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Sarah Laite still remembers the woman at orientation who stood speaking to a room of incoming Carlow graduate students, telling them, through visible grief, that someone she loved had passed away that morning. She gave her welcome remarks anyway. She didn’t hide what had happened. She named it, held it, and kept going. 

“There was something about the way she did it,” Sarah says now. “She was sitting in that agony of what had just happened. But she still came and talked to us. I was like, wow, this is where I want to be.” 

That moment turned out to be prophetic. A few years later, when Sarah’s own mother was dying and she thought she’d have to leave Carlow’s MSW program, her professors showed up for her: “They mobilized to offer me flexibility,” she says. 

She stayed in the program. Later, after becoming a member of Carlow’s faculty, she carried that forward: the belief that students deserve to be met where they are, especially when life gets hard. 

Today, Sarah teaches the complex trauma concepts that once helped her find purpose, and practices as a therapist specializing in trauma, grief, and substance use. She moves through that work as someone who knows what it’s like to be the student who wasn’t sure she belonged, and what it means when people refuse to let you disappear. 

In the conversation below, she reflects on discovering social work through inspired practitioners, why Carlow’s trauma-informed approach isn’t just a buzzword, and how a field often misunderstood as “just case management” is actually training a huge variety of mental health providers in the country. 

What drew you to Carlow for your master’s degree? 

Well, it’s funny, I think I had mentioned that I was really not a good student in undergrad. I struggled a long time to even get my undergrad degree. When I finally did, I ended up running this AmeriCorps program. I was a program coordinator working in schools and I actually met social workers through that. I thought, “this is really cool, what they do,” although I did meet some burnt-out social workers too. But both the positive and the negative kind of inspired me to want to go do that. I looked around, and Carlow’s MSW program was much newer at that point, but I think they saw my potential. I came in and wound up really loving it. I was a good student all of a sudden.  

Can you tell me about your first experiences at Carlow? 

My first contact ever at Carlow was Dr. Marcia Frank, now retired. Dr. Frank is a psychotherapist. She got her PhD later in life, and so much about her story really inspired me. She was like, “yeah, I got my PhD in my 40s and decided to teach,” and I’m in my 40s now, right? That is the first time I even considered the idea of, “oh, maybe I could do that.” 

What made you shift your focus toward trauma work and therapy? 

I think some of the clinical courses. Carlow’s MSW program is really trauma informed. Now that’s a big part of what I teach here, but at the time, being newer to learning about trauma and how you treat it… something about that just resonated with me. And we had faculty like Dr. Frank and Dr. Sheila Roth who were so talented and experienced when it came to trauma work. That was really inspiring for me as well. 

How did you transition from student to faculty? 

I was a bachelor’s level counselor, even while I was in school, and then my internship was at Carlow’s Counseling Center.聽While I was there, Dr. Ken [Smythe-Leistico]聽told me about the CURE program, so I聽became聽the聽CURE聽project coordinator after I graduated. I did that for about a year and a half, then it was Dr. [Kathryn] Bonach, who’s the chair and the director of the BSW program, who knew me from when I was a student. She gave me the opportunity to teach in the undergrad program, and I聽discovered I really liked it.聽

What makes Carlow’s social work program unique? 

Carlow’s program is trauma informed. I think a lot of [programs] use that term, but I don’t know how often it actually applies. Trauma is infused throughout the program. We have a class that I teach which is dedicated to complex trauma. I don’t know if that is always the norm. I think you hear a lot more about trauma these days, but Carlow’s MSW program kind of takes that a step up, and they were there first. 

What do you want people to know about social work as a career? 

If you look across the country at the majority of people who provide mental health services, more of them went to school for social work by a long shot than any other field, including counseling or psychology or psychiatry. When people think social work, they often like case management, child protective services, or maybe even like the social workers on The Pitt, which is medical social work. And that is a large chunk as well. But, for example, at the counseling practice where I work, or when I worked in substance use, I’d say we have about 60% social workers employed there. So it’s a very versatile field of study.