Credit: Courtesy of Michael LaSala

Associate Professor of Social Work Michael LaSala, right, shakes hands with a local politician from Narva, Estonia, after LaSala delivered a talk on children and violence to a group of mental health professionals. A school shooting in neighboring Finland raised concern among the workers about the lack of mental health and substance abuse services in Estonia.

When he teaches graduate classes in social work at Rutgers, Associate Professor Michael LaSala usually has to instruct his students to wait until the end of a lecture to ask questions.

At Tallinn University in Estonia, where LaSala recently completed a Fulbright Fellowship, he had the reverse experience.

“I never had to say that in Estonia. They rarely ask the instructor questions,” LaSala said. “The people are more reserved, they are not self-promoting.”

Yet when it comes to talking to each other in the middle of class – even during exams – Estonian students don’t hold back, he said.

“During Soviet times they learned that the rules are not hard and fast. They were so oppressed for so long and had to find ways around the rules,” LaSala said. “You can skirt them sometimes. Even with talking in class – yes they’re not supposed to, but it’s OK if you do it.”

LaSala taught family therapy courses to Estonian social work students and practitioners last fall at Tallinn University. He is back in New Brunswick, and in an effort to continue the international partnership prompted by his fellowship, LaSala is arranging for Tallinn University administrator Karmen Lai to come to New Brunswick this week to learn about Rutgers and American approaches to social work.

“Michael’s visit to our university was very important to us,” Lai said in an email from Estonia. “We learned very much from him, especially about solution-focused therapy and work with families at risk. ... My students and colleagues loved him, his personality, and also the way he taught.”

Lai is in charge of the master’s program at Tallinn’s Institute of Social Work and runs a program that trains practicing child protective workers in Estonia. She will deliver a lecture at noon on April 16 at the School of Social Work on family practice in Estonia.

Cultural differences between Americans and Estonians transfer to the field of social work. LaSala learned about how years under the rule of the former U.S.S.R. shaped Estonians’ views of authority and caused rifts between Estonians and the Russians who moved into the country during the Soviet era.

Estonia gained independence from the U.S.S.R. in 1989 when 2 million people formed a human chain and sang Baltic nationalist songs in what became known as the “Singing Revolution.”

Since then, Estonia has embraced capitalism, and citizens call their country “E-stonia” in reference to the quick adaptation of technology in communications and financial transactions. Indeed, LaSala said that every Estonian classroom has the same technological capabilities as classrooms at Rutgers.

“I was really inspired by how they became independent, and I was inspired by how much the country was growing,” LaSala said of his choice to teach and study in Estonia. There were four countries that were looking for scholars in social work – Latvia, Lithuania, and Romania were the others – and LaSala, who is gay, said Estonia seemed “the most progressive, the most liberal. I need to be in a place that is going to be somewhat accepting.” Although the LGBT community in Estonia is not as salient as in the United States, the country has a few gay bars and clubs as well as an annual pride march, like American cities across the country.

As progressive as Estonia has become, in social work practice it has proven a tougher challenge to distance the vital service from old ways of thinking.

“[Estonian social workers] will tell you somewhat sarcastically, ‘You know, during Soviet times, we had no social problems,’” recounted LaSala, who is also a therapist at the Institute for Personal Growth in Highland Park . “If a parent couldn’t take care of a child, a child was taken and put in an orphanage indefinitely.”

That stands in stark contrast to the American model adopted a quarter-century ago that social workers should do as much as possible to ensure that separated families eventually reunite. Part of that process requires social workers in America to ask parents about their strengths – something that is frowned upon in many European countries including Estonia, where it is generally improper to promote oneself with casual acquaintances or formal authorities.

LaSala also observed that alcohol consumption norms in Estonia are much different from those in the United States. In Estonia, it is not just common to have a drink or two at lunch, but wine was regularly served at university functions, even those held in the morning. Professors who showed up to class drunk were not admonished. When young people went out to binge drink all night, LaSala said they didn’t moan and groan the next day like their American counterparts – they woke bright and early and began their days like any other.

Hence, many social workers and social work scholars didn’t think to classify alcoholism as a problem for troubled families. LaSala is planning a social work conference in Estonia later this year with colleagues coming from Finland, Latvia, and Sweden. As he and his Estonian colleagues brainstormed discussion topics, “I thought it was telling that they weren’t bringing it up,” LaSala said.

That could be attributed to the lack of social support resources in Estonia. While social workers are administered nationally, almost all other services are administered locally, and they are “patchy,” according to LaSala.

“[In the United States] I think we take for granted that if you’re a child protective worker and you have a parent who has a drug or alcohol problem, you can pretty much hook them up with services,” he said. “In Estonia, that is something they do not have.”