As her great-grandmother lay on her deathbed, Megan Sims reassured her beloved mentor and role model that she would be strong and finish school. This is what the older woman wanted for her young charge.
Sims, now 36, made that promise and ran with it. She is now working on her doctorate in education degree at Governors State University, among other accomplishments, and she credits her grandmother, Nan Eva Sims, for paving the way for her success.
“I always try to honor my great-grandmother because she gave me so much and taught me so much,” said Sims, who lives in Richton Park with her 3-year-old daughter, Zoe. “She was very nurturing, loving, supportive and always wanted the best for me.
“And he was a strong advocate for education.”
In addition to her doctoral work in interdisciplinary leadership, she has worked as a child welfare specialist for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services since July. There she mans the child abuse and neglect hotline, processing reports on abuse and neglect coming from families, teachers and police, referring some callers to crisis counseling and other mental health services.
It’s important work, but the job that resonates most with her is managing a youth wing for children ages 8 to 20 at Aunt Martha’s, a community resource agency located in Olympia Fields.
“I love those kids,” Sims said. “Even though they experienced an extensive amount of trauma, they were very resilient.
“They gave me a nickname, ‘Mama Megan,'” she recalled.
Her connection with Aunt Martha harks back to her own youth, when her mother struggled with substance abuse. Sims was in “kinship care” and then adopted by her grandmother at the age of 11, then 10, along with her sister. Regular involvement by DCFS and Aunt Martha left a positive impression.
“Case workers came to our house to check on us, took us to McDonald’s and Chuck E. Cheese,” Sims said. “Every year there was a Christmas party for families with a big Christmas tree, and we could choose whatever we wanted. I have fond memories of Aunt Martha. ,
Years later, her job at Aunt Martha’s provided an eye-opening experience about the rigors of social work. She cited a supervisor whose stress level, she believed, led to her early death. As a tribute to him, her doctoral dissertation focuses on burnout among child welfare workers in Illinois.
When she was 15, Sims’ great-grandmother became ill and she and her sister were adopted by their grandmother, Mary Gardner, who also had a role in their success.
“He was tough but fair … he treated me like he treated his own children,” Sims said. “I always tell her, ‘Grandma, now you can come to my house, eat my food and watch my TV, just like I did yours.’
But her teenage years included more than eating and watching the tube. She worked at White Castle while she was a student at Englewood High School, eventually becoming a manager. She was also in the JROTC program and upon graduation, joined the Army.
At GSU, Sims helped get the ACE (Accomplishing Youth in Transition with Excellence) program to begin in 2022.
The program helps youth who, like her, are in alternative, foster, kinship, adoptive or residential care, provide them with access to peer advocates through partnerships with YMCA community action programs.
This is just one of the ways she is making an impact at the university.
“I think anytime you’re interviewing for a doctoral program, one thing students can’t do is they can’t fake passion,” said Matthew Cooney, his advisor and associate professor of education and interdisciplinary studies. Director of the Leadership Doctoral Program in the College of Education and Human Development at GSU.
“I think that’s one thing that really stood out was her passion, her ‘why’ behind a doctoral degree, it was really like ‘I want to give back to the community and this is a way That I can do this.”
Cooney said she thought Sims’ experience in kinship care and the military indirectly pushed her to do more.
“I think patience and perseverance are probably more for him based on life experience,” he said.