To recruit young, college-educated people into the tough, underpaid world of social work, one might expect a soft approach to work best. To appeal, perhaps, to a young man or woman's desire to do some good for his or her fellow civilian, the chance to "make a difference." You might think to downplay the realities of the work -- very low pay, long days with little reward but many unreturned phone calls, shut doors, and rude epithets hurled at you from the very people you're trying to help.

(Lest you think I'm being too harsh, my depiction comes straight from a case worker I know.)

Yes, you might think that, but the New York City Administration of Child Services is banking a lot of cash on the possibility that you're wrong. Nine-hundred thousand dollars, to be exact.

That's the cost the ACS is shelling out this spring in a campaign promoting social work by actually emphasizing its difficulty. Five-hundred subway cars will sport ads for the ACS with the basic message, "Are you tough enough for this work?"

It's an interesting approach: appeal to a person's sense of adventure and desire for a challenge. The only problem is that such an approach still won't prepare one for the long hours of waiting at the courthouse for yet another trial; the poorly funded, flourescent-lit offices; the slog of any bureaucratic job.

I certainly applaud the ACS for trying this tack; I just wonder if it won't fail to deliver on the adventure of hardship it seems to be promising.

[Image: Ad from the campaign]