Social workers play a vital role in helping women with a history of prostitution or involvement in sex trafficking to get their lives back on track, and Florida social worker Tricia Collins is one of them. According to an article in Take Part, a publication by the University of Southern California School of Social Work, Collins says that the way prostitution is perceived — and the way the women who are involved in prostitution are perceived — is backward. “They’re nothing like people think that they are,” she says. Women who have become entangled in the sex trade can battle back from it, Collins says, and s...

Read More

Social worker Chris Gilchrist is passionate about raising awareness and lifting the stigma surrounding depression and suicide. She organizes the Out of the Darkness Community Walk in her hometown in Hampton Roads, Va. The annual event, which offers awareness, support, remembrance and education for those affected by depression and suicide, has grown to be one of the largest in the U.S., she said. There are about 300 walks across the nation each year. While suicide can be a confusing and heart-wrenching topic for those affected by it, there are facts that need greater understanding, said Gilchrist, who is a member of the American Associatio...

Read More

I recently attended a special event at New York University that featured former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and philanthropist Melinda Gates talking about their “No Ceilings” initiative, co-sponsored by the Clinton and Gates foundations. The project will better document the status of women and girls worldwide, including in the United States, so that both progress and problems can be more reliably identified. As a framework for the range of issues to be addressed, Clinton referred to the Platform for Action, adopted at the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, an event I w...

Read More

January marked the 50th anniversary of the “War on Poverty,” declared by President Lyndon Johnson. The late Mark Battle, who led NASW as executive director from 1984 to 1992, played a pivotal role when federal initiatives to address the needs of the underprivileged were enacted. Battle was working as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Labor when the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 was passed into law. In his retirement, Battle taught at the University of Maryland. In an undated interview published online by the University of Maryland at Baltimore County School of Social Work, Battle said, “I would say that the Econom...

Read More

Lorraine Miller (standing), interim president and CEO of the NAACP, speaks at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights meeting, called “Moving Voting Rights Forward: A Conference on Strategy for 2014 and Beyond,” held last month in Washington, D.C. Seated from left are, Sophia Zaman, president of the United States Student Association; Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; and Ellen Buchman, vice president of Field Operations for The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. NASW is continuing the fight to support voter rights as a member of the Leadership Con...

Read More

Phyllis Solomon, a researcher and professor at the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, received the Distinguished Career Achievement Award at the 18th Annual Society for Social Work and Research conference in January. According to the school, Solomon has spent a lifetime dedicated to researching adults with severe mental illness and their families. As an expert in mental health service delivery issues and psychiatric rehabilitation, her research has highlighted the effectiveness of family interventions and peer-provided services, as well as the intersection of criminal justice and mental health services....

Read More

Two social workers have been selected to serve on the advisory committee for the U.S. Attorney General’s Task Force on American Indian and Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence. The social workers are Eddie Brown, executive director of the American Indian Policy Institute and professor of American Indian Studies and School of Social Work at Arizona State University; and Marilyn Bruguier Zimmerman, director of the National Native Children’s Trauma Center at the University of Montana. Attorney General Eric Holder said the task force is part of his Defending Childhood Initiative, a project that addresses the epidemic levels of...

Read More

Lori Watsen, left, poses with her wife, Sharene, and their son, Conley. The Watsens are one of four lesbian couples involved in a lawsuit against the state of Idaho regarding its ban on same-sex marriage. NASW member Lori Watsen and her wife, Sharene, are one of four lesbian couples in Idaho suing the state over its same-sex marriage ban. The Watsens were married legally in New York, but Idaho has a constitutional amendment that bans any recognition of a same-sex marriage. Same-sex married couples living in a state that does not recognize the marriage often are not entitled to the same benefits as other married couples, including joining ...

Read More

Hawaii Department of Health Director Loretta Fuddy, an NASW member for more than 40 years, died shortly after a plane crash late last year off the Hawaiian island of Molokai. The pilot of the Makani Kai Cessna Grand Caravan made an emergency water landing after the single engine failed. All nine passengers, including 65-year-old Fuddy, made it out of the plane and into the water. According to news reports, Fuddy suffered a cardiac arrhythmia while waiting for rescuers, and she was ultimately the only fatality of the crash. NASW Hawaii Chapter Executive Director Marty Oliphant said the chapter worked with Fuddy on numerous projects and co...

Read More

SOAR helps homeless vets regardless of discharge type. I am writing in response to Esther Grace Gilbert’s letter to the editor in the January 2014 issue of NASW News. A national program called SOAR (SSI/SSDI Outreach, Access and Recovery) can assist veterans, including those with less than honorable discharges who have disabilities, to access expedited Social Security Disability Benefits (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Social Security does not consider type of military discharge in its eligibility for such benefits; the issue is income and disability. SOAR is a program that focuses on adults (including veterans) who ...

Read More