NASW launched a Twitter chat series in April to celebrate its 60th anniversary in 2015 and introduce some of the leading minds in social work who are members of the association.

Twitter chats are conversations Twitter users can have by following a unique hashtag (#). NASW has about 27,000 followers on Twitter, so the chats are a good way to reach NASW members as well as the wider social work community.

The first Twitter chat was held April 6 with forensic social worker Kathryn Dixon and used the hashtag #forensicSW. Forensic social workers are those who work in the legal system.

Dixon is founder and executive director of Interstate FACTS LLC, a Hackensack, N.J., forensic social work specialty practice company that provides services to court-involved individuals and families.

She also sits on the steering committee of NASW Social Work and the Courts Specialty Practice Section.

Dixon answered a variety of questions, including what training is needed to be a forensic social worker and the challenges of the profession.

“A good way to get involved is to get front-line experience by working with clients in the court,” Dixon tweeted.

Other Twitter chats scheduled last month included an April 16 conversation with NASW member Kristin Battista-Frazee (#SWBattistaFrazee), a marketing and communications professional in Washington, D.C., who has a master’s degree in social work.

Battista-Frazee wrote the 2014 Memoir “Pornographer’s Daughter” which chronicles her father’s decision to get involved with the infamous pornographic film “Deep Throat” and how that affected her formative years and decision to go into social work. Battista-Frazee talked about the book and how social workers can get involved in media and publishing.

On April 30, Temple University Assistant Professor Jonathan Singer was scheduled to talk about how social workers can prevent suicide (#SWStopSuicide). Singer is co-author of a new book, “Suicide in Schools: A Practitioner’s Guide to Multi-Level Prevention, Assessment, Intervention and Postvention.”

For more information on the Twitter chats and how to participate, email NASW Public Relations Manager Greg Wright at gwright@naswdc.org.