NASW News

After years of advocacy work, the NASW North Carolina Chapter is celebrating good news for new social work graduates. While Medicaid in the state has directly enrolled and reimbursed licensed clinical social workers, or LCSWs, for about 10 years, Chapter Executive Director Kathy Boyd announced that Medicaid has now agreed to also directly enroll licensed clinical social worker associates, or LCSWAs, who are new graduates working to obtain their LCSWs. The LCSW is a required license in North Carolina for those who wish to practice clinically, Boyd said. The LCSW requires an MSW from a Council on Social Work Education-accredited school of soc...

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Criminal justice system should be focus of reform In her letter to the editor, printed in the February 2015 issue of the NASW News, Phyllis LaVigna states that “NASW’s social action should be focused on our vulnerable population-not police reform.” Events in Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere clearly demonstrate the vulnerability of black men in the criminal justice system. A review of statistics concerning incarceration further highlights this reality. Given the vulnerability of this population, social workers have a responsibility to address all factors contributing to it and advocate for needed change. It is not only appropr...

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It’s nice to see what Mississippi is doing, and to have conversations with California. That is, from an NASW chapter standpoint, says NASW-Missouri Executive Director Tamitha Overly. Overly is chairwoman-elect of the steering committee of the NASW Council of Chapter Executives, or COCE, the collaborative group of NASW chapter executive directors. The COCE provides a support group for the directors within the association where they can talk about issues, ask questions and check in with one another, Overly says. “The COCE offers support to new and seasoned EDs, and gives them the opportunity to build off of each other’s id...

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NASW and its California Chapter, through the NASW Legal Defense Fund, filed an amicus brief in the case People v. Garcia with the California Supreme Court. The issue in the case addresses the scope of the psychotherapist-patient privilege and whether it is appropriate to require a mandatory waiver of the psychotherapist-patient privilege as a condition of probation for individuals convicted of sexual offenses. NASW supports the review and reversal of the California Court of Appeals’ decision that requires a mandatory waiver of the psychotherapist-patient privilege as a condition of probation for individuals convicted of sexual offen...

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NASW part of panel that testified at hearing of Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities A competent, respected and well-supervised child welfare workforce can impact outcomes in child welfare service delivery. This was among the suggestions expressed to the Commission to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect Fatalities at its latest public hearing, which was held in Portland, Ore., in late February. NASW member Michael Petit, former president of Every Child Matters Education Fund; and social worker Marilyn Bruguier Zimmerman, director of the National Native Children’s Trauma Center, serve on the 12-member commission,...

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NASW member Beth Gallihue doesn’t call herself a love expert, says an article in The Baltimore Sun, but she does teach the subject. Gallihue has taught a “minimester” for the past four years at Towson University in Baltimore called “The Psychology of Love and Intimacy.” The course — which Gallihue devised — is based on social psychology, the article says, and content comes from academic research and her own experiences as a licensed clinical social worker offering individual and couples counseling. “It’s a current topic and of general interest to a college population,” she says i...

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A month after receiving a terminal diagnosis because of pancreatic cancer in 2007, Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch delivered “The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams.” It was popular on YouTube, and Pausch appeared on several media platforms to deliver the lecture’s positive messages. Oncology social workers are usually part of a multidisciplinary team, providing a multitude of services to people with cancer and their families. Some of the services oncology social workers provide are guiding individuals and families through health care systems, assisting with insurance procedures and logistics, and...

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April marks the second month in NASW’s 60th anniversary celebration, and I was encouraged by colleagues and NASW staff to share a few personal reflections on how I became a social worker. I’m not sure when I first understood that there was a profession called social work. I did not know any social workers in my elementary school days, and in high school the closest related professional title I recall is “guidance counselor.” Even in college, as a premed and sociology major I was not fully aware that social work was a professional option for me. Yet, I did know that I was committed to doing something that affected t...

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Social workers who have blazed trails, challenged concepts and grown to become great mentors are among the latest inductees to the NASW Social Work Pioneers® program. Supported by the NASW Foundation, the Pioneers represent role models for future generations of social workers striving to improve society. The newest inductees are: Iris Carlton-La Ney Carlton-La Ney is a professor in the School of Social Work at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has taught social work for 36 years at three North Carolina universities. Her career has focused on issues involving African-Americans and she has contributed to the historic...

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NASW staff provided suggestions to JooYeun Chang, associate commissioner for the Children’s Bureau, during an advocate stakeholders meeting the bureau hosted in December. The bureau is seeking guidance as it begins implementing provisions of the Preventing Sex Trafficking and Strengthening Families Act, which was signed into law last year. Primarily, the law amends the title IV-E/IV-B programs with a focus on new requirements for older children in foster care and trafficking victims. Joan Levy Zlotnik, director of the NASW Social Work Policy Institute, said that there are many stipulations in the law that will require coordination...

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