(April 8th, 2025)

Sunshine is a senior in the Portland State University BSW program, Honors College, and a Ford Scholar. She also works as a Transition Specialist for Multnomah Education Service District (MESD) where she helps students in the transition program gain work experience, pre employment skills, and planning for post secondary education, vocational rehabilitation, and non-vocational day programs. She is a certified Safety Care Trainer and Mental Health First Aider for youth and adults. In her practicum, which is also at MESD, she works under the district's LCSW providing direct counseling to students on her caseload as well as drop-in students, responds to crises, and will soon be certified in Collaborative Problem Solving. She also serves on the equity and safety committees where she is dedicated to helping advance equity and inclusion as well as keeping spaces safe and up to code. In her spare time, you can find her at a live concert in a mosh pit, hugging a tree in the forest, meditating in the soaking pool at Edgefield, gaming, or watching movies with a mixture of her 5 children. 

My name is Isabel Kateri Portillo. As the new student rep for the BSW in-person cohort, I am thrilled to bring my perspective as a student with intersecting identities to the table, and to bridge the gap between student and staff! I identify as Latine, mexico-indigenous, and Filipina. The relationship between by cultural identities and my identity as a queer person is something I seek to employ in all my work as a student and individual. I have a passion for working with communities and families, and plan to utilize my BSW degree to follow that passion, and to uplift the social work profession despite our governments hesitation to serve vulnerable populations.

I also proudly work at the schools Womens Resource Center as the engagement and outreach coordinator. It’s a priority for me to intertwine all aspects of my life and work into my school and career, and I believe this opportunity will nourish that!

Featuring BSW Adjuncts:
Heather Sheppard, MSW

Hello everyone! My name is Heather and I am a two time graduate from the PSU SSW and have been working in the field for the last 13 years.I am currently working at the SW Washington Accountable Community of Health (SWACH) as the Equity and Collaborative Impact Manager. Professionally I enjoy power building through community engagement and collaboration and advocating for reformation of disparate and oppressive systemic policies. Personally, I enjoy lifting weights, eating delicious food, and traveling. I have an amazing partner who helps me wrangle two adult children, an almost 10 year old, a pitbull doggo, a big Maine coon, and two twin kitties. I dream of working myself out of a job and living in a world where there isn't a need for social workers anymore. 

As a way to continue building community within our BSW Program, I hope to highlight our Adjunct Instructors. For this issue, we highlight Kevin Cherry.

Kevin’s note to BSW students: Hello BSW students! I’ve been a social worker from day one and have dipped my toes in numerous areas of the profession, including domestic and sexual violence intervention and prevention, issues of housing and homelessness, and care work for individuals with disabilities. I’ve also been involved in many research projects spanning issues of LGBTQ+ health, racial equity, and the political economy of social welfare. I am most passionate about helping students understand the role of the social work profession in modern society as it relates to capitalism and democracy. These days I’m finishing up my PhD, which is a study of Twitter data from the summer of 2020 that examines public discourse of calls to defund the police as it relates to social welfare. Outside of social work and higher education, I enjoy art (especially ceramics) and furniture design, and try to spend as much time as possible observing the frog pond in my backyard.