Suzy is serving as Policy Committee Secretary. Suzy started her journey into social work when she volunteered for two years in Peru after college, serving and working with child street workers. Upon returning to Seattle, she worked for a private child welfare agency with refugee and immigrant children in foster care. Suzy was then hired on at DCYF in 2006 as a case worker in CFWS while earning her MSW at UW and as part of the CWTAP program. Suzy worked for four years in CFWS and then moved into relative home studies, focusing on serving Spanish-speaking families. She then worked under Licensing Division for a number of years. Suzy moved back into Field Operations in 2018 and has been working as an Adoptions & Permanency Supervisor in Region 4 for six years.
Suzy has been a WFSE member since starting at DCYF, but she was previously only sporadically involved in the union. Suzy became more energized about union organizing during the past couple of years as she saw the workers in Adoptions, Missing From Care, and Extended Foster Care left out of Assignment Pay in the last contract. Suzy has worked to organize these teams across the state to join together and speak out. She has seen these workers sacrifice and truly put their lives on the line while working some of the most challenging of our child welfare cases. She has sadly seen excellent, seasoned workers burn out and choose different jobs. Suzy believes our child welfare workers must be respected and supported through fair compensation, manageable workloads, and basic safety measures so that they can continue doing this extremely challenging and important work, and providing excellent service to our state's most vulnerable children and families.