Hello everyone, I am GP Worley. I am excited to be joining the Empower Missouri team as the inaugural Charles Ellwood Graduate Fellow! As I start my position, I am wrapping up my Master of Social Work program at the Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, where I cultivated my affinity for organizing, policy, and research. During my time at the Brown School I had the opportunity to work with St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS) and the SLPS Parent Action Council. Through this work we sought to build power toward converting one of the 17 vacant SLPS school buildings into affordable housing for the ~20% of housing insecure SLPS Families. Additionally, with the Sexuality, Health, and Gender Center, I was involved with research on LGBTQ+ adolescent mental health, identity development, and access to relationship role models. My passions include affordable housing access, LGBTQ+ protections and identity, and education improvement.
As a longtime resident of St. Louis and Missouri and a social worker, I am honored to be Empower Missouri’s first Charles Ellwood Fellow. Ellwood was a sociologist at the University of Missouri where he built the Sociology major for the university and was key in the development of the first professional program for social workers in Missouri. In the 1920’s he spoke out against the lynching of Walter Mitchell, positioning himself against popular opinion. As the president of the International Institute of Sociology, Ellwood prevented a takeover at the hands of Mussolini fascists. Throughout all of this, Ellwood was pivotal in the establishment of Empower Missouri and guiding the organization to work against the systems that perpetuate poverty, racism, and inequity in the state.
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