An Interview with Social Worker Erin Maloney
Erin Maloney, LCSW is the Director of Wellness for the Innocent Lives Foundation. She is a licensed clinical social worker specializing in trauma, addiction, ADHD, anxiety, depression, and other mood disorders.
Theresa Nair: Thank you for joining us today for this installment of the Seattle Psychiatrist Interview series. I'm Theresa Nair, a research intern at Seattle Anxiety Specialists. We are a Seattle-based psychiatry, psychology and psychotherapy practice specializing in anxiety disorders.
I'd like to welcome with us clinical social worker, Erin Maloney, who is the Director of Wellness for the Innocent Lives Foundation. Erin earned her Bachelor Degree of Science and Psychology from St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, and a Master's Degree in Social Work from Widener University in Chester.
She is currently a licensed clinical social worker specializing in trauma, addiction, secondary trauma, ADHD, anxiety, depression, and other mood disorders. Thank you for joining us today, Erin.
Erin Maloney: Thank you for having me.
Theresa Nair: Before we get started, can you please tell us a little bit more about yourself and what made you interested in studying clinical social work?
Erin Maloney: Absolutely. I am a little bit about me. I am a mother of three. I also have a husband and a dog. I live in Scranton, Pennsylvania, like “The Office”. I have always been interested in mental health, actually since a very young age. I told my mom probably about five, six years old that I wanted to become a therapist and she just pushed me along to do whatever I wanted and follow my dreams.
I did, I entered into psychology and I loved it and I worked for quite a bit with my Bachelor's doing case management type work, but I realized I needed to further my education. While I was finished with my Bachelor's, I saw a plethora of therapists in the company that I worked for. It was a nonprofit behavioral health clinic and I saw everybody from LPCs to LSWs, LMFTs, every acronym in the book.
But my immediate supervisor was an LCSW and I found that she had the most, at the time for me, the most variety of opportunities. She could be a director of a program we might have had for behavioral health for children. Or, she could have actually done private practice type work, and I liked that because I could see a lot of settings.
That's when I decided to embark into Widener. I worked full time but got my Master's at night, and I really enjoyed finding that I wanted to keep pursuing from my Masters to license into the clinical license. That's how I got started in it. Always had an interest, always had an interest in people's minds and how it worked.
Theresa Nair: That's great. It's wonderful when you feel like you're pursuing your purpose and even your calling.
Erin Maloney: Yes, yes.
Theresa Nair: For those who are not familiar with your organization, I'm wondering if you can tell us a little bit about the mission of the Innocent Lives Foundation and how it works to bring anonymous child predators to justice?
Erin Maloney: Absolutely. I just want to say at this point, just a quick little trigger warning. My foundation does deal with trauma related to children and exploitation in any sort of assault. So just a little trigger if anybody is listening in to take care of yourself before or after. I don't think much will come up, but I always like to give that in advance.
Innocent Lives Foundation, what we do is our mission is to do that. We try to get the predators who are hiding online behind the scenes who are trying to exploit children or publish and/or share materials of, we call CSAM, Child Sexual Assault Material. That's our biggest mission is to bring to light the people hiding, to get them out of the dark and get them prosecuted properly.
Now, one of the things I always like to mention is we are non-vigilante. That is a very important part of our mission. We do not set ourselves up as young children. We do not try to entrap perpetrators. This is actually information we find on the open web. It's unbelievable what you would find on the open web, but we use what they call OSINT, which is open-source intelligence. It's basically anything any of us could find on the web, but they know where and how to look specifically for predators laying right within our children.
What we do at the ILF is we get leads and it could be come from, we have a form right on our website that people can enter. It could be a parent concerned about maybe who their children are chatting with. We might get law enforcement to say, "Hey, we could really use some good computer diving hacking skills to find out this case."
Or, it could actually come directly from somebody who might give it to us. Or, our researchers actually are doing the research and they can find a lead. Just be so maybe a username or somebody having an inappropriate photo up. We have, at ILF, different aspects that I wanted to go into because it sounds very confusing. What are you guys doing?
