Social Work Advocates Magazine

By Rena Malai, News staff It’s expensive to live in New York City, especially if a salary doesn’t keep up with the cost of living. And social workers who can’t afford to live where they work could get frustrated and move on, leaving behind a deficit of qualified professionals. These are a couple of the driving forces in developing the ... Read More »

By Paul R. Pace, News staff Headlines announcing the latest incidents of school violence have become common, and calls for solutions have been open to debate. Rather than promote a fortress mentality to protect students from violence, social workers are urging more programs and resources that provide early mental health screenings and treatments for school children. In addition, social workers ... Read More »

By Rena Malai, News staff Josefina Ahumada, a member of the NASW Arizona Chapter’s board of directors, is part of a federal lawsuit filed recently in Arizona by Lambda Legal. The lawsuit, which challenges Arizona’s ban on same-sex marriage, was filed on behalf of seven same-sex couples and two surviving spouses who were part of a same-sex couple. Ahumada, one ... Read More »

By Paul R. Pace, News staff Social workers involved in advancing racial equity reinforced the need for the social work profession to be at the forefront of eradicating institutional racism, during a recent congressional briefing on Capitol Hill. NASW sponsored the briefing, titled “Achieving Racial Equity: Social Workers as Agents of Change,” in March in conjunction with the Congressional Social ... Read More »

By Paul R. Pace, News staff Staff from the University of Southern California School of Social Work performed the first phase of a relief mission in the Philippines to aid the survivors of a devastating typhoon that struck the region in November. Typhoon Haiyan, known as Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines, caused numerous deaths in portions of Southeast Asia. It ... Read More »

By Paul R. Pace, News staff Social workers and NASW played active roles in local, state and federal programs that arose from President Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” initiative that he declared in 1964. NASW Social Work Pioneer® Jack Hansan was one of these social workers. Hansan’s close association with area civil rights leaders and elected officials in the early ... Read More »

By Rena Malai, New staff Having a bachelor’s or master’s degree in social work will now definitely pay off in Connecticut, thanks to efforts by the NASW Connecticut Chapter. The chapter convinced the Connecticut Department of Administrative Services to give hiring preference to social work degree job applicants for all state social work jobs, which took effect in March. DAS ... Read More »

By Rena Malai, News staff An estimated 25,000 youths age out of the foster care system every year, and they face a variety of issues when they no longer have that support system. Social workers who specialize in this area say health care is among the main concerns. The Affordable Care Act is helping to alleviate this problem by extending ... Read More »

By Rena Malai, News staff Since its first Social Work Month theme in 1966 — “Support Social Work Education in Your State” — promoting Professional Social Work Month in March has been a priority for NASW. Each year, NASW creates a new theme for the monthlong campaign, with the goal of bringing all social workers together to celebrate and shine ... Read More »

NASW celebrated the news that the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2014 includes funding to continue and expand the Leadership Training in Social Work program. For more than 40 years, the Maternal and Child Health Bureau provided grants to train social work leaders. In 2012, grantees learned that the MCHB was not planning to continue to fund several discipline-specific grants, including ... Read More »