One Rewarding Career

If you asked Eileen O’Neil ’47 when she was 18 years old what career path her life would take, and then asked her again some 40 years later, she’d give the same answer. O’Neil decided early in her college career that she wanted to work in the field of social services.

"Albright College had a wonderful faculty, and I knew when I enrolled in Dr. (Morris) Greth’s sociology class I wanted to be a social worker," O’Neil says. Greth also encouraged O’Neil to immediately pursue her master’s degree upon graduation from Albright. In 1949, she earned her master’s of social work from the University of Pittsburgh.

Throughout the 70s and 80s, O’Neil worked and volunteered in women’s shelters. These years saw the beginning stages of the public recognition of domestic abuse. O’Neil admits that she "had to learn to understand the women who came into the shelter for help." Learning about the women, their backgrounds and the situations in which they were in, enabled O’Neil to counsel more effectively. During her time as a caseworker for Reading & Berks County Family Services & Marriage Counseling, O’Neil says she acquired many counseling techniques. Most importantly, she says she learned how to relate to people as individuals and not to stereotype.

Throughout her tenure in the field of social services, O’Neil worked in both the public and private sectors. But despite the area she worked in, she says the most significant changes over the course of her career were the changes in laws associated with social work. Early in her career, she says, "social services could remove a child from the home with little reservations." However, later in her career a court hearing was required and permission awarded before social services could remove a child. Eventually, O’Neil says, the laws gradually changed to provide more precedence to parents’ rights.

Another important lesson O’Neil says she learned was to separate her job from her personal life. O’Neil says she made a conscious effort to do this and had to "enter a different life when she got home." But leisure activities such as bowling, attending baseball games, theatre, music and spending time with her cat helped to put the pressures of work aside.

Although she retired several years ago, O’Neil stays active in her career field by volunteering at the Reading Hospital where she consults with the families of patients who are undergoing major surgery. She is also active in senior activities and serves as a Challis Bearer for her church, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church.

Looking back at her career, O’Neil says she feels good that she was able to use her education to make a difference in the lives of the women and children she counseled. For those graduates entering today’s world of social work, O’Neil says, "stay true to yourself and what you believe in."

-- Kelly Ferry