NASW News

Phyllis Solomon, a researcher and professor at the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, received the Distinguished Career Achievement Award at the 18th Annual Society for Social Work and Research conference in January. According to the school, Solomon has spent a lifetime dedicated to researching adults with severe mental illness and their families. As an expert in mental health service delivery issues and psychiatric rehabilitation, her research has highlighted the effectiveness of family interventions and peer-provided services, as well as the intersection of criminal justice and mental health services....

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Two social workers have been selected to serve on the advisory committee for the U.S. Attorney General’s Task Force on American Indian and Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence. The social workers are Eddie Brown, executive director of the American Indian Policy Institute and professor of American Indian Studies and School of Social Work at Arizona State University; and Marilyn Bruguier Zimmerman, director of the National Native Children’s Trauma Center at the University of Montana. Attorney General Eric Holder said the task force is part of his Defending Childhood Initiative, a project that addresses the epidemic levels of...

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Lori Watsen, left, poses with her wife, Sharene, and their son, Conley. The Watsens are one of four lesbian couples involved in a lawsuit against the state of Idaho regarding its ban on same-sex marriage. NASW member Lori Watsen and her wife, Sharene, are one of four lesbian couples in Idaho suing the state over its same-sex marriage ban. The Watsens were married legally in New York, but Idaho has a constitutional amendment that bans any recognition of a same-sex marriage. Same-sex married couples living in a state that does not recognize the marriage often are not entitled to the same benefits as other married couples, including joining ...

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Hawaii Department of Health Director Loretta Fuddy, an NASW member for more than 40 years, died shortly after a plane crash late last year off the Hawaiian island of Molokai. The pilot of the Makani Kai Cessna Grand Caravan made an emergency water landing after the single engine failed. All nine passengers, including 65-year-old Fuddy, made it out of the plane and into the water. According to news reports, Fuddy suffered a cardiac arrhythmia while waiting for rescuers, and she was ultimately the only fatality of the crash. NASW Hawaii Chapter Executive Director Marty Oliphant said the chapter worked with Fuddy on numerous projects and co...

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SOAR helps homeless vets regardless of discharge type. I am writing in response to Esther Grace Gilbert’s letter to the editor in the January 2014 issue of NASW News. A national program called SOAR (SSI/SSDI Outreach, Access and Recovery) can assist veterans, including those with less than honorable discharges who have disabilities, to access expedited Social Security Disability Benefits (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Social Security does not consider type of military discharge in its eligibility for such benefits; the issue is income and disability. SOAR is a program that focuses on adults (including veterans) who ...

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Social worker and New York Times best-selling author Brené Brown is known for helping people transform their feelings of vulnerability into acts of courage. As the latest keynote speaker announced for the NASW national conference —“Social Work: Courage, Hope & Leadership,” taking place in Washington, D.C., July 23-26 — Brown plans to present “Daring Greatly: Social Work and The Call to Show Up, Be Seen and Live Brave.” Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work and a columnist for O, The Oprah Magazine. She is a distinguished scholar who tackles t...

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Photo right, from left: Finley Drewery and Cashla Massey, students from North Carolina’s Livingstone College’s Social Work Forensic Interviewing Class, visit with North Carolina State Rep. Elmer Floyd of the 43rd District during Social Work Month last year. Eighty students from the small, rural college attended the Lobby Day event hosted by the NASW North Carolina Chapter. Social worker Deona Hooper has special plans for this month, also known as National Professional Social Work Month, where this year’s theme is All People Matter. Hooper, who is the founder and editor-in-chief of www.socialworkhelper.com, is planning to...

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Carla Damron, executive director of NASW’s South Carolina Chapter, wrote an article for South Carolina’s The State newspaper about the importance of having licensed social workers on staff to help clients with mental health issues at the new emergency shelter in Columbia, S.C. The city provides funding to keep the shelter running, but not enough to keep trained social workers on staff. She said this lack of professional staffing could cause the city more expense later on. “Licensed professionals could provide case management and oversight, coordinate with vocational specialists in the community to expand the range of wor...

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Licensed Clinical Social Worker Camielle Call knows how daunting it can be to keep up with the changes in claim procedures that are taking place this year for those in her profession. But she and other clinical social workers said thoroughly educating oneself on the revisions will make adapting to them much easier. The claims and reimbursement processes that are changing include a revised CMS-1500 form; the International Classification of Diseases, 10th Edition, Clinical Modification (ICD-10-CM); the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5); and requirements to file quality measures from the Physician Qua...

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Because all people matter “Every man is our brother, and every man’s burden is our own. Where poverty exists, all are poorer. Where hate flourishes, all are corrupted. Where injustice reigns, all are unequal.” — Whitney M. Young During the 1960s, Whitney M. Young, as president of the National Urban League, brought a new thrust to social welfare by helping identify and solve urban community problems, working to prepare high school dropouts for college, helping to get black workers into jobs previously preserved for whites, pushing for federal aid to cities, proposing racial integration of corporate workplaces, an...

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