For me, in life, it’s about how I can leave this world better than when I came into it.”
Photo courtesy of Talesha Payne
As a child in South Los Angeles, Talesha Payne witnessed a friend’s shooting. “She kind of bled out on my lap,” Payne recalls. That trauma, along with abuse from a family member, spurred her to improve lives through social work and build systems that better serve the vulnerable.“I became the counselor for the community,” she says of her early years.
Today, as a student in USC’s online Doctor of Social Work (DSW) program, CEO of Innovative Health & Housing Solutions, and recipient of a prestigious Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) fellowship, Payne integrates approaches to housing, healthcare and social services for vulnerable populations.
Her early career reinforced her instinct to help while also exposing systemic gaps. While working in a correctional facility, she began to question why so many interventions came too late.
That realization has set the course for her career ever since. Payne earned a master’s degree in marriage and family therapy, followed by an MBA to help her better understand the financial and operational systems that underpin care delivery. Over time, she moved into leadership roles across Los Angeles County, overseeing residential programs, developing services for transitional age youth, and eventually becoming a sought-after expert in housing and homelessness.
Her experience includes securing multimillion-dollar funding for housing initiatives and developing service models that connect clinical care with stable housing. Her work has spanned nonprofit organizations, public agencies and private-sector partnerships, including leading service delivery for a large housing developer’s statewide portfolio.
“Every place that I’ve been,” Payne says, “I think I’ve left it a little bit better.”
That philosophy continues to shape her current work. Through her nonprofit, she promotes trauma-informed, data-driven approaches that align healthcare and housing systems to better serve individuals experiencing instability.
Meanwhile, Payne is expanding her impact through policy. She is using her CSWE fellowship to work with federal policymakers and advocacy organizations to help shape and strengthen legislation. Her efforts include contributing to discussions about the SCORE Act, which aims to establish federal guidelines for college athlete compensation and protections.
Her policy focus reflects a broader shift in how she thinks about impact. “Yes, you saved one person, that’s great,” she says. “But to make wider impact, what does that look like?”
That shift is also reflected in her USC doctoral work. Originally focused on homelessness, Payne pivoted her capstone project to examine mental health and structural gaps affecting collegiate athletes in the evolving landscape of name, image and likeness (NIL) policies. Her research explores how institutions can better support athletes navigating financial pressure, public scrutiny and rapid transitions into high-stakes environments.
Payne points to emerging challenges such as cyberbullying, sports-betting pressures and sudden access to significant income, often at a young age. These factors can have serious mental health consequences for athletes without adequate support systems, she observes.
“People are often reactive,” she says. “We wait until something happens instead of building systems that prevent it.”
Her policy ideas emphasize trauma-informed standards, stronger accountability measures and more comprehensive support structures for student-athletes. Working across sectors, she remains committed to the principle that those affected by systems should have a voice in shaping them.
Photo courtesy of Talesha Payne
Of those facing homelessness, she says we should stop telling them what they need and allow them to share the problems that led to their being unhoused.
Payne strives to unite government representatives and business leaders with community members to inform policy and program development.
“When you actually put all of those people in the room, they come from different walks of life, but everybody has to listen to each other,” she says. “There’s something at the bottom that actually feeds to the top.”
For Payne, the USC DSW program connects these experiences and extends their reach. Designed for working professionals, the program allows her to apply academic concepts directly to real-world challenges while building relationships with peers and faculty across the country.
“The questions I’m asking in class are the same ones I’m dealing with at work,” she says.
That integration has been especially evident in her coursework, where assignments often align with her professional responsibilities. From financial analysis to program design, Payne has used the program to refine and test ideas she is already implementing in practice.
At the same time, the DSW program has pushed her into new areas, she says. Her capstone research has required her to engage with new populations, conduct interviews and build knowledge beyond her established expertise.
“It is kicking my ass,” she says with a laugh, echoing a refrain from her professors that the capstone should significantly challenge students and push them out of their comfort zone.
Equally important has been the sense of community within her cohort, which she says is palpable despite the program being an online one. Payne describes having strong personal connections with classmates who support one another through both academic and personal challenges.
“These connections will extend long beyond our time at USC,” she says.
The Trojan network, combined with the university’s broader reach, has opened doors to new opportunities, she adds. Through her fellowship and academic work, Payne has connected with policymakers, researchers and industry leaders across the country, positioning her to influence conversations at a national level.
“The name USC itself holds weight and will allow me to open more doors and be in more rooms than my wildest dreams could have ever imagined,” she says.
Payne plans to keep improving lives through both practice and teaching. She hopes to become a professor, helping prepare the next generation of social workers to navigate complex systems and translate theory into action.
“For me, in life, it’s about how I can leave this world better than when I came into it,” she says. “That’s always been my thing.”
Learn more about the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work’s Doctor of Social Work program.