NASW News

Robert Mittman will facilitate the 2010 Social Work Congress in April. Social work leaders from across the country will gather April 21-23 to reaffirm, revisit and reimagine the profession at the 2010 Social Work Congress. Co-conveners of the congress are NASW, the Association of Baccalaureate Social Work Program Directors, the Council on Social Work Education and the National Association of Deans and Directors of Schools of Social Work. The Clinical Social Work Association and the Society for Social Work and Research are also supporters, and NASW Assurance Services Inc. is the presenting sponsor for the invitation-only event, which will ...

Read More

William Meezan, a professor of social work at The Ohio State University, is the new chair of the NASW Press Publications Committee. William Meezan, a professor of social work at The Ohio State University, is the new chair of the NASW Press Publications Committee. NASW Press Publisher Cheryl Y. Bradley said she is looking forward to working with Meezan, who served as dean of the College of Social Work at Ohio State from 2005 to 2009. "We are delighted to have Dr. Meezan join our NASW Press volunteer leadership," Bradley said. "We are eager to utilize his knowledge in the field of social work within the business side of publishing." Mee...

Read More

NASW has collaborated with the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship to produce the latest Cancer Survivor Toolbox module for people with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The Cancer Survival Toolbox is a free, self-learning audio program that helps people understand and develop skills to address the challenges of their illness. NASW continues to work with NCCS to develop the award-winning toolbox and its subsequent modules that address different types of cancer. The latest component explains that there are two major types of lymphoma: Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin. Each has several different subtypes. While both are cancers of the lymphatic or immune s...

Read More

Proud to Practice I am offended by NASW President James Kelly's November column statement that "social work educators are the backbone of the social work profession." I had a visceral response to reading it — the statement took away my breath and punched me in the gut. For a sharing profession, this appears self-aggrandizement. Why would the social work profession ever choose among its members that one category is better than another, and create divisions rather than bridges? I did not choose to be a social worker because of a social work educator. I chose the social work profession long before I ever had a social work teacher. I chos...

Read More

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., rallies the crowd at a November gathering to protest an amendment to the health care reform bill that would limit abortion coverage. At NASW News deadline, House and Senate Democratic leadership were negotiating a compromise health care reform bill that includes certain provisions of the Dorothy I. Height and Whitney M. Young Jr. Social Work Reinvestment Act, or SWRA. As 2009 came to a close, Democrats in both houses of Congress mustered just enough votes to pass health care reform legislation: 220-215 in the House (one Republican, Rep. Ahn "Joseph" Cao, R-La., voted in favor of the bill) and 60-39 in the ...

Read More

“I am a social worker and I view this [health care reform] bill from a social work perspective,” Rep. Ed Towns told the forum. Students spent a day on Capitol Hill learning the ins and outs of public policy from social workers involved with the political process. NASW cosponsored the Sixth Biennial Social Work Policy Practice Forum in late October, which featured keynote speaker U.S. Rep. Edolphus "Ed" Towns, D-N.Y., who is among nine social workers currently serving in Congress. Towns told the students that their social work training is an excellent stepping point to a public office career. "I would recommend you get involv...

Read More

Several major news stories have shed light on a disturbing trend: Suicide rates in some regions have spiked and the economic recession is being cited as a factor. While national statistics on suicide lag by three to four years, news sources have conducted their own investigations about the topic. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, MSNBC and Business Week have published stories in the past year highlighting local data and calls for more support for the newly unemployed or those facing financial devastation. The Wall Street Journal surveyed 33 of the nation's most populous states and found 19 have suicide data for 2008. In all, thos...

Read More

NASW is calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a lower court decision that, if left in place, would make it harder for employees to challenge their employer's discriminatory practices. In the matter of Lewis et al. v. City of Chicago, a U.S. district court in 2005 ruled that the city was using a hiring exam for firefighters that illegally discriminated against minority applicants. However, an appeals court in 2008 reversed the ruling on a technicality, asserting that the applicants did not file their discrimination claims in time with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits...

Read More

The Council of Chapter Executives named Marc Herstand, executive director of the NASW Wisconsin Chapter, the 2009 Outstanding Executive Director of the Year at its recent annual meeting. Herstand (left) receives the award from previous winner Tamitha Price, executive director of the NASW Missouri Chapter. At the event, Janet Kusyk (right), program coordinator at the NASW Oregon Chapter, was noted as the winner of the 2009 Gilman-Wells award.

Read More

Joan Levy Zlotnik stressed the need to include social workers in CER strategy development. Experts from the research, practice, policy and education arenas convened at NASW's national office to outline how the social work profession can best contribute to the growing attention to comparative effectiveness research, or CER, in health and psychosocial services. The newly formed Social Work Policy Institute hosted the meeting, called "Social Work Research and Comparative Effectiveness Research: A Research Symposium to Strengthen the Connection." Joan Levy Zlotnik is the director of SWPI. The think tank was launched in October to strengthen ...

Read More