go to Eastern University in St. Davids and major in social work. He said the high school class had spurred his interest in working with older people. Coleen Drumm, 20, a sophomore at Bloomsburg University, also worked at the adult day-care facility as an Upper Darby student.

In its more than 100 years, Bryn Mawr College has produced many distinguished graduates, but few have honored the school more than Emily G. Balch, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. Balch, a member of the college's first class in 1889 and recipient of the prize in 1946, was hailed by the philosopher John Dewey as "one of the first private citizens of the world. " After graduating from Bryn Mawr, Balch studied abroad, worked as a social worker, and began teaching at Wellesley College in Massachusetts.

One of the consequences of living longer, as many of us are doing, is that fewer relatives are left at the end to tell our story. That's why some folks have taken to writing their own obituaries even before their final days, a commitment to posterity "to get the facts straight" as they see them. Even if there are surviving children, do they know what high school we attended, that we achieved an Eagle Scout rank or played college lacrosse? And do they know where our most treasured photos and mementos of the past are stored?

He's "Bob Beck from F and the Boulevard," and don't forget it. Whether he's storming through Frankford on his motorcycle, kicking in the door of a crack house and ordering the inhabitants to leave, or literally picking up alcoholics and taking them to his rehabilitation program, it's hard to miss - or forget - Beck. He's the founder of 12 Steps Ahead, a nonprofit drug- and alcohol-rehabilitation program based in Frankford. He's loud and tough, and a former Special Forces military man with a graying flat top and a black biker jacket.

The phrase "artist in residence at the Department of Human Services" initially seemed like an incongruity. What could an artist possibly do with, or for, or at, the Philadelphia DHS? The agency deals with families and children in crisis; art and the DHS would appear to be the strangest bedfellows imaginable. Yet Philadelphia artist Pep?n Osorio found the three years he spent "residing" at the DHA extremely fruitful. A former social worker and a 1999 MacArthur fellow, Osorio creates art from family and community situations.

Other than the exuberant man singing loudly while cutting long swaths of fluorescent orange mesh in a corner, it looked like any other workplace. Belinda Moore - surveying the wide, bright room, where a few dozen men and women cut, sewed, sorted and boxed - was prouder of that fact than she could say. "We look like any other business," she said last week. "We have real customers with real money, and they want real results. But for our employees, we change lives, one at a time.

Orneice Dorsey Leslie, 68, of Southwest Philadelphia, retired director of admissions and assistant dean at the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Work, died of a brain tumor Dec. 31 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. In 1999, Mrs. Leslie received a lifetime achievement award from the University of Pennsylvania Women of Color that called her "a clear thinker who works to create a more just community and who takes advantage of every opportunity to be a positive force for change, without regard to the risk of her own career.