Maine state Rep. Lydia Crafts, LCSW, left, is NASW’s 2024 Social Worker of the Year. She is pictured with her mother, Careyleah MacLeod, also an LCSW. The pair attended NASW’s national conference in June, where Crafts accepted the award.
Growing up, Lydia Crafts says the farthest thing from her mind was becoming a social worker—even though her mother and aunts were social workers. Or perhaps because of that.
“As an adolescent, I swore I would never become a social worker,” Crafts says, admitting to a bit of a rebellious streak.
Today, Crafts, LCSW, has left that rebelliousness behind and is a part-time clinical social worker and a Maine state representative—combining the micro and macro aspects of the profession.
NASW chose her as its 2024 Social Worker of the Year for her behavioral health care work with children and also as a state legislator focusing on “strengthening Maine’s behavioral health infrastructure, increasing access to services, and promoting a strong workforce.”
Crafts says her mother, Careyleah MacLeod, also an LCSW, inspired her to choose the social work profession, adding that she deeply admired the compassion her mother showed on her own social work path.
“I watched her make a career she’s so skilled at,” Crafts says. “Her heart is so deeply connected to the work.”
MacLeod says she was in her late 40s before she found her way into social work, somewhat by chance.
“I’m a really fast typist,” MacLeod says. “I was typing papers for grad students for social work. I found their work fascinating and thought if they could do it, I could do it, too. By 50, I had my master’s and I was a social worker.”
Before that, MacLeod says she had various jobs, including working in her local school district in special education. It seems natural, then, that she chose child welfare for the first 12 years of her professional social work career.
“There is no cause higher than to work with children,” MacLeod says, adding she is not fully retired, keeps her license active, and maintains her NASW membership of 31 years.
Crafts also chose special education and has devoted the last decade of her professional life to that area, with a focus on treating children with dangerous behaviors. But she says she always had an “inkling” she also wanted to do something at the macro level.
“My parents had certainly raised me to be politically engaged on an individual level,” she says, adding that she was inspired to help make changes at the state level after she became involved with Emerge Maine, an organization that trains Democratic women to run for office.
As a Maine state representative, Crafts says she brings the “values and passion of social work to the institution.” She says there are seven social workers in the Maine legislature, who use their skills of meeting people where they are.
“We’re not just talking about behavioral health care policy,” she says. “We’re problem-solving. Sometimes that breaks down in politics. It’s how to get someone to join you without threatening—even if you don’t agree. It’s not belittling. It’s focused on empowering everyone’s voice.”
Some of the Maine initiatives Crafts is proud to have worked on include providing free access breakfast and lunch for schoolchildren; Medicare savings programs; supporting the behavioral health care workforce through efforts like the interstate licensing compact; and drug policies, like increasing access to prevention programs and lowering overdoses.
Crafts and MacLeod live within a mile of one another in Midcoast Maine, and Crafts says her mother enables her to juggle her professional and family life.
“As a mom and a grandmother, she really steps in to help support my family,” Crafts says, by bringing her lunch and baby-sitting, among other things. Crafts works three days a week in private practice and as a legislator the rest of the time, noting that Maine is a part-time legislature and members earn $12,000 a year. “It’s hard for working people to choose public service,” she says.
MacLeod says when Crafts was in college she studied anthropology, but said at the time it was too close to social work. She called it a “soft science” and said she wanted something with a bedrock, like geology. But ultimately, she ended up in social work.
“I think that’s parallel to her life now,” MacLeod says. “She works with one person at a time making a difference, and then her time in Augusta is larger work that impacts the state. I really admire her for this.”
The admiration is mutual, and Crafts and MacLeod say they are good sounding boards for each other. “I’ve always really enjoyed talking to Lydia about my work, whether she wanted to hear about it or not,” MacLeod says, adding that she has become more knowledgeable about local politics because of her daughter’s work as a legislator.
Their work also must have made an impression on Crafts’ oldest daughter, who is now working toward her BSW. “She skipped the rebellious years,” Crafts says with a grin.
Learn more about Lydia Crafts and why NASW chose her as the 2024 National Social Worker of the Year.
Read about the NASW and NASW Foundation awards and see the full list of 2024 award recipients.