Social Work and Smiling Goat Ranch

If you’ve been around the ranch lately, you have probably seen two new faces walking around. My name is Sarah and I am one of them. The other is Joe. We are students at the University of Denver Graduate School of Social and we are interning at Smiling Goat Ranch! We are the first social work interns that the ranch has ever had.

What is Social Work?

So, you may be wondering, what exactly is social work? Known as “the helping profession,” the National Association of Social Workers definition is “to enhance human well-being and help meet basic and complex needs of all people, with a particular focus on those who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty.” Social work is about helping others, as well as changing systems, so that those systems work for everyone, instead of working just for some people.

What Do Social Workers Do?

You can do a lot with a master’s of social work. Anything and everything from counseling, non-profit work, to policy change and community organizing. With a social work degree, you have the ability to help change the world in a lot of different ways, including changing the world with the help of animals!

Why Social Work & SGR?

Now that we understand what social work is, the next question is why social work at Smiling Goat Ranch? SGR is the perfect place to use social work with animal assistance. We all know that natural settings, animal-human relationships, and community connection are healing. SGR is all of those things already, offering an environment conducive to powerful shifts, healing, and support. Smiling Goat’s work with children and veterans has been changing lives since 2015 and continues to do so on a daily basis. By bringing in the social work component, we are able to use all the amazing resources SGR has to offer for even more therapeutic options.

As interns, we are learning from the methodologies already in place at SGR and we are bringing something new to the table as well. Between the Horse Boy Method and our developing social work knowledge, SGR will become even more of a beacon of hope and healing than it already is.

I am so excited to be interning at Smiling Goat Ranch and to be applying my growing social work knowledge to the work we do with clients. Keep an eye out for myself and Joe at the ranch. We can’t wait to meet you!