Eric Brooks, MSW

Eric's Bio

Eric recently received an MSW with a concentration in mental health at the UIC's Jane Addams College of Social Work. His field placement at IDHD's Family Clinic was his first professional experience in the disability community, though he does have family members and friends with physical and intellectual disabilities. Eric has worked extensively in the past in the HIV/AIDS community - as an HIV educational outreach worker, volunteering as an AIDS direct care support worker and facilitating a drop-in HIV support group. Eric was a member of the San Francisco and Miami chapter's of the AIDS activist group ACT-UP as well as co-founding a chapter in Delaware.

Eric's experience with IDHD

My work at IDHD has been concentrated in the Family Clinic where under the supervision of an experienced LCSW, I have had the opportunity to provide therapy and counseling to adults with developmental disabilities experiencing psychological, emotional, and behavioral problems. Working on a multi-disciplinary team, I have been inspired to see my belief in focusing on client strengths reflected in the clinic's approach to assessment and intervention. There is also a strong emphasis on working multi-systemically to address client needs and goals including advocacy, family counseling, and collaborating with other service-providers. I have come to understand first-hand the impact that mental illness can have on a person's well-being. Prior to my work at the clinic, I often challenged the categorical definition of mental illness from a social constructivist's perspective. However, having come face-to-face with the very real pain and disempowerment that mental illness can cause, I am convinced of the role that quality mental health services play in supporting individuals in achieving healthy balance in their lives. Acknowledging mental illness, I have learned, does not necessitate a pathology-laden perspective of the individual. We can maintain our respect for the dignity and autonomy of people with developmental disabilities and mental illness while recognizing that the need for support and guidance from time to time exists among all individuals.

Working with individuals who have a dual-diagnosis, I have come face-to-face with the tension between the social work principle of client autonomy and the need to support individuals multi-systemically. The cultural competence that is so fundamental to social work practice requires that we sometimes relax our strict adherence to individuality and recognize the holistic, interdependent nature of a client's life. Yet, in reaching out to family and other care-providers, it is imperative that we never overlook the right that each individual has to self-determination. Having become politicized in the Queer and AIDS activist movements of the late 80s and early nineties, I ultimately came to social work because of its emphasis on the pursuit of social justice and the parallels, which have become clear to me, between the stigmatization and disempowerment of people with disabilities and other socially marginalized groups. My experiences at Jane Addams and at IDHD helped solidify my belief in the relationship between a person's mental wellness and in the empowerment of the individual to pursue meaningful change on an individual, community, and global level.