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Pioneering Contributions
Franklin Brooks, PhD, MSW, LCSW, has been a beacon of advocacy and service in the field of social work both in Maine and across New England. His pioneering contributions have inspired many social workers, educators, and community service leaders. Throughout his 40-year career, Dr. Brooks has been a tireless trailblazer, advocate, and champion for the LGBTQIA+ community and he has lived using the values and ethics in his social work practice. His accomplishments cross micro, mezzo, and macro levels of social work practice, both as a clinician and as a community organizer, and educator have been of great service to the social work profession and especially to the client systems in his home state of Maine.
Brooks has been on the front lines of the LGBTQIA+ civil rights movement for his entire career, dedicating his time and effort to help attain the equal treatment of sexual and gender minorities. He has been unwavering in the fight for equality, justice, and the advancement of affirming and culturally responsive services for vulnerable youth, adults, and seniors.
From the first LGBTQ Pride Parades in the early 1980s, to the establishment of the Maine Gay and Lesbian Political Alliance (now Equality Maine) to the inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity in the Maine Human Rights Act in 2007, to the victory establishing the rights of same-sex couples to marry in 2012, Brooks has been front and center. Under his compassionate watch, Brooks has been a true activist historian of the fight for gay and trans equity statewide.
Brooks has authored several published papers and articles on the clinical needs of LGBTQIA+ community members and has presented many lectures, workshops, and courses on a variety of clinical topics specific to the LGBTQIA+ community.
Career Highlights
Over a long and distinguished career, Brooks has served in a variety of roles, from a public child welfare case worker in the mid-1980s, to a clinician in community mental health settings as well as across several Maine-based community organizations. Brooks spent the first decade of his social work career in direct service positions providing crucial social work services to children and families statewide. During this time, he began his teaching career, beginning as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Southern Maine School of Social Work and ending his teaching as Assistant Clinical Professor at the University of New England School of Social Work. He developed a clinical social work practice to primarily serve LGBTQIA individuals, families, and couples. He also consulted with various agencies and organizations and provided clinical supervision to social workers.
Brooks has been committed to social work education for his entire career. He taught numerous classes at the University of New England (UNE), Boston College, and the University of Southern Maine (USM). He ushered in hundreds of new BSW and MSW graduates to the field of social work. AT UNE, Brooks was part of a team that secured a four-year, $2.8 million-dollar HRSA grant to teach MSW students about social work with older adults. His contributions to social work education have helped shape the next generation of professionals, ensuring a legacy that will outlive his tenure.
In the early 1990s, Brooks developed training for the Maine Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) and other child welfare organizations to assist and support caseworkers and child welfare leaders to better meet the needs of LGBTQ+ youth in Maine. He has presented at conferences nationwide and also presented at the Wellington, New Zealand Office of Child and Family Services on service to vulnerable youth populations including LGBTQ young people.
The content areas he brought to multiple child welfare agencies, both public and private, non-profit, included non-discrimination policy development,
long-term foster care outcome improvements, domestic violence services for LGBTQIA+ individuals, end-of-life and palliative care planning, gender identity and sexual orientation issues, and child case management for vulnerable children.
Brooks has made numerous presentations throughout the United States, and internationally, on topics such as the creation of safe schools for LGBTQIA+ students, social work ethics, transgender health and well-being, same-sex intimate partner violence, and the effects of heterosexism and homophobia on psychological development.
Brooks has an impressive history of volunteering, including board and leadership roles in many non-profit organizations. Brooks has been a member of NASW Maine Chapter for the last 41 years, first joining in 1983.
Biographic Data
Brooks grew up in Cape Elizabeth, Maine. In 1985, he graduated with a BSW from the University of Southern Maine. He earned his MSW in 1988 from Rhode Island College’s School of Social Work and his PhD in Social Work in Clinical Social Work from Simmons College (now Simmons University). He lives with his partner, Marvin, in Portland where they enjoy their friends and extended family including two beautiful grandchildren.
Significant Achievements and Awards
Throughout his career, Brooks has received numerous accolades for his contributions to social work and the broader community. Most recently, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award in March of 2024 by Equality Maine. He has also received the Trailblazers Advocacy Award in 2021 from the Maine Council on Aging. In 2005, Frank was named the NASW Maine Social Worker of the Year. While in his doctoral program at Simmons College, Brooks was the recipient of the Dean’s Leadership Award.
Significant Publications
Brooks has co-authored a report on social service provision to older LGBTQIA+ adults in Maine. He also co-authored a publication documenting an innovative ceramic arts program developed for people with HIV/AIDS held at the Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Edgecomb Maine from 1991-2004. Please see select publications below:
- Mueser, T., Konrad, S.C., Robnett, R., and Brooks, F. (2021). Telecollaboration in gerontology service learning: Addressing isolation & loneliness in a pandemic. Gerontology and Geriatrics Education 43, (2).
- Brooks, F. L. (2005). Transgender behavior in boys: The social work response. Simmons College School of Social Work.
- Brooks, F.L. (2000). Beneath contempt: The mistreatment of non-traditional/ gender atypical boys. Journal of Gay and Lesbian Social Services 12 (1&2). 107-115 and in Cassese, J., (Ed.). Gay men and childhood sexual trauma: Integrating the shattered self. (pp.106-117). New York: Harrington Park Press.
Monographs
- Brooks, F.L., and Gottfried, L. (2017). SAGE Maine Social Service Provider Survey Report. Published by SAGE Maine
- Duryea, L. and Brooks, F.L. (2022). The Watershed Workshop for People with AIDS/HIV. Published by the Watershed Shed Center for the Ceramic Arts.
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