Social worker recognized for local advocacy, career

Jean Capler, a licensed social worker and gay-rights activist, is passionate about her work.

That might be why the National Association of Social Workers named Capler the Indiana Chapter’s Region 6 Social Worker of the Year.

In honor of Professional Social Work Month, the award recognizes social workers who have demonstrated leadership in south-central Indiana.

Capler specializes in helping members of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community, as well as people with brain traumas. She began working as a clinical social worker in 2000 at IU Health Bloomington Hospital Psychiatric and Counseling Services.

While a social worker and psychotherapist at Hamilton Center in Spencer, Ind., she started her own private practice. Capler is also an associate professor in the School of
Social Work. 

She earned her bachelor’s degree in zoology and her master’s degree in biology at Eastern Illinois University in Charleston, Ill. While attending IU part-time to pursue her master’s degree in social work, she worked as a full-time employee consultant at Stone Belt, a nonprofit that provides services for people with disabilities.

“That was a really great background for a social work degree because it gave me a chance to work with a variety of populations — family, employers and really peeking into different people’s lives,” Capler said.

Her biology degree also comes in handy when dealing with brain-traumatized patients, she said.

But students and colleagues know her best for her advocacy in the GLBT community. In May 2011, she co-founded FairTalk, a grassroots group in Bloomington that fights for equal rights for GLBT citizens.

When House joint resolution 6 passed last year, beginning the process to amend the state constitution to recognize only marriages between one man and one woman, Capler and FairTalk Vice President Kristi McCann began to organize the group.

Capler and McCann have known each other nearly eight years, and recently, Capler has helped McCann kick-start a social service agency, which has not yet been established.“

She has such a passion for what she does,” McCann said. “She has given me advice for my own life and has such a calming way of seeing things. She’s so matter-of-fact and down-to-earth.”

Senior Dustin Nisley, a social work major, said he took a social work class taught by Capler a year ago.

Nisley is also a social work intern for the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Student Support Services, where Capler supervises one of the counselors.

Nisley said Capler was apt at helping students as best as she could.
“She was just very open with students,” he said. “She has helped me tremendously, not necessarily through personal contact but just being a role model. She was willing to tell us about her sexuality and that was really hopeful for me.”

Capler said people from the GLBT community are still treated as second-class citizens even though they pay their taxes like everybody else.

“One of the things I love about social work is that we’re very clear about our values and ethics,” Capler said. “And one of our values in the profession is social justice and working to achieve social justice in the world, and valuing each person as an individual.” 

Working with the GLBT community is Capler’s way of achieving social justice,
she said.

Recently, Capler has become involved locally in protests about Trayvon Martin, who was shot and killed in February by a neighborhood watchman in Florida.

Moving forward, Capler plans to continue working for gay rights and also wants to focus more on her private practice.

“The work that I do I love,” she said. “The work with FairTalk is a passion of mine. I love teaching. So I may be very busy, but I love everything I’m doing.”