NASW News

Social work advocates celebrated a victory in May to keep a school of social work program alive at Arizona State University’s Tucson campus. NASW’s Arizona Chapter helped lead the effort said Chapter Executive Director Carol Stambaugh. She said the successful campaign is a perfect example of what social workers can accomplish when they work together. The battle to save the satellite school was no easy match, however. Like most states in the past year, Arizona has been dealing with a massive budget crisis. In turn, lawmakers have been eyeing cuts at public universities to balance the books. According to an article in the Tucson ...

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NASW issued two advocacy alerts to members, asking that they urge their federal representatives to cosponsor legislation addressing military personnel. The first bill, the Post Deployment Act (S. 711), addresses the mental health needs of the 1.64 million troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The legislation is based on a successful program that the Montana National Guard uses with members suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The bill requires mental health screenings before deployment, upon return home, and every six months for two years after they return. This basic and effective program will help safeguard the ...

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Nancy J. Smyth, dean of the University of Buffalo School of Social Work, was quoted in a story in the UB News about how she is helping the school of social work become a national leader in using digital technology to teach the profession and to use as a recruitment tool. “Our strategy is to go more digital,” Smyth was quoted as saying. “Recruitment of students is shifting more and more to online strategies. Go electronic. That’s certainly true for trying to recruit new students. The need to develop an electronic cyberspace presence is a given.” The article noted that U.S. News and World Report recently ranked t...

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As we adjust to a new administration on Capitol Hill, we also need to learn new vocabulary. We may not fully understand TARP, but we now recognize the acronym and know it is linked to the word “bailout.” Almost daily we read about the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) but we have difficulty grasping the amount of money it represents, much less how it will be spent. We also hear old phrases with new meanings like stress tests — for banks, not people — and the National Institutes of Health is using the phrase “GO grants” to designate a new funding stream called “grand opportunities.” T...

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Two upcoming NASW Lunchtime Teleconference series will focus on social workers improving their cancer-care skills for clients. Members and nonmembers can register now to listen in on a live teleconference at 1 p.m. E.T. July 30. The first teleconference is entitled "Recognizing and Supporting Cancer-Related Anxiety and Depression." The teleconference will also become available for later review via a transcript and audio download. Members can earn 1.0 continuing education units upon successful completion of an online test following the teleconference. Nonmembers will not be eligible to earn CEUs. The teleconference will examine the way a c...

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Actress Anna Paquin portrays Irena Sendler in the movie. The life of late Polish social worker Irena Sendler was highlighted in a national television movie on April 19. "The Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler" debuted on the CBS television network as a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie. Actress Anna Paquin portrayed Sendler while the story chronicled her heroic effort to rescue 2,500 Jewish children during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Sendler gained access to the Warsaw ghetto as a social worker and risked her life helping children escape by hiding them in such things as ambulances, suitcases and even wheelbarrows. NASW has been a supporter ...

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Thanks to efforts by social workers and other health privacy advocates, federal standards for electronic health records for each person will include strict privacy protections. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act was signed into law in February as part of President Obama's economic stimulus plan. NASW Lobbyist James Finley noted the HITECH Act takes into account NASW's and other organizations' concerns to include stringent privacy protections. "We got what we wanted, which is to make sure confidentiality standards are included in the law," he said. The federal government is in the regulatory pha...

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Elizabeth Pomeroy, professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Social Work, has been appointed the new editor-in-chief of the NASW Press flagship journal Social Work. Published quarterly and peer-reviewed, Social Work promotes the integration of theory, research, practice, and education into the profession. During her four-year term as editor-in-chief, Pomeroy will be responsible for making final decisions regarding manuscripts to be published in the journal. Her duties also include coordinating editorial reviews, analyzing trends and needs within the profession, and encouraging manuscript submissions. She will also serve as cha...

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Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis (right) spoke at a ceremony honoring the legacy of the late Frances Perkins. Frances Perkins, with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was a social worker and Secretary of Labor during Roosevelt’s administration.

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A project training social workers and other child welfare professionals on ways to effectively serve out-of-home lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and questioning (LGBTQ) youth reached its goal in March. NASW, the NASW Foundation and Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund joined forces last year to design and launch a train-the-trainer project. The overall objective has been to improve the capacity, knowledge and skills of social workers and other child welfare professionals to better serve the needs of LGBTQ youth living in foster care, juvenile justice centers and homeless shelters. The project was funded by the Tides Foundation. Thi...

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