2025 Program Schedule

Social Work Leadership: The Past is Prologue (1 Macro CE)
For 70 years, NASW has been at the forefront of advancing the social work profession and championing justice, equity, and human dignity. As we open the 2025 NASW National Conference, we take a moment to honor the legacy of social work, from the groundbreaking efforts of pioneers like Jane Addams in Chicago to the transformative policies and advocacy that have shaped our field. But history is more than a reflection, it is a foundation. This powerful opening session will explore how the lessons of the past fuel our leadership today and prepare us for the challenges and opportunities ahead. With the future of social work at a crossroad facing workforce shortages, political and social shifts, and the evolving role of technology, how do we harness our collective strength to move forward?

Anthony Estreet, PhD, MBA, LCSW-C
Chief Executive Officer
National Association of Social Workers

Kathleen Wehrmann, PhD, MSW
Chair
Steering Committee for the Global Social Service Workforce Alliance
Past President, NASW

Olynphia O’Neale-White, DSW, LCSW
Founder
Through My Lens Consulting Services, LLC

Justin Harty, PhD, MSW, LCSW
Assistant Professor
Arizona State University School of Social Work

Lauri Goldkind, PhD, MSW
Professor
Graduate School of Social Science
Fordham University
Editor in Chief, Journal of Technology in Human Services

Eric Rice, PhD, MA
Professor
USC Susan Dworak-Peck School of Social Work
Founding Co-Director, USC Center for AI in Society

Jamie Sundvall, PhD, PsyD, LCSW
Assistant Provost of Artificial Intelligence
Touro University
Assistant Dean and Director of Distance Education and Online Programs in the Graduate School of Social Work

Juan Rios, DSW, LCSW
Professor
Seton Hall University
Chair of the Department of Social Work and Public Administration

The Growing Role of Social Media: Implications for Social Work (1.5 Social Work CEs)

Social media continues to evolve and be a significant force in numerous aspects of our lives. For many people, using social media is a daily routine. It has proven to influence decision-making and related outcomes. It opens up channels for more personal communications. This session will discuss the impact social media is having on social work and how we can harness it as a useful and productive tool.

Jonathan Singer, PhD, LCSW
Professor of Social Work
Loyola University Chicago

The Therapist’s Use of Self: Being the Catalyst for Change with Therapy Veteran Clients (1 Clinical CE)

Working with therapy veteran clients can be a therapist’s worst nightmare. Often, the clients present with severe DSM-V diagnoses, extensive treatment histories, are crisis-prone, present with risky and provocative behaviors, may have trauma backgrounds, and come from families with multiple symptom-bearers. In this hands-on practice-oriented presentation, participants will learn several effective therapeutic tools and strategies for fostering strong therapeutic alliances and therapeutic breakthroughs when feeling stuck with therapy-veteran clients. Some of the therapeutic tools and strategies presented are: listening and looking for client anomalies to seize; the use of respectful curiosity; extraordinary presence; the use of humor; absurdity; and playfulness; the use of metaphorical questions; the imaginary Time Machine; and strategic use of confusion and incompetence. Finally, will cover ways to expand one’s therapeutic range and style by bringing in ideas from art, film, theater, literature, history, philosophy, nature, and science and technology.

Matthew Selekman, MSW, LCSW
Founder/Director
Partners for Collaborative Solutions

Putting It All Together: Where Are We Headed? (1.5 Social Work CEs)
A futures lens and "foresight" practice are a globally recognized transdisciplinary set of ideas, tools and practices intended to help people use the idea of the future to make better decisions in the present. This session will introduce a critical and participatory foresight perspective to assist social workers in making sense of the rapid changes around them, use imagination and foresight tools to better anticipate new challenges and opportunities - all in concert with upholding the values and ethics of the profession. What does the future most "need from social work?" How can social workers care for themselves, each other, and the communities we ally with to best meet the challenges ahead? How will technology, climate, political fracturing, health advances and disparities - all charged by racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia and more - all evolve in the direction of human rights and liberation - or away from it? Let's wrestle with the idea of "future shock" for social work - and encourage our own positive evolution - individually and collectively to meet the call.

Aaron Mallory, MSW, LCSW
Founder and CEO, GRO Community

• Silent Beauty
  CEs: 2 Social Work
  
  This film from director Jasmin Lara Lopez, looks at sexual abuse in families and how it is hidden. Her father, a Baptist minister, abused her and other young people, but her family denied it or blamed the victims. As an adult, she confronts her grandfather as a way to heal from the past abuse. The film also looks at how sexual abuse is treated in the Latin American community.



• I Didn’t See You There
  CEs: 2 Social Work
  
  Filmmaker Reid Davenport lives with a disability and uses a wheelchair. This film looks at how he must navigate the world and how ableism discriminates against people living with a disability. A circus was also put up within eyeshot of his home, and Davenport looks at how historically people with disabilities have been exploited and ostracized.



• A Woman on the Outside
  CEs: 2 Social Work
  
  Kristal, a social worker in Philadelphia, helps families stay connected with relatives who are incarcerated. But when her own father and brother come home from prison, can she help them reunite successfully with the family they left behind?