Friends and Neighbors: David Boyle

Social work is known for its high degree of burnout. And that’s just the thing David Boyle has spent the past eight years trying to stop.

Boyle, the dean of the school of social work at Dalton State College who is retiring at the end of this month, says the field has been the most exciting and rewarding career he could have imagined, but it didn’t exactly start out easily. In fact, he initially was drawn to a life in ministry. An ordained minister and native of LaFayette, Boyle opened a group foster home for troubled teenage boys in Bloomington, Ind., in the early 1970s. However, things didn’t quite go according to plan.

“It didn’t work the way I thought it should, so I came back to Georgia after three years and entered the University of Georgia School of Social Work,” said Boyle.

He had previously obtained a bachelor of arts in English literature from Eckerd College and a master of arts in general linguistics from Indiana University with an applied area in Spanish, and soon added a master of social work to the list. After graduation, he was hired into the Northwest Georgia mental health system working with children and adolescents. A few years later, he came to Dalton to begin working with the elderly.

“I got one day a week working with children and adolescents, then the rest of the time was in Dalton with the elderly,” Boyle said. “It started with just a psychiatrist and me. We started looking at what the elderly needed. We developed a specialized geriatric day care and it was a big success. It eventually covered each county in Northwest Georgia.”

In 1980, Boyle began hearing about Alzheimer’s disease but wasn’t sure what it was. Several clients came to him requesting help with their loved ones who were suffering from the affliction.

“I got (the clients) together and said ‘Let’s start something,’” said Boyle.

That “something” turned into the Alzheimer’s Association of Northwest Georgia, with 75 people attending the first meeting. Boyle served as the founding president of the board. The knowledge Boyle gained helped him in later years when he served as a caregiver for his mother and great-aunt, both of whom suffered from dementia.

Boyle stayed busy in his position as a social worker, eventually using his Spanish skills to assist the increasing number of immigrants who came in for help. After spending 15 years in Northwest Georgia, he accepted a teaching position at UGA’s School of Social Work. Administrators took notice of Boyle’s Spanish-speaking ability and put him in charge of the university’s exchange with the University of Veracruz in Mexico.

“The students couldn’t communicate with the people there,” Boyle said. “Then in 1998-1999 the state had a crisis. It needed bilingual health care workers, social workers and counselors. It just so happened that Dalton State College was looking for another bachelor’s degree program to add to their list, so I developed this program and started teaching it in August 2001.”

The bilingual program — the only one of its kind in the country, according to Boyle — began with four juniors. Today it boasts five full-time faculty and 180 students.

“Our graduates are in tremendous demand,” he beamed. “Most have jobs lined up before graduating. If they speak Spanish, they get a 5 percent salary increase if they work for the state.”

All students in the program are required to spend 10 to 14 days at the University of Veracruz as part of their studies. They stay with host families and are immersed in Latino culture. Boyle says even Latino students get a lot out of the experience.

“Hispanic students who go are usually from families who are poor and struggle,” he said. “They’ve never seen professional, middle-class, sophisticated people like the social workers there. It helps raise their self-image.”

And students who may enter the program with preconceived notions or prejudices towards Hispanics usually leave as advocates for all minorities, he said.

“In social work we like to confront our own prejudices so we can help anybody,” said Boyle.

But perhaps the most important aspect of the program is the professional training it provides, which Boyle says protects against burnout. And it’s what he’s most proud of.

“People who don’t have a social work degree burn out after six months,” said Boyle. “We’ve begun to provide DFACS (the Department of Family and Children Services) trained social workers to work in protective services. Eventually they will constitute the majority of the staff, which will help families and save children’s lives.”

Boyle encourages anyone who might be considering a career in social work to complete this program first. Classes may be taken either full or part time.

Boyle’s last day at the college is Nov. 30. He will continue to teach part time, and he doesn’t plan to go home and take it easy. He has plenty to keep him busy, such as writing and doing research on local history, serving as an officer of the Walker County Historical Society, continuing as president of the Noble Neighborhood Association and working on his farm in Noble to develop organic gardens.

“It’s very therapeutic to go get on a tractor and play in the dirt,” he said.

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