Dear Social Work Student –

Is your school using the Professional Social Worker pin to recognize graduating students?

Ask your school to consider the silver-plated Professional Social Worker pin at commencement. Just $10 each for schools of social work, the pins distinguish Social Work from other programs on campus, and instill pride in the profession.

All funds from the Social Work pins support the National Social Work Public Education Campaign, raising public awareness of the irreplaceable benefits of Professional Social Work. More than 100 social work schools and programs participate in the campaign. We invite your school to join us!

Sincerely,

Elizabeth J. Clark, PhD, ACSW, MPH President, NASW Foundation Executive Director, NASW

P.S. – Send us your photos of you and the Professional Social Worker pin! We’d love to include you in campaign materials in print and on the Web.

Race in America
June 6, 2010

Keynote speaker: Julian Bond, social activist; leader in the American Civil Rights Movement; politician; professor; and writer

The University of Pittsburgh has set the stage for a solution-focused dialogue on race. Pitt’s School of Social Work and the school’s Center on Race and Social Problems will host Race in America: Restructuring Inequality, a national conference in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Workshops include:

• The Color of Money: Economic Disparities among the Races
• Mental Health: Finding Solutions to the Problems Minorities Face
• The Bigger Issue: Obesity in Minority Communities

Early bird special for registration by March 31, 2010

For more details and to register visit: http://www.race.pitt.edu

Social workers changes the lives of millions people every day. The National Association of Social Workers Foundation (NASWF) is a charitable organization created to enhance the well-being of individuals, families, and communities through the advancement of social work practice

Donations to the NASW Foundation help to bring tools and resources to thousands of social workers, or makes a big difference to one individual when it is needed the most – such as Alisha Ellis, who received the Verne LaMarr Lyons Scholarship as an MSW student in 2006.

Ms. Ellis was raised in Harlem and worked as an advocate for underserved African American populations suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, mental illness and HIV/AIDS before pursuing her MSW. Today, she works in oncology and is an active NASW member.

She says, “Support from the NASW Foundation came at the start of my second summer at Smith College, enabling me to pay for books for the entire year. It was especially helpful during that time, when I frequently traveled to NYC as my father’s healthcare proxy and second caregiver. The scholarship provided some peace of mind as I juggled academic and family commitments.”

“Since 2008, I have had the privilege of working at CancerCare in New York with women diagnosed with breast and gynecologic cancer. I’m proud to be helping people at a point in their lives when support is so crucial.”

Each year, the NASW Foundation supports educational and charitable initiatives that:

* enhance social workers’ knowledge and skills
* support and honor the profession, and
* improve the health and well-being of individuals, families and communities

The Foundation is funded entirely through grants and donations, so your contribution is critical.

Your gift today of $10 or more will help bring scholarships to future social workers; research and training to current social workers; and recognition to social work leaders both current and past. Would you please consider making your gift today?

You can give  on the NASW Foundation website at
https://www.socialworkers.org/foundationcampaign/onlinegiving.asp?fund=r/efund

Thanks you for your support!

NOW AVAILABLE
Doing What Works: An Integrative System for the Treatment of Eating Disorders from Diagnosis to Recovery
By Abigail Horvitz Natenshon

Do you have clients dealing with eating disorders?  If so, Doing What Works is a great resource for treatment team professionals as they learn to treat complex cases of eating disorders through various techniques and strategies. Eating disorders, at times, leave practitioners feeling as emotionally challenged and out of control as the patients they treat. This is the first book of its kind to provide support, direction, clarity, and optimism to clinicians treating people with these disorders. Special topics include the unique aspects of diagnosis, the requirements for a versatile use of the practitioner’s self in treatment, co-morbidity, childhood eating and feeding disorders, and the significance of neuro-scientific research on the treatment of eating disorders with a focus on the impact of brain plasticity on creating remediating movement and changes toward recovery.

For more information, visit http://www.naswpress.org/publications/health/doing-what-works.html

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 16, 2009

Contact: Gail Woods Waller
202.336.8236
gwaller@naswdc.org

New Social Work Policy Institute Launches with Nov. 16 Symposium

WASHINGTON DC—Prominent social work researchers met at the National Association of Social Workers today to examine how the social work profession might best contribute to expanding comparative effectiveness research (CER) for health and psychosocial services. The goal is to develop a profession-wide action agenda that addresses areas of enhanced social work research, researcher training, interdisciplinary collaborations, research-to-practice connections and communication efforts.