We have three distinct teams. We have what we call The PIT, which is Predator Identification Team, and they're our researchers and they are phenomenal hackers. We call them good guy hackers. They use their skills for good and they're all volunteers. But what they do is they are literally the ones behind the computer doing all the research for us finding this.
We have Education and Outreach Team, which those are our people who are more about putting out blogs, putting out educational materials, fundraising for us. They're really good for caregivers who might be struggling with anything like this.
Then lastly, we have a Development Team and what they do is they actually protect our PIT by developing tools that they can use to protect our PIT people from what they see. One of the big things we have is a blur tool so that our researchers are not seeing actual skin, they just see a blurred image and they can unblur it enough to maybe see a face if they need it, but it's to help them not be exposed to so much content in terms of that.
Those are our three distinct teams, and so what we do at ILF is we all work together in tandem to basically have that one common mission to help bring predators out of the light.
Theresa Nair: That's great. I mean it's really interesting that you have the blur tool.
Erin Maloney: Yes.
Theresa Nair: Because I was wondering, how do you search for this without seeing all of it? So, that would be helpful.
Erin Maloney: Yes, yes. We very much try to protect. Unfortunately, sometimes the text cases are some of the hardest because you're reading it and your mind goes there, but we still try to protect as much as can.
Theresa Nair: Is that on the general internet or what's referred to as the dark web?
Erin Maloney: Yes. Yeah. There is a whole dark web that we are aware of, but we actually try to leave that to law enforcement to do themselves because it is such a gray area. We keep everything above board. Like I said, we're trying to not be vigilantes, not get ourselves in trouble.
Everything people do, even our researchers do things on a device of ours so they're never caught with any sort of material or viewing. We would never want anybody be in trouble of any sort, so everything is done through a computer they have from us with tools and things like that to protect them.
Theresa Nair: Okay, that's good. That helps to clarify how you even do something like this?
Erin Maloney: Yes, yes, exactly.
Theresa Nair: You spend a lot of your time working with volunteers within the organization, the people who are using their skills in order to help identify child predators. You're providing counseling services, I believe. Can you explain why it's important to provide this type of service to the volunteers, and what types of mental health impacts can result from this line of work?
Erin Maloney: Absolutely. As this started, my CEO he realized quickly, he actually started Innocent Lives Foundation by accident. He is what they call a pen tester. His company does do security breaches for companies to help them learn how to improve the security of their companies.
In doing so, he accidentally stumbled upon child sexual assault material on somebody's device and was able to turn that into law enforcement. It was very validating and reassuring for him and he thought, "I did this so easily, why couldn't we do this as something like a nonprofit or a mission?" He started it from there, which really led to, but he knew the importance of the mental health piece. He said, "If we do this, we have to make sure we're not harming anybody in doing so."
That's how it's always been a proponent since day one. I'm part of every aspect from when they get onboarded. We have a very extensive onboarding. People go through various interviews, and one is a wellness assessment with me because again, we are trying not to damage anybody. If there's significant trauma that's maybe unprocessed or raw still, we're not going to want to have somebody in that capacity working right now with us.
By doing that now you had said, so there's the component of me meeting them early on and then I actually meet with them once a month if they are what we call The PIT, so at minimum they have to meet with me once a month. If you are in another aspect of our team like Education Outreach or Development, you only have to reach out with me once every three months because obviously they're not dealing with the content as much. Like I said, it's different timeframes for different people.
So, that's how I work with them. Now, if somebody has a already current mental health... Now remember, these people are coming voluntarily and not all of them have a psychological disorder. Not all of them have an Axis 1 diagnosis. However, some do and when they do, I make it very clear that I'm more of a wellness piece. If they need extensive work, if there's somebody that I sense needs almost weekly sessions or if they have an addiction they're struggling with or anything even more significant, then I definitely refer them out to a private therapist in their area and/or medication management or other resources.
Then I actually collaborate with any of the people they need me to collaborate with because it is such a unique setting situation. If a therapist needs a little bit of advice or what we do where we do, I'll consult with them as well. I'm involved with them quite a bit, at least once a month and I have a very good rapport with all the volunteers.
Theresa Nair: Do you find that people may need more services the longer that they do this? Or maybe after particular incidents? Are there maybe something in particular that they find or is it steady?
