Will Francis, LMSW is excited to serve as the Executive Director for the National Association of Social Workers, Texas and Louisiana Chapters. He previously served as the Government Relations Director for the Texas chapter, and has a background in early childhood, child welfare and education.
Will received a master’s in social work at the University of Texas, Austin in 2010 and a bachelor’s degree in English from Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia in 1997. Will lived in Hong Kong and Singapore at an early age, and residing abroad helped him develop a love of travel and an appreciation for cultural diversity. He has a passion for promoting the profession of school work and believes strongly in supporting social justice through public awareness. He is married to a social worker who works as a therapist, and they have two young daughters and a son.
Will was selected as the 2018 NASW Gilman Wells Award Recipient for his successful track record representing Texas social workers and their clients at the Texas State Capitol.
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Susan Kleiner: I’m your host, Susan Kleiner, and I’m excited to welcome Will Francis to the Think Factory Podcast today. Will is the Executive Director for the National Association of Social Workers in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, and he’s a nationally respected advocate for social workers, ethical practice, and public policy that protects both professionals and the communities they serve. With a background in child welfare education and government relations and more than a decade of frontline advocacy, Will has helped shape legislation, strengthen professional standards, and elevate the voice of social workers during some of the most consequential policy debates of our time. Today, we’ll talk about leadership, advocacy, the future of social work, and what it really takes to move systems. Welcome, Will, to the Think Factory.
Will Francis: Thank you. I’m excited to be here.
Susan Kleiner: So, just first off, you know, talking a little bit about your background, I know you worked both in advocacy and now executive leadership. I’m just curious, you know, what that’s been like and what experience have shaped you most for how you’re, you know, a leader today?
Will Francis: Yeah, you know, when I first started out in social work, I thought I would be much more engaged with clients. I thought I’d be right there on the ground, sort of working with them, and the more that I saw the challenges they faced, the more I realized that they were a lot bigger than what was going on in the client’s life. That many of these folks didn’t have access to transportation, didn’t have health care, they needed behavioral health services, relationships in their communities were fraught, all of these larger things, and that really drew me to seeing it from sort of a higher-up perspective, which got me into advocacy, and really loved it and enjoyed it, and the more I was in advocacy, the more I realized there’s a lot of energy. You need to be sort of pushing for change and coordinating folks, and it works on a grassroots level and on a direct level with those who are making the decisions, and I saw that maybe I could support the growth and the development of other folks in that space, and so that allowed me to sort of shift over to the administrative standpoint, and I like to frame it very simply as, during my advocacy days, I was telling other people how great social workers are, and then I became an executive director of an association for social workers, so I got to tell the social workers how great they are and support them.
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