Elizabeth Gonzalez, LLMSW '11

Elizabeth Gonzalez is a Clinical Social Worker at Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) at the University of Michigan. She is also a contract bilingual therapist at Catholic Social Services of Washtenaw County. When she began at CSS – it was her MSW field placement - she was the only Spanish-speaking therapist in the county. Although CSS has since brought in several more, Gonzalez says it’s not enough.

“The foundation of social work is social justice. People don’t typically think of one-on-one or group counseling as social justice, but I do. And being able to provide Spanish-speaking therapists to the Latino community is social justice.”

I have a long-term goal of getting my PhD, and one of the things I noticed about all of the other schools in which I was interested was that they all had faculty who were U- M alums.

At CAPS, Gonzalez’s clinical work is primarily in the area of adolescent and adult mental health. Specifically, she focuses on eating disorders, multicultural counseling, grief and loss, survivors and perpetrators of sexualized violence, sexuality, sexual orientation concerns, and LGBTQ counseling. Through her work at CAPS she developed two support groups; Las Comadres and We’re the First. These groups support self-identified Latina/Afro-Latina graduate students and first-generation college students, respectively. Ms. González formerly facilitated groups with the Alternatives to Domestic Aggression program for Spanish-speaking and English-speaking men who have been court-appointed due to domestic violence.

Gonzalez attended undergrad school in Texas, where she was born and raised. She chose U-M after applying and being accepted to the top five social work schools in the country. “I have a long-term goal of getting my PhD, and one of the things I noticed about all of the other schools in which I was interested was that they all had faculty who were U- M alums. That was the only connection between these schools, and I couldn’t say that about any of the others. That tells you something about the U-M program. The education here is top-notch, and it gets you to the places you want to work.”