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

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 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).

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).

Source: Google News

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The op-ed below was submitted to local media by Richard Cook, University of Maryland School of Social Work. This link to resulting article in the Baltimore Sun: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-md.vozzella07sep07,0,6995248.column

This week the nation is hearing again that Barack Obama started his work on human concerns in Chicago as a community organizer. While the world is familiar with what a soldier does, or what a lawyer or a stockbroker does, not as many are familiar with the world of community organizing and whether or not it is a suitable starting place for someone taking on major responsibilities in political life.

At the University of Maryland School of Social Work we have been training community organizers for nearly 50 years. A number of them have found their way into politics including the Senior Senator from Maryland Barbara Mikulski, a deputy mayor of Baltimore, and several state legislators. In addition, others such as Wendy Sherman, a former ambassador, and Jody Olsen, the deputy director of the Peace Corps, were trained as community organizers.

What is a community organizer and why does someone choose a job of community organizing?

Just as medicine is a profession dedicated to restoring health to the human body, community organizing is dedicated to restoring democracy at the grassroots level, to re-energizing citizens as an active part of the community. Community organizers focus on bringing about concrete changes in peoples’ lives, fixing broken systems, and changing power relationships so that unengaged people despairing of their lack of power can become re-engaged. (more…)

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