First Generation Programming Services
Welcome back, Social Workers! Today, we continue this month’s theme, The Truth About Burnout, by welcoming a brand-new guest, Dr. Marisol Marroquín. Dr. Marisol is a health equity scholar, bilingual clinical social worker, and assistant professor in the Department of Social Work at Rutgers University, Newark. A proud Guatemalan American and first-generation college graduate, her work focuses on Latinx, immigrant, autistic, and disabled communities and the ways social and cultural environments shape health, mental health, and well-being.
Sara and Marisol talk about burnout through a lens that goes beyond simply telling social workers to practice more self-care. For many first gen professionals, burnout can be connected to the expectations, responsibilities, and survival strategies we learned long before entering the social work profession.
Dr. Marisol Marroquin
Marisol shares her own experience of navigating graduate school, working while earning her PhD, moving away from her support system, and managing multiple responsibilities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Eventually, she had to recognize that she could not continue pouring into others from an empty cup.
This led to the topic of survival mode, something a lot of us know all too well. It’s that quiet, constant pressure many of us grew up with. When you are trained to stay alert, stay responsible, stay productive, rest doesn’t feel natural. It feels wrong. It feels like you’re letting someone down. That’s why burnout hits first gens differently: we’re not just tired, we’re carrying generational expectations.
Dr. Marisol also discusses something rarely talked about in school: countertransference as a burnout trigger. When you work with communities that look like your own, such as undocumented families, autistic Latinos, or first gen students, the work touches parts of your identity that classes could never prepare you for. Marisol teaches her students to ask, “What do I feel in my body when this client is speaking to me?” Because burnout isn’t just emotional; it’s physical.
The Truth About Burnout
Because many of us were taught to keep pushing forward, rest was left on the backburner. Sara and Marisol remind us that rest is part of the job. Whether it’s traveling, spending time in nature, celebrating a win, or simply connecting with a friend, rest can look different for everyone.
Dr. Marisol’s message to social workers is to honor your lived experience and your body. Burnout isn’t always an individual failure. Sometimes, there are much bigger things beyond our control that are contributing to what we’re experiencing.
Sara also reminds us, as social workers, that taking care of ourselves isn’t selfish. It allows us to show up more fully for our families, our clients, our communities, and ourselves, because we deserve to build careers that support us just as much as we support others.
The First Gen Madrina
Meet Sara Diaz, LCSW, CFSW Founder of The First Gen Madrina
Sara Diaz is a licensed clinical social worker and first-generation Latina who founded The First Gen Madrina because she knows what it feels like to navigate a career without a map. Her path into this work began long before grad school: with the experience of feeling unseen, and later, with a Latina therapist who showed her what it looks like to be truly understood.
That experience is the heart of everything Sara does. Whether working with a social worker feeling the weight of burnout, trying to figure out what “success” even means for them, or someone quietly wondering if rest is allowed, Sara shows up as a Madrina, walking alongside her clients rather than simply advising them.
The Madrina Network
This is where community lives. The Madrina Network is a professional home for social workers who want more than just career advice. This is a space where advocacy, growth, and shared experience come together. Members find peer connection, professional development, and the kind of support that reminds them they don’t have to carry this work alone.
1:1 Career Coaching
For social workers ready to go deeper, Sara’s one-on-one coaching is built specifically for social workers who give so much to others and are learning how to advocate just as fiercely for themselves. Together, she and her clients work through burnout (because it’s systemic, not personal), career transitions, negotiation, and reclaiming a sense of purpose in a field that can ask everything of them.
For more information, visit thefirstgenmadrina.com.
