Kathy Salazer Nominated for Citation of Honor
November 1, 2022
On October 26, 2022, Kathy E. Salazar, a current MSW student, was awarded a Citation of Honor by the Queens Borough President’s Office. Her outstanding service, hard work, devotion, and dedication to duty at her field placement, ‘Voces Latinas,’ were commended, and she was given this award.
In a letter recounting Kathy’s achievements, her field supervisor, Nancy Rivera, who nominated her for this award, wrote, “The reasons why Kathy was nominated were for her dedication to our clients. She was involved in going deeper and finding more resources to help our clients go from being in an unsafe to a safe situation, showing compassion for understanding the difficulty it takes to go through the process of breaking the chains of abuse, constantly looking at the individual holistically, taking initiative to use all tools available to her, and achieving measurable successes with her assigned clients that have been efficient.”
Kathy stood out because of the course material and core values instilled throughout her Masters of Social Work program here at Alliance University. Ms. Rivera learned that these core values went beyond the usual social work values, including the practice of “self-care.”
She recognized that Kathy was different. In her letter, she stated, “What separated Kathy from the rest was simply her great effort in focusing on the client and their immediate need. She went above and beyond by infusing hope, faith, and compassion to a population that rarely gets treated with those components.”
Recognizing Kathy Salazar’s achievement, Dr. Yun, the Dean of the School of Social Work, said that the feedback from her supervisor and Kathy’s testimony were a “great encouragement and confirmation of the program’s unique journey of preparing students to become competent & compassionate catalysts in Christ to make a difference in the lives of people and their communities.”
