Pictured from left are NASW President James J. Kelly, Executive Director Elizabeth J. Clark, Samira Beckwith and John Hansan. The NASW Foundation honored its 2009 award recipients at a ceremony in March. Samira K. Beckwith received the Ruth Knee/Milton Wittman Award for Lifetime Achievement in Health and Mental Health Practice and John E. Hansan received the International Rhoda G. Sarnat Award for Advancing the Public Understanding of the Social Work Profession. Ronald W. Manderscheid, who could not attend the ceremony, was the recipient of the Ruth Knee/Milton Wittman Award for Outstanding Achievement in Health and Mental Health Policy.

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Steven Huberman (no photo) , dean of Touro College’s Graduate School of Social Work, was quoted in an article produced by the school that highlighted a recent community day program called “Social Work on the Front Lines: The Role of Social Work in Today’s Military.” The event was presented by the school. Huberman joined others in delivering the opening remarks. The article quoted Omar Domenech, a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army, who spoke to around 150 people, mostly students and faculty at Touro’s Graduate School of Social Work. “In the military, the soldier’s mind becomes conditioned to believ...

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The newly formed American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare held its first meeting last month in Washington. Twenty-three fellows were inducted into the Academy at a ceremony that took place around the time of the 2010 Social Work Congress. The event was attended by NASW President James J. Kelly, a member of the Academy’s working group. “They are the best and the brightest of the profession,” Kelly said of the inductees. The Academy consists of scholars and practitioners who are dedicated to achieving excellence in social work and social welfare through high-impact work. The first six fellows, selected by the w...

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Natasha Singer was quoted in the Oneonta Daily Star in a story about healthy ways to cope with grief in response to unexpected deaths in the community that made news. Singer is a bereavement counselor with Catskill Area Hospice and Palliative Care. She said when people and communities experience a tragic loss it leaves them stunned. “The rational mind just can’t get around it,” Singer said in the article. “They question why it happened and need to express their despair.” Cataclysmic events including earthquakes, tsunamis and floods leave people feeling vulnerable, the story explained. “It seems like the...

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From the Director Recently, three events occurred that seemed to be linked across a 25-year time span. These were the 20th anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in South Africa, the remake of the musical recording “We Are the World,” and the beginning of the 21st Winter Olympics in Canada. In 1985, five years before Mandela’s release, the first version of the charity anthem was sung by 40 recording artists with the proceeds going to help Africa deal with famine. The current version included more than 80 artists. Many of them, like Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand and Gladys Knight, have careers that ha...

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The U.S. government’s failure to fulfill its obligations under human rights treaties “has a particularly profound effect on certain groups of people,” especially children, immigrants, detainees and minorities, NASW said in testimony for the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law. NASW’s remarks, prepared by the association’s Division for Human Rights and International Affairs, were submitted for the subcommittee’s December hearing titled “The Law of the Land: U.S. Implementation of Human Rights Treaties.” It was the first-ever congressional hearing on U.S. compliance with its...

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Clinical social workers agree it is past time to increase the work and practice values of the Current Procedural Terminology code set for psychotherapy services, a NASW practice update released in January. said The CPT codes are a set of medical nomenclature maintained by the American Medical Association that report procedures and services under public and private health insurance programs. They reflect the value of work and practice expenses. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reviews requests to resurvey CPT codes during its five-year review process, and NASW sought from members compelling evidence as to why the committees s...

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Five new social work practice updates, covering such topics as the recession’s implications for school social workers and delivering culturally appropriate care for older adults, are available for members to view on the NASW Web site. Undoubtedly, the economic downturn has affected school social workers’ roles both personally and professionally. And it continues to do so, prompting NASW to prepare “The Economic Downturn: Implications for School Social Work,” a timely resource with suggested methods for addressing the effects of the recession in the school setting. To ensure that students and families receive the su...

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As a co-sponsor of the third annual National Healthcare Decisions Day, NASW is asking everyone: “Do you have an advance directive?” Observed April 16, National Healthcare Decisions Day is an initiative to encourage all adults to express their medical treatment preferences, particularly concerning end-of-life care, and for health care providers to respect those preferences, whatever they may be. “No one likes to discuss their own mortality, but everyone, including social workers, really ought to seriously consider communicating and documenting their advance care wishes in an advance directive,” said Karyn Walsh, NASW...

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NASW thanked Adm. Michael G. Mullen for his congressional testimony about the military’s ban on gay men and lesbians. Photo: Nancy A. Youssef/MCT NASW participated in advocacy efforts in February regarding jobless benefits, the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and a call for comments for the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V). The association sent a letter to lawmakers Feb. 18, urging them to act immediately to continue the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009’s aid to the unemployed as a standalone measure through 2010. The lett...

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