Erin Maloney: No, you know what it is? Actually, it's not the work that I notice, it's life changes that impact their volunteering with me. When I say that, we have new parents, for example. Let's say a volunteer has never been a parent, but suddenly they're a parent and they might be one of our researchers. They may not suddenly be able to stomach what they once stomached, and so they may very well say, "I cannot."
We actually have a pause program which is completely non punitive. It's something the volunteer can initiate, or myself if I really sense somebody's just not doing well, I'd encourage that. Really, up to 90 days they can just quietly stay with us. They can join meetings if they want, they can meet with me if they want, but they're not required to do any sort of minimal work for us to keep them active as a volunteer, which is nice.
Then the other option is we also have moving around. We had one PIT member who had a hard time, again with children, and almost sometimes people could actually put their child's face on a victim, which you'd never want to see happen. That is, we never want to damage anybody. So, that person actually still wanted to be with our mission so they stepped aside to Education Outreach and they write educational blogs, or they might speak publicly at a local community event for themselves.
It's really neat. You can still move around and help with that very same mission, but not damage yourself psychologically if you are struggling. I don't find the work... I feel like if people are already here in the mindset to do this type of work, then they've either been exposed to things or they're pretty prepared to compartmentalize their brain to step into this work and step out of this work.
Theresa Nair: That's interesting because you would assume that maybe it was something that they saw. But it's interesting that it's more life changes that they might be going through.
Erin Maloney: It truly is. Yep.
Theresa Nair: And what they're able to view at different points in their life.
Erin Maloney: We have a very strong level system, that when they start, they start at a very bare... it's more just finding leads. Maybe finding usernames that might be connected to something, and then there's levels. We're not going to have somebody brand new coming in exposed to something that might be very horrific.
I don't even, age is a big factor. Maybe younger children might be too difficult for them, so we're not going to do that. We're going to have them work up in levels and so that they're not really exposed to anything too much too fast because they could process with me the whole time they're doing it whether they're okay or not with that.
I'll check in on them with their case and how it's affecting them and generally fits good and they seem like they're confident with it, then they can move up in the level system, if you will.
Theresa Nair: Sounds like there's a lot of options for volunteering.
Erin Maloney: Yes, yes. We do not let it damage or harm anybody because they're helping us. They're volunteering for us, so we would never want to do anything that could hurt somebody.
Theresa Nair: Okay. I know you've mentioned, and it says on the webpage as well, that you use cognitive behavioral therapy to assist your work with Innocent Lives Foundation.
Erin Maloney: Yeah.
Theresa Nair: Could you talk a little bit about how you use that, and then also if there's any other techniques that you find to be productive?
Erin Maloney: Absolutely. Like I said before, my wellness sessions are typical check-ins. How are you doing, tell me what's going on in your life? But what I listen for and people know, all the volunteers know I use cognitive behavioral therapy because I'm listening for any sort of negative or illogical thoughts and they know that and they know when I can pinpoint that, what I might hear.
If I sense that somebody's really struggling with something, then we will start using cognitive behavioral techniques to see if we can figure out whether this is something more pressing, either a budding anxiety disorder. Or, if this is just something in their lives, maybe an adjustment to something that they're dealing with.
I do a lot of reframing. If I initially hear them say something negative, I might put it in a different reframe. If they're like, "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah" and they get that and I don't hear it again, then I realize they might have just been dealing with something. What I do a lot of with the volunteers is activity scheduling in terms of cognitive behavioral therapy. Because what we do is you would not be able to necessarily do this work in front of your family in the middle maybe of a work day. There's a lot of this content that cannot be exposed. We have to activity schedule, is it best to do this maybe an hour? But you don't want to do it right before bed either. Maybe there's an evening hour that this is best for. Or, perhaps you have a quiet hour in the day with nobody around you. We do that to find the best for a person to pick the time that they can do this type of work.
Role playing. If somebody's struggling with anything really in their lives, but in particular maybe wanting to switch gears in ILF, I might help role play with them. Maybe if they want to approach that with our COO and how they might be able to switch over into a different capacity.
