How Nadine Weadock is using social work curriculum to innovate with Public Allies Arizona
Public Allies are community-driven individuals who are committed to making a difference through service, and who seek to build skills and a network of emerging grassroots leaders. These individuals are multi-faceted and able to utilize their expertise in a variety of ways, often wearing multiple hats throughout their experience with the program.
Nadine Weadock is no exception. Nadine is not only a social work intern with Public Allies Arizona, she is also a full-time graduate student about to earn a Master of Social Work degree, staff sergeant and combat medic with the Arizona National Guard, and above all else, she is a mother.
From aiding other Allies to equip themselves with the necessary skills and tools required for professional development, to completing a process evaluation and logic model revamp for the Public Allies national office, Nadine has been an invaluable asset to the program since she began.
“I love speculative development and facilitation,” Nadine said. “I got to talk about that for the Spring Learning Series, and I got to be a part of the creation of two different leadership-type facilitations.”
Nadine initially applied to become a regular AmeriCorps service member with the program, but after her interview and a discussion with one of the program managers, Bob Purvis, they quickly realized that she would be a perfect candidate for the MSW intern position they’d been looking to fill with Public Allies Arizona.
Nadine’s role is significantly different from other interns, as she’s not only tasked with fulfilling her current obligations to the program, but she’s also working hand-in-hand with Public Allies to cultivate a more succinct role for the MSW intern that will enter the program next year. According to Nadine, this was their first time hiring an MSW intern.
“Being able to take the first step towards paving the way for future interns and what their projects could look like was really cool,” Nadine said.
While juggling the responsibilities of being a full-time student, parent and an intern, Nadine said she relies heavily on her support network. She credits her husband as one of her biggest supporters, and she continues to be an advocate for mental health care.
“I take my mental health very seriously,” Nadine said. “Reacting to it is always so much harder than staying in front of it.”
Nadine is not without significant support in her role as an MSW intern with the Public Allies program. Her social work field supervisor, Janeen Etienne, also completed a term of service with Public Allies out of their New York office in 2010. Janeen said that Nadine’s work has been crucial to cultivating a trauma-informed and healing-centered space for the Allies.
“She’s demonstrated a really deep understanding of cultural humility during her internship, and that was really helpful for anchoring the learning spaces for the allies,” Janeen said.
Janeen described Nadine as somebody who is naturally curious and deeply empathetic — traits that have propelled her in the social work space.
“I think remaining curious is something that's really important to us and our ability to learn and to bring innovation into (these) spaces,” Janeen said, detailing how Nadine’s personal characteristics are nothing short of assets to the program. “Having someone with a different lens and approach to the work come in and look at how we’ve been doing something for quite some time and question us about it and encourage us to think about other ways is really impactful and powerful.”
Nadine has not only helped generate change for the Allies, but also within the program itself. According to Janeen, Public Allies’ mission is to both innovate and to get the people close to the problems even closer to the solutions . She said that Nadine truly embodies the mission and the values of the program as a whole.
Nadine, a naturally humble leader in her space, doesn’t take her position for granted. Her passion is often directed towards the benefit of others, and her message is clear:
“The best thing you can be is a good human, and the only way to do that is to see the world outside of yourself.”
Image: Nadine (back, right) with a group of Allies during the 2025 annual Core Retreat
Host an emerging leader and gain capacity for your organization with Public Allies Arizona
Do you have a project that you would love to implement, but lack the staff capacity or other resources? We help our partners increase their capacity to achieve their mission by matching them with talented individuals from the community.
Public Allies Arizona places these emerging leaders in full-time or part-time service to nonprofits in Phoenix and Tucson communities. These nonprofits, called Partner Organizations, are chosen based on their ability to provide the Ally with significant work experience, as well as their need for an innovative leader who can help them take on a project they otherwise could not afford or infuse energy into an existing project.