Today we’d like to introduce you to Marya Wright.
Hi Marya, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
Over the last two decades, I have committed myself to positions of leadership at the intersection of racial injustice, social disparities, and organizational culture. As a 10th grader in high school, I combated racial slurs, confederate flags, and discrimination by developing the inaugural Black History Month celebration for Eureka Senior High school. Throughout my life, I have been a leader who steps up, seeks out opportunities, and paves my own way. This afforded me the opportunity as a professional to co-chair the Safety Organized Practice Implementation Team for a county Child Welfare Services department. When met with adversity, I have found ways to organize, lead, and manage groups toward progress and solutions. Just as I did in San Diego when I was elected to serve as Student Body Vice President of San Diego City College. I supported my peers with transfer jam sessions, executive directed the Vagina Monologues and held a candlelight vigil for a student murdered on campus.
During my academic years, I served as president of student clubs, vice president of the college campus, and student representative at local and state levels. Since entering the professional social work field, I have collaborated with key stakeholders on topics of disproportionate outcomes, intra-agency dynamics, diverse decision-making, and child welfare-related research. I have dedicated my career to social work, justice, and advocacy, engaging in opportunities to share my innovative ideas at state-wide conferences, international training, and on global podcasts.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
In 2012, two months before graduating from San Diego City College, I gave birth to my first child. I knew the cards were stacked against me as a single parent. I was 20 years old, a new mother, and a first-generation college student but determined to stay focused on my academic career. When I look back on my two years at San Diego State University (SDSU), I realize how that time prepared me to thrive as a student and currently a professional. During this period, I engaged in my coursework and built a strong co-curricular resume that highlights my leadership capabilities. I also managed campus, local, and state events that resulted in two nominations for SDSU student-of-the-week during my senior year.
Immediately after receiving my bachelor’s degree, my son and I moved to the Bay Area where I was accepted into the Master of Social Work program at Cal State East Bay. Once again, I was determined to provide a path for myself that would secure a future for my son and allow me to provide for him. All while battling homelessness, financial insecurities, and family trauma I was able to pursue my degree, complete an internship and research project, as well as maintain my status as a student leader. Since graduating from Cal State East Bay, with my Master of Social Work, I have concentrated on leadership and management in my professional career.
In January of 2020, I was approached to apply for a lecturer position in the Department of Sociology. I planned to become a professor during my social work career but had no idea it would happen at the age of 29. I submitted my letter of intent to teach the Child Welfare Policy class and was hired for the position 3 days after classes began. Shortly thereafter, all CSU campuses were shut down and all classes were moved to online delivery systems. I quickly learned how to navigate being a new instructor while also supporting students through distance learning and pandemic hardship.
I share these personal stories to provide a small window into some of the hurdles I have overcome while maintaining leadership roles, managing groups, and remaining focused on professional growth.
As you know, we’re big fans of Marya Wright Consulting. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Since starting Marya Wright Consulting in 2019, I have developed 14 trainings that provide continuing education units for agencies in California, across the United States, and in six countries. Marya Wright Consulting provides innovative, high-value, and culturally responsive training content for professionals. I have trained more than 300 participants who work in health care, probation officers, social workers, clinicians, managers, CEOs, human resources directors, as well as parent advocates, students, and case managers.
Through my consulting business, I have been able to coordinate with key stakeholders to provide the necessary training for professionals working with system-involved youth and families. This platform allows me to educate and bring awareness to the professional community while providing an innovative learning experience. The training provided are on motivational interviewing, commercially sexually exploited children, child welfare, implicit bias, and client engagement topics. The perspective I bring as a Black woman to the training provided allows the participants to relate to the content on a professional and personal level. Although I provide training based on social work practices, I gear these discussions to meet the needs of participants at all levels within an organizational system. There is also the ability to contract with me to develop training curriculum to meet the needs of requesting agencies and is available to support additional training needs.
My expertise is in equity, inclusion, and diverse decision-making in the workplace and through community engagement. I use the work of self-examination to facilitate discussions regarding biases, in-group favoritism, and intra-agency dynamics to help organizations understand their influence on the community.
Through Marya Wright Consulting I have provided presentations, and guest lecturers facilitated meetings and spoke on panels on both a local and statewide level. Most recently I had the distinct honor of speaking to college-bound students at Reality Changers in San Diego! Over the last few years, I have presented at Cal State East Bay MSW Social Policy Lecture Series Spring 2021. In 2021 and 2022, I provided a guest lecture for the Cal State East Bay MSW Title IV-E program which afforded me an opportunity to influence and educate graduate-level students in the CSU system. In 2021, I spoke at the California Child Welfare Directors Association Conference on Equity and Inclusion.
In 2020, I had the privilege of being asked by Dr. Melinda Hohman from San Diego State University to contribute a written piece to her book Motivational Interviewing in Social Work Practice. Dr. Hohman requested a description of my experience using motivational interviewing in situations where the welfare of children is at stake from the perspective of a Black social worker.
Today, I am finalizing my contributions to a research paper I co-authored that is being presented at a global conference in Seoul, South Korea. I am halfway through a contract that is utilizing my expertise as a clinical case manager to facilitate discussions while educating parents and preschool site staff regarding body safety and sexual misconduct. I am gearing up for another summer college semester. The training agencies I contract with work on a fiscal year, so I am wrapping up the financial part of business and scheduling training sessions through 2023!
The offerings I provide support organizations with productivity in the workplace thus helping them reach a financial gain based on staff outcomes. By contracting with Marya Wright Consulting, you are saving your organization time within group discussions by allowing a diverse-thinking perspective to facilitate these deliberations. Thus, lowering the risk of staff moral decline, workplace hostility, and intra-agency behaviors negatively affecting outcomes for the organization. I do this by advancing your organization’s priority or pressing initiative. My focus is assisting the agency’s needs for change by examining the intra-agency dynamics, desired outcomes, and while using social work problem-solving techniques.
I look forward to working with your organization!
How can people work with you, collaborate with you, or support you?
Marya is accessible through her website, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Contact Info:
- Email: support@maryawrightconsulting.com
- Website: https://www.maryawrightconsulting.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MaryaWrightConsulting/
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UC4FIlKR-rKl6zyFbZZnsOrQ
- Other: https://hihello.me/p/ddedad48-cbce-4401-b6c6-af297a4361c8
