Social Work Advocates Magazine

Understanding Today’s Housing Crisis

Understanding Today’s Housing Crisis

By Sue Coyle More than 650,000 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States on one night in 2023. Those were the results of the 2023 Point-in-Time Count, an annual count of individuals experiencing both sheltered and unsheltered homelessness required by...

Understanding Today’s Housing Crisis

By Sue Coyle More than 650,000 people were experiencing homelessness in the United States on one night in 2023. Those were the results of the 2023 Point-in-Time Count, an annual count of individuals experiencing both sheltered and unsheltered homelessness required by...

Social workers weigh in on marijuana laws, policies

Social workers weigh in on marijuana laws, policies

By Alison Laurio, News contributor “Marijuana has lit up conversations and controversy across the country. It’s a hotly contested and complicated issue for states to weed through, and no doubt will remain high on legislative agendas for the foreseeable future,” the...

Nephrology social workers fill many roles

Nephrology social workers fill many roles

By Alison Laurio, News contributor Dean Wolf has spent his entire working life as a social worker in the field helping others. Now he is asking others to help him, and said it is not an easy thing to do. “As much as I have empathy for people, I need a kidney,” he said...

NASW helps secure approval for National Academies study

NASW helps secure approval for National Academies study

By Paul R. Pace, News staff The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) and the National Research Council have approved a proposed consensus study that examines the roles the social work profession and other social needs providers can play in...

History shows importance of social work

History shows importance of social work

By Maren Dale, News contributor Today, social workers are part of the fabric of our nation, leading the march toward social justice, bringing our nation’s social problems to the public’s attention and serving in nearly every sector. Yet it was not long ago that many...

HEALS program awards year-long policy fellowship

By Maren Dale, News contributor JaNeen Cross, DSW, MSW, MBA, is the 2016 senior policy fellow through the NASW HEALS (Health Care Education and Leadership Scholars) Policy Fellowship. Cross, an assistant clinical professor of social work from Widener University in...

Climate change, natural disasters affect well-being

By Alison Laurio, News contributor When Samantha Teixeira was at the University of Pittsburgh School of Social Work earning her MSW and then her Ph.D., she and a young black man walked up to a high school where the entry door was locked. “He rang the bell, and they...