NASW News

NASW member Susan Stone is as an adjunct assistant professor at the Silver School of Social Work at New York University. But a passion of hers is helping facilitate an animal hospital pet bereavement group. She also runs a website, petlosshelp.org, and blog about pet bereavement. She was quoted in a story at GoErie.com about ways to approach pet euthanasia and coping with pet loss. Stone said pet owners have to know that to euthanize a suffering animal is an act of love. Susan Stone “Humans delay the decision out of their own grief,” she was quoted saying. “You have to bear this to give that animal that ...

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Imagine yourself leaving home to go to work every day thinking “Will this be the last time I see my house? Will this be the last time I see my family?” One young woman in her 20s has worked two jobs for the last 10 years as the main breadwinner for her family of five. She soon will graduate from college. Her whole life is here in the U.S. Now she fears being sent away, sent to somewhere she does not know, from the only place she knows as home. There are many life-impacting stories like this one. They are common because there are 800,000 young people like her, all members of the group brought here as children and promised they co...

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From the President Harvey, Irma and Maria — the hurricanes that recently brought such devastation to so many — will fade from regular news coverage while the survivors struggle to recover. Life will not be the same for many, and especially not for the least advantaged.  I am focusing this column on environmental justice and our role as social workers in fighting for it.   In exploring the concept of environmental justice, I consulted the United States EPA website and found a definition: Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national or...

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Two NASW members were quoted in a Montana Public Radio segment about a PTSD treatment program at the Missoula County Attorney’s office. Andrew Laue is the Missoula clinical social worker hired by the county attorney’s office to help design the secondary trauma program that aids prosecutors. “Our best workers are the ones who are most susceptible to secondary trauma,” Laue was quoted saying. “They’re utilizing themselves in such an open and responsive and effective way to support their client. In doing that they’re receiving the client’s experience deeply in the fiber of their own body, emo...

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A 4-year-old boy was brought into a North Carolina hospital emergency room in August after his mother’s boyfriend picked him up by his legs and threw him across the room. He told his grandmother, “Mommy didn’t protect me.” Family violence happens every day in every state, and it affects people in every stage of life, from infants to the elderly. “There is no area of practice that domestic violence doesn’t intersect with,” said Tricia Bent-Goodley, a professor at the Howard University School of Social Work in Washington, D.C., where she is director of the Interpersonal Violence Prevention Program. T...

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More members only content in this month's edition: Opioid crisis leads to a shortage of social workers Changes in store for Medicare ID cards Social worker nun starts home for sex-trafficked survivors Film shows care worker-client relationships NASW members, read the full digital edition of the October 2017 NASW News.  

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From the CEO — Angelo McClain, Ph.D., LICSW Recently, I’ve found myself thinking about social work leadership and its importance in building a more humane, just and peaceful society. I’ve wondered about what motivates some social workers to fully embrace leadership and others (many others) to consciously decide to leave leadership alone. I know many social workers tend to shy away from talking about themselves and prefer a quiet, effective exercise of leadership without flash or ostentation. They prefer to employ a solid and more humble and collaborative approach rather than embodying vociferous or extroverted charismat...

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Learning to harness technology for social good Melanie Sage is part of a suicide special interest group that meets on Twitter, where she said “the medium helps get us out of our silos and see problems from multiple perspectives.” In 2014, Stephanie Berzin was given a Teaching with New Media Award by Boston College for outstanding uses of technology in teaching for using the Canvas learning management program. She said she “used it with expanded functionality including photos, videos, discussions and online activities,” and it made better use of time between classes. Jonathan B. Singer started the Social Work P...

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Helping children and expectant mothers is a passion for NASW member Christina Malu, says an article published in The Camp Lejeune Globe, which is based in Jacksonville, N.C. “I am blessed to serve as the Family and Community Partnership, mental health coordinator for the Early Head Start home-based program,” said Malu, whose role is to collaborate with EHS parents and staff to develop and implement family and community partnerships through outreach activities. The EHS is a federally funded program designed to serve families with low income and expectant women in the community, the article explains. Malu retired from the U.S...

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More members only content in this month's edition: Virtual meeting draws hundreds Teens study Jane Addams for history competition Delegate Assembly finalizes priorities Experts: No amount of alcohol safe during pregnancy NASW members, read the full digital edition of the September 2017 NASW News.

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