Marissa Jones thought she wanted to be a clinical psychologist.
As an undergraduate at Florida State studying family and child sciences with a second major in psychology, that seemed like the natural path. But then she started working at military installations around the world: Germany, Italy, Japan.
That's where she met social workers. And everything changed.
"I didn't know that it was a broad field," she admits. The social workers she encountered were doing work she'd never imagined: connecting service members with resources, advocating across systems, building community in ways that went far beyond traditional therapy.
By her senior year, she was researching graduate programs. She earned her Master's in Social Work from the University of Georgia, completed her second-year internship at the VA, and got hired into the very system that had inspired her.
Now, as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker at the Department of Veterans Affairs, Marissa works in a role that honors both the breadth of social work and her particular gift: bringing people together.
The Reunion That Changed Everything
During grad school, Marissa was given a task that seemed nearly impossible: find an innovative way to reconnect a veteran with his family. They hadn't seen each other in years. The family had been searching for him.
Somehow, Marissa made it happen.
"Witnessing him reconnect with his family after years of them trying to find him was a career-defining moment for me," she says.
It's the kind of moment that stays with you, that carries you through the harder days. Because not every day in social work feels like that.
"The work can get hard and heavy at times," Marissa acknowledges, "but moments like those are reminders that I am where I belong."
Recreation as Therapy
Marissa's current work is unlike traditional clinical roles. She's one of the few social workers working in recreational therapy at the VA, and she does it with intention.
The program goes directly to veterans at Fort McPherson, offering activities that reconnect them with joy, purpose, and community. She takes veterans to sporting events. Organizes swimming with sharks. Facilitates gardening sessions over Zoom.
It might sound unconventional, but that's precisely the point.
Recreation therapy recognizes that healing isn't just about managing symptoms or processing trauma. It's about rediscovering what makes life worth living. It's about connection, movement, engagement with the world.
And Marissa brings her whole self to it. She works alongside an interdisciplinary team of social workers, nurses, and recreational therapists, all committed to veterans' wellbeing in ways that go far beyond checking boxes.
"I love working with people," she says simply. "I've had that gift since I was little: bringing people together."
More Than a Job
There's something Marissa wants people to understand about social work: it's not just a profession. It's a calling.
"Being a social worker is rooted in compassion and intention," she explains. "It means taking care of yourself so that you can show up for others in the many ways that we do."
That self-care piece isn't optional. You can't pour from an empty cup, as the saying goes. And in a field as emotionally demanding as social work, especially working with veterans who've experienced trauma, loss, and systemic abandonment, sustainability requires boundaries and self-compassion.
Marissa also emphasizes the breadth of the field. Her journey from military installations to the VA, from traditional clinical work to recreational therapy, reflects social work's remarkable flexibility.
"The field of social work is broad, and the opportunities are endless," she tells students exploring the profession. "Pivoting is fine and at times, necessary."
Her advice is grounded in her own experience: "Remain open and remain teachable. Always find ways to grow and stretch yourself. Find someone you trust who can mentor and sharpen you as a professional and overall human being."
The Fight for Access
After years working within the VA system, Marissa has a clear vision for what needs to change in healthcare more broadly.
"I would like to see a greater level of advocacy for patients, policy changes that would reduce health disparities, and an increase in access to healthcare treatment needed so that individuals can live whole lives," she says.
It's an ambitious agenda, but Marissa believes the next generation can make it happen. The tools are there: technology that can improve direct patient support, platforms for large-scale community advocacy, opportunities to create and manage innovative programs, pathways to foster systemic change through policy reform.
What's needed is people who care. Not just about the paycheck, but about genuine wellbeing.
Marissa has spent her career connecting veterans with resources, yes. But more fundamentally, she's been connecting them with dignity, with community, with reasons to engage with life again.
Bringing People Together
There's a thread running through Marissa's entire story: her gift for bringing people together.
It showed up when she was a child. It drew her to work with military families across continents. It led her to social work and ultimately to the VA, where she's one of the few social workers focusing on recreational therapy.
And it manifested in that career-defining moment when she reconnected a veteran with his family after years of separation.
Because that's what social work is, at its best: the art and science of connection. Connecting people with resources, yes. But also connecting them with each other, with their communities, with activities that bring joy, with the parts of themselves they thought were lost.
For Marissa Jones, that work isn't heavy because it's hard. It's sacred because it matters.
And in a healthcare system that too often treats veterans as case numbers rather than human beings who've sacrificed for their country, that kind of compassionate, creative, person-centered care might be the most important intervention of all.
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