NASW News

Eric Thompson should be able to sue his former employer North American Stainless for being fired in 2003 in retaliation for his then-fiancée and co-worker Miriam Relagado filing a workplace discrimination claim, NASW asserted in an amicus brief filed in September with the U.S. Supreme Court. In the matter of Thompson v. North American Stainless, lower courts ruled that anti-retaliation protections afforded by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which bans workplace discrimination, apply only to employees personally engaged in a protected activity — in this case, the filing of the workplace discrimination claim with the feder...

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NASW emphasizes the critical role of professional nursing home social work in a new practice update concerning the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ rollout of its revised assessment instrument, the Minimum Data Set version 3.0, or MDS 3.0. The update is one of four recently released by NASW. Of the other three, one is related to prescription assistance programs and two others are specific to social workers involved in child welfare. CMS-certified nursing facilities, skilled nursing facilities (SNF), swing bed hospitals (small, rural hospitals approved by CMS to provide post-acute SNF care) and nursing homes operated by th...

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The NASW Press announced it will market the NASW General Counsel Law Note series in a new and convenient paperback format. The books will benefit social workers interested in legal resources, particularly at the state level, as they relate to specific areas of practice. The first title in the series, Legal Rights of Children, is available at the NASW Press website. This particular Law Note focuses on children’s legal rights within the family context. It addresses how the legal status and age of a child affect the right to sue, the age at which children may consent to treatment, contract rights, the right to educational services and ...

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NASW member Jan Ligon has never met Lindsay Lohan, the Hollywood actress whose personal struggle with drug and alcohol addiction fills the pages of supermarket tabloids. However, the associate professor of social work at Georgia State University in Atlanta, whose research interests include mental health and substance abuse, knows a thing or two about what Lohan and her family are going through. So when CNN producers were looking for experts to contribute to a story on how to recognize drug and alcohol addiction among youth — prompted by Lohan’s recent stint in jail for violating court-ordered alcohol counseling sessions — ...

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Isabel Castillo’s residency status limits her professional opportunities in social work. Photo: Jon Styer/Eastern Mennonite University Isabel Castillo would like nothing more than to become a social worker, having graduated with a BSW from Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va., in 2007. But because she was brought to America at age 6 with her undocumented parents from Mexico, Castillo’s residency status blocks her opportunities to work in the social work profession. She is among tens of thousands of young undocumented immigrants who grew up in the U.S. and want to obtain lawful employment after receiving their edu...

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NASW’s political action committee, Political Action for Candidate Election, has endorsed 39 more candidates for the next Congress, bringing the number of incumbent endorsements for the U.S. House of Representatives to 151. The 39 additional endorsements also include five incumbent senators. In addition, PACE endorsed two House and one Senate primary challengers as well as one candidate running for an open seat in each chamber. PACE announced its final candidate endorsements Sept. 27, after this story’s deadline. This year, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 36 of the 100 Senate seats are up for grabs on Nov. 2. ...

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More than 300 people attended NASW’s second annual practice conference, “Social Work’s Critical Role in End-of-Life Care,” in Boston. “The conference was well received,” said NASW Executive Director Elizabeth J. Clark, who gave the opening address at the event. “We heard many compliments about the quality of the speakers and their topics and how well organized it turned out. We were also happy to learn we had attendees from as far away as Japan, Canada, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, and nearly 40 states were represented.” The August gathering offered the opportunity to hear from a variet...

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NASW has joined the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights in supporting efforts that ensure broadband Internet access is available to all residents. Earlier this year, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski testified at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing that the FCC’s latest national broadband plan is critical to bridging the digital divide that disproportionately affects rural communities, low-income families, minorities, seniors, tribal communities and those with disabilities. Genachowski said the plan lays out a roadmap to tackle vital inclusion challenges so that everyone can enjoy the benefits ...

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The NASW Foundation has announced six new members of its board of directors, in addition to NASW’s new president-elect, who holds a seat on the Foundation Board. The Foundation bylaws state that members include three social workers and three non-social workers. The three social work members are: Elvira Craig de Silva, a former NASW president and Foundation Board member as well as a Social Work Pioneer®. She is the associate dean of the Communication Skills, Social Sciences and Foreign Languages Department at Waukesha County Technical College in Pewaukee, Wis. Her term expires in 2013. Social Work Pioneer® Bernic...

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From the President We became social workers in an effort to help others. We chose this helping profession because we thought serving others was a cause worthy enough to devote our careers to it. However, unlike many other helping professionals, social workers often must put themselves in harm’s way in order to help their clients. We became social workers with full understanding that we would work with vulnerable and at-risk populations, and as such could be faced with difficult and even dangerous challenges. Our clients may be court-ordered to receive our services, suffering from poverty, or angry about their situation. Social worker...

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