Tricia Bent-Goodley of Howard University’s School of Social Work: “When it comes to teen pregnancy, we don’t hear the reasons for the choice they made.” NASW is hosting conferences across the country with support from the United Nations Foundation to promote greater attention to the rights of women and girls on a global level. In September, NASW’s Human Rights and International Affairs Division joined the NASW D.C. Metro Chapter in hosting “Promoting Human Rights of Women and Girls Globally: The Intersection of Social Work and Family Planning Services” at the association’s national office i...

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Social worker Shay Sorrells Social worker Kathy Gurland is heartbroken over the lack of social worker characters on TV. “I happen to love ‘House,’ but where is the social worker?” she said. Gurland, a former actress and founder of PEG’S Group, a cancer patient navigation service in New York, isn’t waiting in the wings for change. As a member of the NASW Communications Network advisory committee, she and other social workers try to increase the visibility and improve the image of social workers in entertainment media. Gurland and other advisory committee members met with television producers and writer...

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The U.S. Administration on Aging recently released a toolkit to help organizations, including those that employ social workers, plan and implement culturally competent services for older adults and family caregivers. However, Chris Herman, an NASW senior practice associate, said that “the toolkit should be of value to anyone working with older adults, not just those employed by an agency.” She pointed out that the toolkit’s list of online resources directs readers to several resources on NASW’s own website, including its standards for cultural competency in social work practice. The toolkit lays out a four-step pro...

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Women in traditional Russian dress greet delegation members. NASW Executive Director Elizabeth J. Clark admits that prior to leading a People to People social work delegation to Russia in August, she had a distorted, preconceived idea of what life is like in the former communist country. “After all, I grew up during the Cold War and the space race and watching James Bond films,” Clark said in an interview with NASW News. But when she found herself standing in Moscow’s Red Square, awed by the brilliant onion domes of St. Basil’s cathedral and the massive Kremlin complex, all those preconceptions, like the Iron Cur...

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NASW’s Rita Webb: A troubled economy threatens services for domestic violence victims. When the economy tanks, domestic violence increases, according to the recently released diversity practice update “Women and Domestic Violence: Implications for Social Work Intervention.” “An economic crisis alone does not cause domestic violence; however, economic stress can exacerbate an already precarious situation,” it says. “In addition, the loss of a job, home, or car can reduce a victim’s ability to leave an abusive situation.” It continues: “Understanding and recognizing the underlying dynam...

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Desperate for Services Finally there is coverage (“Spotlighting Native American Issues,” September News) of our indigenous people, who are so desperate for services. The reservations are structurally, socially and psychologically bereft and in turmoil. People are suffering and there is little help in addressing core issues. There are caring people who help, but real assistance is not there. Left to their own devices, they fail miserably due to lack of experience and needed support from outside the reservation. Then the victims get blamed. I am working on a documentary about teen suicide at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South D...

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Two hours north of San Francisco, in California’s wine country, is the small town of Ukiah, where Jetaine Hart grew up. It’s about the farthest from the nation’s capital one can go heading due west before reaching the Pacific Ocean. It’s a far cry from Capitol Hill, where Hart lives and works these days. Traversing the country, wending from a small town to the big city, isn’t the only long journey Hart has made in her life; she’s come a considerable way from a childhood spent first in poverty and then in foster care. Hart, now a social worker, currently works for Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu. ...

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The NASW Board of Directors in September approved new standards for social work practice with family caregivers of older adults. “These standards are designed to enhance social work practice with family caregivers of older adults and to help the public understand the role of professional social work in supporting family caregivers,” the introduction to the standards states. The standards address the following social work practice concepts as they relate to working with family caregivers: ethics and values; qualifications; knowledge; cultural and linguistic competence; assessment; service planning, delivery and monitoring; ad...

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Michael Petit of Every Child Matters addresses a gathering at last year’s event. NASW continues to address the prevention of child abuse and child neglect fatalities as an active member of the National Coalition to End Child Abuse Deaths. Association staff attended a coalition planning meeting in September to refine the group’s efforts to garner federal attention to child maltreatment deaths. Besides NASW, the coalition includes the Every Child Matters Education Fund, the National Center for Child Death Review, the National Children’s Alliance and the National District Attorneys Association. Each coalition member is pr...

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Amy E. McCarty of law firm Monahan & Cohen spoke at the Illinois ethics symposium. Mistey Kosek spared herself a 90-minute commute to Chicago when she signed up to participate in the NASW Illinois Chapter’s first Virtual Symposium on Ethics this fall. Kosek said despite not being in the same room with the conference presenters, she was still able to communicate with them and other attendees in a virtual format using an Internet connection. “I was able to stay at my house, sit anywhere I wanted to and I could still interact, ask questions and post comments,” she said. “I loved it.” Illinois is one of m...

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