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DSW Showcase Student Presentation

Heidi Quashie-Mckie

LMSW, LCSW-S, DSW Candidate

The Underrepresentation of Minority Women in Social Work Leadership

Concentration -

  • Monday, April 28, 2025 -
  • 1:00 pm
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Abstract

The capstone project will explore the underrepresentation of minority women in social work leadership. Social work is supposed to be an all-inclusive profession, especially because of its focus on addressing social injustices and giving a voice to marginalized groups. However, there is a trend of marginalization in social work leadership, whereby people of color and women are not well represented in social work leadership positions. Women from minority races suffer the highest form of marginalization in social work leadership due to the intersectionality between race and gender. Many minority female social workers are qualified and capable of assuming leadership roles in the field, but they often find themselves excluded from most administrative roles. Consequently, most minority female social workers feel demoralized and picked on, especially by their white and male counterparts in the field. That is why the project advocates for the inclusivity of minority female social workers in social work leadership by providing a curriculum that would mentor minority female social workers on how to deal with the negativity that is associated with minority female social workers’ leadership. The program will train minority female social workers on how to rise above obstacles and take up leadership positions in a white- and male-dominated workspace.

Biography

Heidi Quashie-Mckie (She/Her/Hers) is a Black Licensed Clinical Social Worker and Doctorate of Social Work (DSW) candidate at the University of Kentucky College of Social Work. She was born in Trinidad and Tobago, W.I., where she lived for 10 years before moving to the U.S. Growing up, Heidi witnessed discrimination firsthand, which sparked her interest in social work. She had a rough childhood, coupled with multiple disciplinary issues in school, and was at some point expelled from school. Despite her rough childhood, Heidi has risen to the top of her profession and is a living testimony that factors of discrimination, such as gender, religion, and race, should not limit anyone’s abilities. Heidi has two bachelor’s degrees (in sociology and psychology) from the University of Mary Hardin Baylor and a master’s degree from Baylor University. She served in the military as a logistic specialist and in the Veteran Healthcare Administration (VHA) as a counselor before going private in 2021, when she started her brand, Celebrating the Outcome Therapy and Consulting. Heidi returned to federal employment at the VHA as a program coordinator for HealthCare for Homeless Veterans (HCHV) in 2023. She believes that discrimination is real, and intersectionality makes it worse for minority women in the professional world. That is why Heidi is currently working on a project to empower minority female social workers by developing a leadership curriculum and mentorship program specifically tuned for minority female social workers.