Social work students across the nation work, volunteer as navigators MSW student Katie Merrill, left, is part of the contracted navigator program at the University of Albany School of Social Welfare in New York. Students like Merrill guide people who are enrolling for health care under the ACA. — Photo by Mark Schmidt/University of Albany Talking to people about their health is all in a day’s work, according to Katie Merrill, an MSW student at the University of Albany School of Social Welfare in New York. Merrill is one of the student health care navigators for the university’s contracted navigator program, which serv...

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NASW member Doug Behan, director of continuing education for the Institute for Families at the Rutgers School of Social Work, has received a grant from New Jersey Adult Protective Services, part of the state’s Human Services Department. According to an article on myCentralJersey.com, people involved in a natural disaster can be vulnerable to fraud, as con artist scams often follow in a matter of hours after the disaster occurs. The grant Behan received will develop and deliver a curriculum to create awareness about the exploitation that follows a natural disaster. “People who have been through a disaster are in a vulnerable pl...

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Headlines announcing the latest incidents of school violence have become common, and calls for solutions have been open to debate. Rather than promote a fortress mentality to protect students from violence, social workers are urging more programs and resources that provide early mental health screenings and treatments for school children. In addition, social workers are promoting the value of a community approach to aid troubled students before they feel the need to act out in violence. “Most children spend a large portion of their waking hours within the responsibility of school systems,” said Robert Broce, assistant professor...

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As my term as NASW president comes to an end, it is a moment to reflect on the experience and to celebrate how NASW is now poised for the future. My term as president has brought me many joys, chief among them working with two different and very talented executive leaders. Dr. Betsy Clark’s 12 years of service at the national office of NASW were marked by increased financial viability, greater national visibility than in previous years, and tireless advocacy for the profession of social work. I learned an immense amount from Betsy in the years before I became president and during the 18 months we worked closely together before she r...

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Social workers and NASW played active roles in local, state and federal programs that arose from President Lyndon Johnson’s “War on Poverty” initiative that he declared in 1964. NASW Social Work Pioneer® Jack Hansan (photo below, right) was one of these social workers. Hansan’s close association with area civil rights leaders and elected officials in the early 1960s helped him become the first executive director of the Community Action Commission of the Cincinnati area. Community action programs were at the heart of the Economic Opportunity Act, signed into law in August 1964, Hansan said. The Cincinnati Commun...

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Social worker Aaron Bishop has been appointed commissioner for the Administration for Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, within the Administration for Community Living. ACL is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Bishop has been serving as acting commissioner since November 2013, ACL Administrator Kathy Greenlee said in a statement. “ … By making his appointment permanent, he will be able to continue to focus on directing the policy and day-to-day operations of AIDD with and on behalf of persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities across the country,” Greenlee said. “With...

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Frederic G. Reamer, a social work ethics expert and professsor at the Rhode Island College School of Social Work, gives an ethics presentation during the NASW national Hope Conference in 2012. Reamer will be a plenary speaker at this year’s NASW national conference, “Social Work: Courage, Hope & Leadership,” which takes place July 23-26 in Washington, D.C. — Photos by Kea Taylor/Imagine Photography The intersection of social work and technology has grown, and with it comes a host of ethical concerns, says Frederic G. Reamer. Reamer, a social work ethics expert and professor at the School of Social Work at Rhod...

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Having a bachelor’s or master’s degree in social work will now definitely pay off in Connecticut, thanks to efforts by the NASW Connecticut Chapter. The chapter convinced the Connecticut Department of Administrative Services to give hiring preference to social work degree job applicants for all state social work jobs, which took effect in March. DAS Deputy Commissioner Martin W. Anderson wrote a letter that said his department had been in talks with the NASW Connecticut Chapter, state legislators and other parties regarding the requirement for new social workers in the state to possess a BSW or MSW degree. “The Departm...

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The University of North Carolina School of Social Work and the Children’s Home Society of America sponsored the fourth in a series of symposia titled “Wicked Problems: Meeting the Grand Challenges of Child Welfare.” Representatives from private and public child-serving agencies, think tanks, national organizations and foundations, and schools of social work, as well as state and federal officials, attended the meeting, held March 27 and 28. The meeting promoted the value of creating agency-university research partnerships to test interventions and to gather, analyze and use data to improve child and family outcomes. The f...

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Social workers involved in advancing racial equity reinforced the need for the social work profession to be at the forefront of eradicating institutional racism, during a recent congressional briefing on Capitol Hill. NASW sponsored the briefing, titled “Achieving Racial Equity: Social Workers as Agents of Change,” in March in conjunction with the Congressional Social Work Caucus. Congressional staff, social work leaders, and civil rights, policy and racial equity experts attended the event. It built on a two-day think tank symposium on achieving racial equity hosted by the NASW Social Work Policy Institute in November. Social ...

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