So, I do a lot, now again, if I sense it's something more, then I will encourage them to seek out therapy on an ongoing basis so they can do real true weekly or even twice a week sessions if needed. But generally with some cognitive behavioral therapy, I could figure out if it's something more or not, and that's what I tend to do.
Theresa Nair: Okay, and do you tend to see any increases in anxiety or depression from the volunteers when they work for maybe an extended period of time on this?
Erin Maloney: Well, it's funny you said that. If I do sense that, then that's again where I will go into that pause option. "Hey, do you need to pause? Are things getting too much for you?" But it's funny you say that, I've actually seen it go both ways. Where I've seen it in the negative might be, again, if they have a, let's say they're starting a new job position and this is their volunteer position, they might have too much on their plate and so their anxiety's increasing and then they have guilt about not doing their volunteer work, then there's all that.
If I sense that, then we definitely encourage a pause and again, a pause could be 30 days. It doesn't have to be 90 days, but we just encourage that you take a little mental break, take a break from us and come back when you're refreshed and ready.
However, it goes on the other side where this work is very validating sometimes. Because a lot of our volunteers may either have been a survivor of assault in their past. They could have been groomed as a child themselves, or they have a family member who this maybe impacts. When they have a case that's a win, that is completely validating. It's a way to take power back from maybe where they've felt powerless in their past. It can actually be very, very good mentally as well.
The only struggle with that is the reality is we don't always get feedback from law enforcement of how our case is? We hand in a report to law enforcement, but it might not always be clear whether that case went to trial, whether that person was convicted.
We don't always get the information, and so I have to make sure the volunteer's okay with that, that we're not always going to know every win. Are you going to be able to stay motivated on cases you don't know the answer to? There's a lot of areas to poke around in there.
Theresa Nair: That is interesting. There's that sense of empowerment, right?
Erin Maloney: Yes, yes.
Theresa Nair: When they're able to do something, but I'm sure it's a little frustrating when you just never know what happens?
Erin Maloney: Yes. Exactly, exactly. But that's not our role. We don't want fame, we don't want to be associated with putting somebody away. We are really truly just totally behind the scenes trying to help. We have the computer skills to find a lot of people and we try to hand that over to law enforcement, and so we don't always get the answers.
Theresa Nair: Do you think there's other areas of volunteer work, or perhaps other professions in general that would benefit from providing these types of mental health services to volunteers or to employees?
Erin Maloney: Yes. It's funny you say that. We have some volunteers who are either currently or ex-military, or current or ex law enforcement. They have said many times that if they had somebody at their office to talk to, it could have made a major difference for them with some of the things that they endured or witnessed.
I know there's a lot of EAP programs for companies, but I think there is something at me being here every day for them that makes a very big difference. They just know. I get to know them very well. It's a stable, long-lasting relationship, and so they don't have to re-explain themselves to somebody new. I'm part of the team itself and employed there, so it makes a big difference I think in that consistency that they know I'm here and they could come to me at any time.
Theresa Nair: It seems it might also be beneficial that you have a regular scheduled monthly meeting at least with everybody.
Erin Maloney: Yes.
Theresa Nair: Because I think sometimes in workplace mental health services, people are afraid to use them because they're afraid of being stigmatized even if somebody sees them going to talk to the person, or if the boss finds out that they're talking to the person. Do you think it's helpful just going ahead and scheduling appointments with everybody?
Erin Maloney: Yeah, I really do. It's so funny you say that. Yeah, because I could definitely tell there's a resistance. Our team, for the most part, it is a lot of people who happen to be in cyber security type industry. When you're in that industry, you actually tend to be, not to stereotype an entire group, but sometimes you tend to be introverted and private.
Therefore, I do think this forces people a little bit out of their comfort zone and then they do realize, "Oh, this isn't so bad." Because I'm not deep diving way into their past, Freudian style. It is non-confrontational. I go at their pace and whatever they choose to talk about. Obviously, we talk about case work, but anything else they might need to address.
It gives them a huge shift if they already had a fear or resistance to therapy where it's not so bad for them after a while, once they get to know me better. Yeah, I agree. I think it's very good that it's almost forced upon them and I send out reminders and I reach out.
