You are cordially invited to help NASW celebrate LGBT Pride Month 2010!
All interested LGBT social workers are invited to publish a personal profile on the National Association of Social Workers’ web site for the general public www.HelpStartsHere.org. NASW membership is not required.
Just e-mail your responses to the following questions along with an electronic photo to Theresa Spinner in the NASW Communications Department at tspinner@naswdc.org by Friday, May 28, 2010. Ms. Spinner will send you a draft of your submission for your review and approval. Ms. Spinner will then upload your information to the site. Let her know you found this appeal on the NASW Pressroom blog.
Q. Where did you earn your social work degree, what is your area of specialization, and where are you employed?
Q. Why did you choose social work as your profession?
Q. If you could resolve just one ongoing challenge affecting the LGBT community what would that be and how would you go about it?
Last year’s Pride Month submissions were extremely well received by visitors to the site. We received many heart felt compliments from members of the community who appreciated seeing social workers like themselves represented. You can see the complete list of profiles by clicking here.
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4 Responses to “You are cordially invited to help NASW celebrate LGBT Pride Month 2010!”
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Jennifer Mumaugh Says:
May 12th, 2010 at 8:07 pmI earned my MSW at the University of Wyoming. My area of specialization is LGBT youth and transgender individuals. I am currently employed at a residential treatment facility for adolescents.
I chose social work as a profession when my brother came out to my mother and I as gay. It completely changed my world. Since then I have wanted to learn as much as I can, do as much activism work that I can, and try to make a difference in a society that still choses to oppress diversity. I have spoken at Wyoming NASW conference on LGBT competence in rural areas. I also work to implement Safe Zones for youth in state services such as foster care, residential treatment, group homes, and detention centers. There is a lot of stigma faced by social workers working in a rural state that is stigmatized for hate (Matthew Shepard). There is a lack of competency among social workers. Sexual orientation and gender identity/expression were only recently added to the NASW Code of Ethics and will take time for our great profession to catch up.
One area that I would resolve if I could would be at a federal level to prevent discrimination from the top down because as most of us know, it all rolls downhill. It sets an example for our society if our laws to reflect equality. Lobbying local politicians, supporting elected officials from other states to push bills though, or simply staying abreast to issues organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign, Gay Lesbian, Straight Education Network, ACLU, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, etc. are talking about.
It can be as simple as confronting a colleague or co-worker on anti -gay comments such as “that’s so gay”. Let other that you chose to surround yourself with that you will not tolerate inequality. This is such an important issue for social work and I appreciate the chance to share. -
Lisa Roling, LCSW Says:
May 12th, 2010 at 8:29 pmI earned my MSW from the University of Georgia in Athens, GA. My area of specialty is working with people facing serious and life-threatening illness and am currently employed by a Palliative Care department at an Atlanta hospital.
I chose to pursue social work because as a teen, I experienced the healing that social workers can facilitate. I could not, and still have not, found another profession that sees the importance of and dedication to working on the micro, mezzo, and macro level to support social justice for people who are oppressed or vulnerable due to their gender, color, religion, or sexual orientation (to name only a few).
If I could change one challenge for the LGBT community… That’s difficult. There’s the ever-controversial gay marriage issue, lack of equality in housing and employment, adoption denials, violence, etc. All of these things impact the LGBT community greatly. I guess if I had to change one thing, though, it would be to allow gay couples to marry. My reason for choosing this issue? For their kids. Children suffer more than anyone else when their same-sex parents are denied the right to marry. If a parent in a heterosexual partnership dies, the surviving spouse has rights - most importantly, the right to retain custody of the child and to receive SSI benefits to help support the child. The same is not true for the child of a same-sex couple who loses a parent. They may lose their home, they may lose their other parent (causing quite the complicated grief), they may simply not be given the same room to grieve. The children of same-sex couples deserve equal and fair treatment, and marriage is the most direct way to that.
How would I accomplish this change? I would gladly donate time, money, and energy to getting a social worker into the Oval Office!
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Savannah Hornback Says:
May 17th, 2010 at 9:12 amI am a transgender social worker with a BSW from Temple University in Philadelphia, I am currently attending Columbia University in New York to get my MSW. Currently I work at St. Ann’s Corner of Harm Reduction in the Bronx as a Comprehensive Risk Counselor. I got into the social work field as a way of giving back and helping those LGBTQ individuals who are not a blessed as I have been in my life. If I could Change one thing that is affecting the LGBTQ Community I would change the level of acceptance by family members, I have so many clients who are the black sheep’s of their family all because they love someone of the same sex. I would change the social view of LGBTQ people in General.
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Mark A. Williams Says:
June 18th, 2010 at 8:14 pmThank you for supporting LGBT PRIDE and for publishing these stories. It is important that social workers learn and use the proper lexicon for people that identify as LGBTQQI and remember that there are thousands that cannot self-identify because of retribution. The Social Work Code of Ethics and six core values support me and my values and my work as a social worker.