Rebecca Schwartz, LCSW, HIVE’s “special sauce” is interviewed by her former client, Caroline Watson, to honor Becca on World Social Work Day 2016. Caroline talks about the ways Becca helped her to find housing and have a healthy baby. Becca answers questions about why she became a social worker and what the hardest and most rewarding parts of her job are. Becca is known as HIVE’s “special sauce” because she is truly amazing and helps to make HIVE what it is (like a special sauce in a delicious meal).

I first met Becca when I was a patient at BAPAC (the Bay Area Perinatal AIDS Center, now known as HIVE), and pregnant with my daughter. My partner and I were homeless and struggling with many related issues. Becca helped us to get into transitional housing programs, separate at first, then together, and then to find permanent housing. I had an eviction, and we both had bad credit, so we were denied housing. Becca (along with our other amazing social worker, Stephanie Toomey, MSW, from Homeless Prenatal Program) advocated successfully for us to be accepted as tenants at our apartment in Pinole. I delivered a healthy baby girl in February of 2013. We still live in Pinole, my husband and I are both working, and I’m going to school to become a social worker myself. I’m so grateful to Becca and Stephanie for the wonderful, competent, loving care that my family received.

Caroline Watson is the Social Justice and Communications Coordinator at HIVE, and the founder of #WeAreAllWomen. She is married to a man who is living with HIV and they have a healthy three year old daughter conceived using Treatment as Prevention (TasP).