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

For those that are interested in ongoing discussions online, visit www.socialworkchat.org on Sundays and Tuesdays from 9 - 10 PM EST.

March Schedule:
Sun, March 7th Share ideas for celebrating Social Work Month
Tues, March 9th Case Consultation
Sun, March 14th Our Online Social Work Month VIRTUAL CELEBRATION!
Tues, March 16th Best Book Recommendations for SW Practice
Sun, March 21st The New DSM
Tues, March 23rd Creative and Unusual Work Settings for SW
Sun, March 28th Social Work Practice with Child Sexual Abuse

There are ongoing discussions on bulletin boards if you can’t make regularly scheduled chats.  You can sign up for a free account at www.socialworkchat.org.

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.

Dear Babs: College major for a wannabe therapist? - Kansas City Star - 6/4/09
“Another way to be a therapist is to get your Masters in Social Work, or MSW. A person with a MSW can set up private practice as a therapist, but cannot prescribe medication. These therapists are often used instead of psychologists with children, families, or people with substance abuse problems.”

Lagos celebrates school Social Work Day - NEXT - 6/4/09
“Students, teachers, parents and public officers in Lagos State gathered at the Adeyemi Bero Auditorium, Alausa on Wednesday, to celebrate the first School Social Work Day.”

School of Social Work Plans Anniversary Celebration and Remembrance - University of Maine - 6/3/09
The UMaine School of Social Work is inviting members of the university community to an anniversary celebration for the school and a remembrance of an admired former faculty member June 18 at Wells Commons Conference Center.

Social worker helps CPS students shed light on school closings - Chi-Town Daily News - 6/3/09
So in February, when officials chose to merge Medill Elementary with a nearby West Side school, CPS social worker Aura Brickler decided to channel students’ confusion — into a documentary. She armed them with audio recorders and questions, and next week, just before the school closes, she plans to unveil the result: Medill Matters.

Obama’s auto team listens to state woes - Detroit Free Press - 6/3/09
Less than an hour later, the same officials heard heartrending stories from workers, union officials and social workers in Pontiac.”In the last 12 months, we’ve had a 30% increase in just emergency food requests,” John Ziraldo, CEO and president of the social service agency Lighthouse of Oakland County.

Source: GoogleNews

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.”

We were recently invited to a conference call with the Department of Education, where we discussed the President’s 2010 budget for their department. We were part of a small group asked to participate and were able to learn, firsthand, about the Administration’s plan to:

• Make Pell grant funding mandatory. The maximum for the 2010-11 academic year would be $5,550.
• Restructure and expand the Federal Perkins Loan Program to provide $6 billion in loans every year, from the current $1 billion level. Colleges and universities participating would increase from 1,800 to 4,400. The Department is looking for input on ways to revise the current formula.
• Create a $2.5 billion federal-state-local partnership to improve retention and graduation rates, particularly for low-income college students. This will include funds for a rigorous research component. Funds are for first degrees after high school, which could be an Associates’ degree or Bachelor’s degree.
• Restructure the Federal Family Education Loans, because “it is not working well’ and make all new loans through the direct lending program (Direct Loans).

March is Social Work Month and that is a special time for the National Association of Social Workers.  We would love to know how social workers and social work students are celebrating Social Work Month 2009 at schools, in the workplace, or in their communities?

Let us know your plans or about events you know of by leaving a comment.

Click here for the Social Work Month 2009 Toolkit

News Source: Google News

Employee hangs self in suburban high school
Chicago Sun-Times
The social work team is available to students and staff at a north suburban high school Thursday after a school employee killed himself in the school …

USF social work interns will try some Capitol lobbying
Tampabay.com - St. Petersburg, FL
“It’ll help them as they start their careers,” said the nonprofit organization’s director, Renee Walker. The conference is Monday through Wednesday, …

Budget cuts force Child & Family Resources to lay off social workers
Tucson Citizen - Tucson, AZ
… care will feel the impact of state budget cuts after Child & Family Resources was forced to lay off social workers that help keep families together. …

Hospice has social workers to help families talk out practical …
Winston-Salem Journal - Winston-Salem, NC
“It can get very sticky,” said Lisa Meadows, hospice’s vice president of human services, who supervises the social workers and chaplains. …

Schools to get social workers
The Daily Advertiser - Lafayette, LA
Moss currently has one social worker, while Faulk has none. Board member Hunter Beasley criticized the staff for putting the board under the gun again to …

NASW Social Work Pioneer® John B. Turner, Ph.D., whose career in social work spanned more than 40 years and whose efforts and leadership helped earn national recognition for the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, died on Friday, Jan. 30. He was 86. - More Information…

International Council on Social Welfare Tribute to John B. Turner
NASW Tribute from Dr. James Kelly and Dr. Elizabeth J. Clark