News
May is Mental Health Awareness month!
This month, NASW highlights the role clinical social workers play as mental health providers. Clinical social workers represent one of the largest groups of mental health care providers in the United States. With nearly 1 in 5 adults experiencing mental illness each year, they play a vital role in providing critical mental health services across the country.
The linked Tips and Tools document below includes information about how NASW is advocating for social workers on the front lines of mental health care and resources clinical that support mental health practice.
Mental Health Awareness Month 2026 Tips and Tools
The budget reconciliation act passed
by Congressional Republicans on July 3 and signed into law by President Trump
on July 4 (infamously known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”) will harm all
of us as we age. This edition of NASW’s
Tips & Tools for Social Workers provides
a brief overview of the federal budgeting process and outlines how the law
decreases older adults’ access to Medicaid, the Health Insurance Marketplace,
Medicare, long-term services and supports (LTSS), and the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)—disproportionately affecting older
immigrants and refugees—while weakening Social Security and other public
programs.
SPS Webinars
Monday, June 22, 2026 (1 – 2:30 pm ET)
Presenters: Joy Swanson Ernst, PhD, MSW; Faith Hopp, PhD, MSW; Frances Nedjat-Haiem, PhD, MSW, LCSW
CEs:1.5 Social Work contact hours
This webinar explains the social worker’s role in serious illness care. We offer strategies including effective engagement with clients and family members, care planning throughout the course of the illness, collaborating within multidisciplinary teams, and advocating for social justice to address inequities.
Objectives:
- Describe the three interrelated contexts of serious illness – the illness context, the formal support context, and the informal support context.
- Apply social work communication and other relationship-building skills for providing emotional and instrumental support, including care planning, to diverse persons with serious illness and their family members.
- Choose social work-focused advocacy strategies that will increase clients’ access to care and uphold their self-determination to the greatest extent possible.
Cost: SPS Members: Free / Non-SPS NASW Members: $25 / Non-NASW Member: $40
Wednesday, July 8, 2026 (1 – 2 pm ET)
Presenter: Connie Palmer, LCSW
CEs: 1 Social Work contact hour
The culture of a workplace impacts the success of the organization’s mission and the wellbeing of its employees. What can social workers do to create a healthy workplace culture?
Objectives:
- Identify what creates a healthy workplace culture for social workers and other staff
- Describe unhealthy workplace dynamics and how they can be addressed by social workers
- Explain how diversity, equity and inclusion are integral in the how social workers create of healthy workplace culture.
Cost: SPS Members: Free / Non-SPS NASW Members: $25 / Non-NASW Member: $35
Tuesday, September 15, 2026 (1 – 2 pm)
Presenter: Tara D. Wallace, EdD, LSCSW, CTF-CBT/PSB, RYT, CSLC
CE:1 Social work contact hour
Rooted in trauma-responsive, justice-centered practice, this training examines how silence, clinical, organizational, cultural, and systemic, can reinforce harm and perpetuate inequity across all levels of social work practice. Participants will explore the intersection of ethics, power, trauma, policy, and systemic accountability through a framework that integrates micro, mezzo, and macro practice. Using applied case examples, this training challenges participants to critically examine what ethical action requires in real-world practice settings using an ethical responsiveness model.
Objectives:
- Analyze the role of silence in ethical social work practice.
- Evaluate the impact of systemic factors on clinical outcomes
- Implement ethical disruption strategies in practice settings
- Apply an ethical responsiveness model across all levels of social work practice.
Cost: SPS Members: Free / Non-SPS NASW Members: $25 / Non-NASW Member: $35
Meet Social Workers like you with MyNASW
If you are an SPS member, you are already a member of at least one of these MyNASW online communities and can participate now:
Children, Youth and Schools
For members of the Child Welfare; Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults; and School Social Work Specialty Practice Sections
Clinical Social Work, Aging, and Health
For members of the Aging; Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs; Health; Mental Health; and Private Practice Specialty Practice Sections
Social Justice, Administration, and Courts
For members of the Administration/Supervision; Social and Economic Justice & Peace; and Social Work and the Courts Specialty Practice Sections