Position:

Field Director of Social Work

Contact Information:

nrose@paloaltou.edu

Programs:

Master of Social Work

Biography:

Nate Rose is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and has been an active clinician in California’s publicly funded behavioral health system for the past five years.

As a transgender and disabled social worker and educator, he is passionate about social justice and is committed to fostering equity and inclusion in all areas and levels of practice to address structural racism and oppression of those with marginalized and historically undervalued identities.

While residing in Oakland, CA, he received his MSW from California State University, East Bay, and served his internship in clinical social work at Contra Costa County Department of Behavioral Health Services. His clinical work includes the provision of trauma-informed, evidenced-based treatment and individual therapy to low-income, culturally diverse adults and older adults with moderate to severe mental illness, including those with co-occurring substance use disorders and chronic health conditions in both Contra Costa and Sacramento County. He has extensive professional social work experience in a variety of roles ranging from direct clinical practice to supervision, leadership, management/administration, community partnership building, advocacy, and human services program design. He has also engaged in qualitative research over the past two years that focused on disability and identification of the administrative burdens experienced by those receiving social security benefits.

Nate’s career path and approach to social work clinical practice has been largely informed by experience, both in learning from the individuals from vulnerable and underserved populations that he has had the opportunity to support, and through his prior lived experience and process of recovery from mental illness, which was accomplished through engagement in Medi-Cal and Medicare funded services. Having both received and provided services in the publicly funded system of behavioral health care in California, he has culminated in a deeper understanding of the system itself, as well as the care needs of its service recipients. His goal is to use this knowledge to support and mentor developing social work students to address the barriers to care that exist, to provide quality, culturally and trauma-informed care to clients in this system, and to do so in a way that is sustainable for themselves.

Nate’s areas of expertise include providing client-driven trauma-informed and culturally informed care to the disabled and aging populations, engaging in allyship and strategically leveraging privilege to challenge white supremacy and stigmatization, working with adults with dual-diagnosis (including substance use disorders and eating disorders), and problem-solving barriers to accessing resources and care by analyzing the function of social policy in practice.