We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful ROICIA BANKS. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with ROICIA below.

ROICIA, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

As an Afro-Indigenous woman, I have always found it difficult for me to feel safe in different workspaces. I have learned to shrink myself when necessary, managed to shine here and there just enough to prove I am doing my job, occasionally wear my hair in curls; I am positive every Black woman can relate. I believe as a social worker for this entity, I advocated effectively for my families and kids, I gave my best every day. So much so that my days were starting earlier, ending later, and I was sacrificing my weekends of rest and life to conduct parental visitation. I transitioned into a different position that I thought would be less of a toxic work environment. I learned that external toxic work environments, meaning the clientele were actually less harmful than internal ones, my coworkers. The work environment became extremely toxic, I knew I would no longer be valued or respected for my role. I began to research social work consulting and the many ways social workers contract their talents. As social workers, we have a spectrum of skill sets and in many ways, believe it or not, are actually valuable to other companies and organizations! I started serving the community as a social worker, volunteering in organizing, meeting “who is who”, getting familiar with the political environment, and began networking and advocating for our BIPOC communities. As a young Black woman, I never even dreamed nor imagined myself becoming a business owner! Who would teach me? How would I learn the ropes? That dream seemed very scary …but, that was also how I knew that I should pursue it. So on my 28th birthday, I gifted myself Social Roots, LLC, and then quit my toxic prison of a job to pursue consulting full time! It was the best decision I ever made because it surfaced a level of resilience I knew was always buried in me.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Roicia Banks, MSW, and the owner of Social Roots LLC! Social Roots LLC was created with the idea that we as a community are responsible for one another’s success. It is rooted in the ungrudging belief, that we as a collective body of people must nurture, cultivate, and maintain our “village”.​ I believe we should discover our children’s unique talents, invest in each of our individual purposes, and most importantly we must cultivate our best qualities, share healing journeys, and ancestral history with our children, friends, and family.

I was born and raised in Arizona and was a child who experienced foster care until I was eight years old. I was then adopted by my late Hopi mother Bernice, who fell ill to COVID-19 in February 2021. I enjoy sharing my life experiences, what it was like growing up on tribal land, and how it has shaped my career path. I am a first-generation graduate who earned double bachelor’s degrees in African & African American Studies and Political Science at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona. In 2013, I received my Master of Social Work from the Graduate College of Social Work at the University of Houston in Houston, Texas. I am currently pursuing a Master of Legal Studies with an emphasis in Federal Indian Law and Conflict Resolution at Sandra Day O’Connor School of Law at Arizona State University. I currently live in South Phoenix with my loving partner and my Malti-poo named King. I have served children, families, and individuals within the state and tribal government for ten years as a social worker and advocate. In an effort to make a bigger impact in my community, I became the sole owner and founder of Social Roots LLC established in August 2018.

Social Roots provides a wide range of social work services as issues arise that focus on African American and Indigenous communities. Social Roots LLC began as an independent social work consulting business and in 2018, was solely providing home visitation and behavioral health recommendations to attorney clientele. Social Roots expanded programing to creatively and culturally impact those who experience trauma. The creation and birthing of “ATTITUDE: A Mental Health Summit for African American Women” is an eight-hour mental health summit facilitated by African American women professionals to relieve participants of experiencing any medical racial bias is just one example.
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I wholeheartedly believe all families deserve to be equipped with the tools, resources, and information for mental, physical, financial, and spiritual health in order to help create and maintain healthy family households. Our belief at Social Roots is in order to have healthy children who grow into contributing, healthy, functional adults in our society, their parents, families, and communities must also be healthy.

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If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?

I believe my personal story and upbringing experiencing different levels of abuse had always led me to be a social worker. I think of it now as a gift to be able to sit down across from children and understand their pain, their confusion, and their hurt. I am a social worker to the core of me, so much so that if I cannot stop to help support a person in need, I am extremely bothered by it. One of the most beautiful things that make us human is our ability to be compassionate and show compassion and love to others. I don’t know why another person would choose a profession similar to this, knowing the stress and emotional capacity it takes and how draining it can be at times. However, I love what I do and it is a blessing to be able to help and serve others and be me authentically!

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I believe my authenticity in who I am as a human being has helped me build my reputation. Again, I am Afro-Indigenous and I was raised as a Hopi girl. The life of a Hopi is one of servitude. I saw servitude exercised in my mother on a daily basis. I saw it in my family members, village, and community. Servitude was a constant reminder in our foundation and childhood upbringing, all the way into adulthood. We were taught to always help and that nobody has to ask you, or grant you permission to help someone. As a Hopi woman, you are not allowed to have a lazy spirit and should always be clothed in dignity. This transcends in my spirit as an adult and I think people are just genuinely attracted to my spirit. My mother also taught us to be a person of your word, to worry about ourselves, and to always mind our own business. Haha! I am a hard worker, punctual, and I always follow through, which I have been told is unusual for millennials. I believe the network I have built and the clientele I serve just simply respond to my energy and genuine kindness! Other than that, I have no idea!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.socialrootsllc.org
• Instagram: socialrootsllc
• Facebook: Social Roots LLC
• Linkedin: roicia banks, msw

Image Credits
Anneke Marie Photography