If they avoid me after a certain amount of time, then we have to do the whole, "Are you trying to pause? Is there something you need?" So, it's nice, but that's rare that I don't hear from somebody
Theresa Nair: Then it's, "Well, I'm talking to her anyway. I may as well have a real conversation, right?"
Erin Maloney: Exactly. The other thing to this is that again you mentioned, you asked about different fields. Well, law enforcement or some other heavy content type professions, they can't turn to their family or their loved ones and just spill what happened in their day, similar to this type of work. They're not going to turn and say, "Guess what this case is about?" You can't. You want to protect your own loved ones and family and friends.
A lot of our volunteers are anonymous, so this gives them a direct place to process what they need to process without feeling they're burdening anybody. Without feeling like they're going to hurt or harm anybody. It's just a safe space for them dedicated to them, and I feel like it gives them that open door.
Theresa Nair: Then they can talk about that case work that they maybe couldn't discuss with other people.
Erin Maloney: Exactly, exactly.
Theresa Nair: I think that's a great model. I wish more places would do that.
Erin Maloney: I do too. I do too. It's very nice, and I do feel like with law enforcement in particular, I think of that field and just the things that come home from, or anybody on the front lines really. After a really rough day of what you might witness or see or hear, and then you have to go home with that.
That's where I feel for people when they don't have any place to just unload that on, and making the time. That's the other thing you had mentioned. We all have a hard time making the time, and at least with this, it's mandatory so it's part of your volunteer. We ask people to volunteer if they're volunteering with us for about 10 hours a month if possible, but that includes a lot.
We have a team meeting, which is once a month. We have myself, would be an hour so that's already detracting right off their volunteer hours for us, so it helps that it's just built right in for them.
Theresa Nair: Right, and then they don't have to take the initiative to seek out speaking to somebody. It's just a part of it.
Erin Maloney: Exactly, exactly.
Theresa Nair: Well, as someone who specializes in cognitive behavior techniques to support the mental health of those engaged in volunteer work, do you have any parting words of advice or anything else you'd like to share with our listeners?
Erin Maloney: Sure. I mention this to volunteers all the time, and I would like for your listeners to know. I think balancing life is the key. You really have to balance your life, and volunteering is actually a very worthy and beneficial cause to you. This really helps fuel your soul. But if the plate's full and you just need to get rid of something, then that's generally, unfortunately some self-care things or things we do for ourselves might be some of the first things to go.
So, I just always say, "Stay balanced." But if you are realizing you can't manage everything, you can't problem solve, you're losing your focus, you don't want to burn out. Really, I always say we cannot, you do not want to burn out. Before you start, that's where, going back to the cognitive behavioral I therapy, I listen for the negative.
If I start hearing negative comments and negative thoughts that are just kind of untrue, I really try to help reframe. But if it's not possible, then we have to look at what they might have to cut out of their lives? What they might have to do to manage things? Balancing life, self-care is very important, but you need to know when you need to step back and maybe make some changes.
Theresa Nair: That's great advice. Well, thank you so much for making the time to speak with us and participating in our interview series.
Erin Maloney: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I just want to make sure I tell you guys that you can always go to our website, innocentlivesfoundation.com. There are great resources and tools on there. If anybody ever had to make a report of anything they were concerned with, again, it could be a parent, a caregiver, a teacher.
If somebody's concerned about maybe what a child's posting or who a child's speaking with or they're unsure of things that are online, you can always submit a report right there and we'll reach out and see what we can help investigate for you. Please use us as a resource as needed. Again, we have great blogs and articles on there and things that you might find very helpful.
Theresa Nair: That's great, and we will also link to that website underneath our interview so that people can find it easily.
Erin Maloney: Wonderful. That sounds great.
Theresa Nair: Okay. Thank you so much for joining us today.
Erin Maloney: Of course. Thanks for having me.
Please note: The views expressed by the interviewee are for educational and informational purposes only, are not meant to diagnose or treat any condition, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Seattle Anxiety Specialists, PLLC.
Editor: Jennifer (Ghahari) Smith, Ph.D.