BLACK LEADERS IN LANCASTER: DEBORAH GADSDEN
Born and raised in Dauphin County, Deborah Wilson Gadsden has worked in child welfare for nearly half a century. In December, she became the first Black woman to chair the YWCA Lancaster board of directors.When granted the opportunity to chat with her, I began by asking what her greatest passion was, personally as well as professionally. The short answer: working toward race equity.
But Gadsden's path to getting there was not a direct one, nor where she saw herself heading as a young girl.“I had my son at 15, but my mother being an educator, there was no question about finishing school or moving forward,” she said. “I just had to do it in a different way.” This meant entering the field of child welfare at 17, right out of high school. Gadsden went on to work her way through college. She received an associate’s degree from HACC, and later earned two master’s degrees.Early in her career as a licensed social worker, Gadsden realized there were few case workers of color in her field, even though Black and Brown families were disproportionately represented in child welfare.“I always felt there was a need to champion for families of color. When I have had a family of color assigned to me, I’ve really tried to do right by them, because I know they’ve been mistreated prior to my becoming involved with them,” she said.“Among the first of my cases was a direct, outspoken woman of color. None of the white case workers wanted to take the case due to her aggressiveness, so she was assigned to me. Her first words were, ‘Finally, a Black worker,’ and I thought ‘Ok, I’m here for a purpose. I’m here for a reason.’”Deborah was able to assist the client and her family with a number of pressing issues that included addiction, homelessness, prostitution, health issues and getting much-needed support for her children.“We found resources for her kids. She went to a long-term drug treatment facility for eight months, but unfortunately once she was released, she came back to the city and overdosed. Her children were in a place with people they knew, so despite the tragedy, they were in a good place.”I asked Gadsden if she considered this to be her epiphany moment, the one that made her realize she needed to get involved in the push toward racial equity.“My epiphany moment to be doing this work came after working with the mother and her children,” she said, “but the opportunity to do so didn’t present itself until much later. I’ve been on that journey ever since."I was also a trainer and consultant through the University of Clemson around school bullying prevention, so I’ve worked with a number of schools and individuals around that. I’m also trained in workplace bullying. Bullying behavior is wrapped up in that need to oppress and subjugate someone for your own interests, so there are ties between those two things.”In 1990, she moved from Harrisburg to Lancaster.“As a person of color, coming to Lancaster from Harrisburg was a bit of a shock for me,” Gadsden said. When she first started working for her agency, “There were only three people of color serving the whole of Lancaster County. My work with that first mother and her children got me wondering why there weren’t more people of color working in this field, with the families that most often needed help from these agencies.”Gadsden’s work as a caseworker led to her being a caseworker supervisor with the Statewide Adoption & Permanency Network in 2000. In 2008, she became a training specialist involved in creating and delivering curriculum and training staff to become trainers — work she has continued to do for the past dozen years or so for the Child Welfare Resource Center’s annual Diversity Task Force event.Gadsden joined the YWCA board in 2014. She felt one purpose was to be a champion for equity in work that was already being done, to give it a face and a voice. When the YWCA approached her about training, she accepted.