CER compares the benefits and harms of different interventions and strategies to prevent, diagnose, treat and monitor health care conditions in real world settings. The purpose of this research is to improve health outcomes by disseminating evidence-based information about the most effective services to patients, clinicians and other decision makers.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 contained $1.1 billion for such research and the Institute of Medicine (IOM) has identified 100 top priorities for policy implementation—many of which involve social work interventions.

“For decades social work researchers across the country have been investigating and evaluating what works in social service and health interventions,” said Joan Levy Zlotnik, director of the Social Work Policy Institute which hosted the meeting. “The new federal commitment to expanding research in these areas is a welcomed validation of this work, and an important call to action for the entire social work profession.”

Today’s symposium covered a range of topics, including:

• Economic analysis of effective psychosocial interventions
• Gaps and challenges between CER and psychosocial research
• Effectiveness research in complex systems with special populations
• Researcher training and capacity building
• Linkages between social work research and practice

(more…)

Elizabeth J. Clark, PhD, ACSW, MPH

Our delegation was received today by the social work faculty of Helwan University. We were met by the Dean, Prof. Dr. Maher Abo Elmaate, and by the Vice Deans for Post Graduate Studies and Community Organization. Their faculty mission is “Preparing a high quality social worker able to apply the skills of dealing with social work systems and influencing them for making changes for developing the community and individuals.”

They explained their programs and that they use the CSWE standards as a guide. They also were quick to point out that they had the latest version of The Encyclopedia of social Work published by NASW.

We discussed the challenges facing social work in our respective countries. One theme in common was the need for a clearer understanding of what social workers do. We mentioned the need for tuition assistance and loan forgiveness for social work students in the USA. They do not have that problem because their university is government run and undergraduates can attend at almost no cost and MSWs pay a small sum. Doctoral students pay a bit more, perhaps $400 per year. Since they are government run, they accept only Egyptian and Palestinean students.

We toured their computer lab and library which housed all of the theses and dissertations that have been completed on their campus. It was an impressive number. They are working at building a data base for their research and community projects.

We discussed the Dorothy I. Height and Whitney M. Young, Jr. Social Work Reinvestment Act that is currently pending in the US Congress. They enjoyed hearing about the legislation and thought it was a good idea.

Helwan University was established as a social work school for women in 1946. They opened admission to men in 1975. They are very active in community development and action programs.

At the conclusion of our meeting, we were interviewed by Nile Television. They were interested in knowing how we felt Egypt was progressing.

The October issue of Social Work (Vol. 54, No. 4) covers a wide range of topics important to social work and social workers, from questions surrounding consumer-driven health care to issues involving child welfare worker caseloads. Below is a sampling of what’s inside the issue. Download the table of contents of the October Social Work Journal here.

• New Practice Model for Latinos in Need of Social Work Services
  Kurt C. Organista
  Does your work assist the Latino community?  Learn more about new practices presented in a model that thoroughly describes the four dimensions of culturally competent practice essential to working with U.S. Latino populations.
• The Big Picture: How Social Work Can Effectively Utilize Photographs
  Heather L. Marshall, Sarah W. Craun, and Matthew T. Theriot
  A picture is worth a thousand words….Examine the use of photography as a powerful tool for promoting positive attitudes about social work at an adult day care program.
• Civilian Social Work: Serving the Military and Veteran Populations
  Laura Savitsky, Maria Illingworth, and Megan DuLaney
  Help those that serve our country. Civilian social workers acknowledge their responsibility to competently aid military and veteran clients.

The August issue of Health & Social Work (Vol. 34, No. 3) covers a wide range of topics important to social work and social workers, with the “Viewpoint” feature article by Rep. Carol Shea-Porter (NH-1) on posttraumatic stress disorder. Below is a sampling of what’s inside the issue. Download the table of contents of the August Health & Social Work Journal here.

• Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Government Initiatives to Relieve It
Carol Shea-Porter
The stressors inherent in military service in the current Iraq and Afghanistan theaters, compounded by multiple tours of duty and shrinking times between deployments, have created a mental health crisis among our military men and women—one that can be just as profound for veterans as it can be for active-duty troops. This article by Rep. Carol Shea-Porter(NH-1), member of the House Armed Services Committee, addresses what the armed services and U.S. government are doing to address this crisis—in particular the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder—and looks ahead to what more needs to be done.

• Parent Mentoring and Child Anticipatory Guidance with Latino and African American Families
Michaela L. Z. Farber
Poor child health and developmental outcomes are linked to scarcity of economic resources, barriers to health service delivery, and inadequate parenting. A preventive two-year parent mentoring project, theoretically anchored in the transactional model of child development, resulted in statistically-significant positive changes in parent and child outcomes for families receiving well-baby care at an urban primary health care center. In addition to numerous practical benefits, the intervention had implications for collaborative multidisciplinary practice.

• Sexuality and Life-Threatening Illness: Implications for Social Work and Palliative Care
John G. Cagle and Sage Bolte
Addressing sexuality with terminally ill patients and their families is frequently a social worker’s responsibility, yet little direction exists regarding how to approach this difficult subject in the context of palliative care. On the basis of a critical analysis of the literature on sexuality and terminal illness, this article addresses systemic barriers to the expression of sexuality in palliative care settings and provides numerous practical recommendations for social workers serving clients in such settings.

The Prevention Fellowship Program is a two-year program. Fellows receive a yearly stipend of up to $35,000, with a one-year option for renewal based on the previous year’s performance. Currently, there are 45 Fellows located in state, community, and local agencies throughout the U.S. and the Territories.

Fellows are placed in state offices or other designated locations and assigned to a mentor representative, who is usually the director of the agency. Together, these two develop a Fellows Accomplishment Plan that defines a core set of well-defined assignments with associated milestones, objectives, and outcomes.

Working closely with their mentor and other leading professionals in the prevention field, Fellows undertake projects that promote skills development and knowledge of state-of-the-art prevention practices. This direct, hands-on experience is reinforced by intensive online and in-person training that focuses on the following areas:

• Substance abuse prevention across the life span
• Community prevention planning and service delivery at the State and community level, including coalition building
• Data, evaluation, and alcohol, and drug epidemiology
• Environment prevention strategies, systems change, and service delivery
• Social marketing and substance abuse prevention

In addition to becoming aware of and building competencies in diverse areas of public health practice, Fellows have the opportunity to develop critical research, writing, evaluation, and presentation skills under a structured training program. Through participation in activities, field work, and training, Fellows forge a strong network of peers and public health and behavioral health professionals who can sustain their professional growth.

The Prevention Fellowship Program was created by SAMHSA in 2006 to build a workforce of highly competent prevention professionals who meet International Certification and Reciprocity Consortium (IC&RC) standards. Certification indicates that individuals in the prevention field meet the highest standards of performance for the delivery of prevention services. To date, all Fellows who sat for the IC&RC exam have passed.

The Fellowship Program emphasizes SAMHSA’s Strategic Prevention Framework, a national strategy for prevention planning, program development, and prevention service delivery. Fellows also are exposed to other public health models in prevention service delivery, including the “Continuum of Care.”

Applications for this class of Fellows are due September 11, 2009, 5:00 PM (EST). Before applying, please refer to the eligibility requirements. Then, fill out the online application, include a one-page personal essay, and provide two letters of reference electronically by September 11, 2009, 5:00 PM (EST).

On March 12th, TIME Magazine included a feature on efforts to keep homeless children in one school despite moves around the city. NASW member and school social worker Cheryl Flugaur-Leavitt, SSW is featured in the article.

Keeping Homeless Kids in School
By Kathleen Kingsbury / Minneapolis
Thursday, Mar. 12, 2009

“When a second-grader at Longfellow Elementary School couldn’t stay awake during reading time, his teacher gently asked him why. “He told her that the rats and roaches were keeping him up,” says one of the school’s social workers, Cheryl Flugaur-Levitt. “We discovered he’d been sleeping on a relative’s floor, and he was scared to death about things crawling on him at night.” So she went to work on getting him at least a mattress to sleep on until his family could find a more permanent home.”