NASW leaders give presentation on U.S. social safety nets A group of social workers talk together during a break at the annual Tanzania Social Workers Association (TASWO) conference held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in October. Two NASW leaders traveled to Tanzania to represent NASW and give a presentation on social safety nets that are in place in the United States. NASW — as part of the ongoing relationship with the Tanzania Social Workers Association, or TASWO — was invited to TASWO’s annual meeting in October, held in Dar es Salaam. The meeting focused on the issues surrounding poverty in Tanzania, and the role soci...

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Experts say social workers can help educate public There are people who still aren’t quite sure how HIV/AIDS is transmitted, and are afraid of what it means, says NASW member Melissa Sellevaag, manager for Youth and Family Care Navigation at Whitman-Walker Health in Washington, D.C. She says social workers can help prevent stigma, and spread education about the disease and how to prevent it. It’s important to know at least the basics about the virus, she adds, because whatever field of practice we choose, social workers will work with clients with HIV/AIDS. “HIV doesn’t discriminate against anybody,” says Sell...

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Social worker Mary-Elizabeth Tuggle (photo right) gets ready to film her video segment for an NASW project to showcase the benefits of NASW membership and to celebrate Social Work Month. The video project, which includes members from various career stages, is one of several ways NASW is recognizing the profession and the association’s 60th anniversary. For Mary-Elizabeth Tuggle, a social worker with the Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C., being a member of NASW has provided opportunities to participate in leadership roles. “It makes me become more involved with the field of social work,” Tuggle said during h...

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NASW member Betsy Baier is part of an article in Utah’s The Moab Sun News about Grand County Hospice in Moab. Baier is a licensed clinical social worker who has decades of professional experience working in the areas of grief and bereavement, the article says, and she has been at Grand County Hospice for about a year. “Hospice care allows people to die with support, with compassion, and comfort,” she says in the article. “All of the needs are being attended to, of both patient and family. Peace and comfort are of the utmost importance.” Baier says everyone has difficulty when faced with the reality of losin...

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Field education in social work has reached a new level of importance, says Jo Ann McFall, associate director of Field Education and Community Programs at Michigan State University School of Social Work. Social work field education helps lay the groundwork for students to create their professional identities, experts say. Field education was elevated in significance after the Council on Social Work Education named it the signature pedagogy of social work education. “Field education is in the most exciting place it has been in the 35 years that I have been involved since I was a student,” said McFall, who also is chairwoman o...

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Throughout my childhood, my mother continuously told me, “Do something with your life to help other people.” So it was only natural that I pursued a career in social work. It’s a profession that has allowed me to keep my promise to help others, and has also provided endless opportunities to have a positive impact on communities, social systems and social policy. As a new professional, I didn’t fully comprehend that our disciplined, compassionate profession offered so many opportunities to make a difference. Today in my role as NASW’s chief executive officer, I have a much deeper appreciation of the depth and br...

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NASW and the NASW Foundation will collaborate with the Education Development Center Inc., the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association to create a new Mental Health and HIV/AIDS Training Resource Center. Funded by a $4 million grant over five years from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, the center will provide training and education to social workers and allied providers on a variety of mental health issues affecting those living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. The new center will bring together the work of NASW’s HIV/AIDS Spectrum Project, the American Psychological Assoc...

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Reading about social welfare policy from a textbook is one way to learn, but hearing about it from the people who actually do the work is an added benefit, say social work students. NASW, the Council on Social Work Education, the Coalition on Human Needs, and Sunny Harris Rome, a professor at the George Mason University School of Social Work, are working together to link social work policy practitioners to schools of social work so they can serve as guest lecturers via Skype or another teleconference platform in policy classes. Students from Jane Hoyt-Oliver’s (photo right) social welfare policy analysis class at Malone University in...

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Wilson provides social work view on officers wearing body cameras Melvin Wilson, manager of NASW’s Department of Social Justice and Human Rights, penned a guest column in December in the Orlando Sentinel titled “Knowing eyes are watching could reduce police abuses.” NASW recommends that law enforcement officers wear body cameras, Wilson wrote, a recommendation that came about in the aftermath of the decision by two separate grand juries not to indict police officers for the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. “These devices can help to alleviate conflicts with law enforcement that may turn violent,” Wils...

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NASW-Georgia Executive Director Cheryl Bonneau grew up in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, watching her parents — and all her neighbors — regularly give back to the community. She said that was how things were done in her neighborhood when she was a kid, and those early values of community organization are ingrained in her today. “It was very community oriented, and there were always meetings in the community regarding everything, from basic stuff to having activities,” Bonneau said. “My mom was very politically active, and one of those people who would go and hear people like Malcolm X speak. It was stressed...

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