Social Work Month Shines Spotlight on Profession of Hope

[Kobi]

Professional Social Workers Work to Improve Lives and Communities Every Day

(WASHINGTON, DC (March 1, 2012) Today, the National Association of Social Workers kicks off a month-long celebration for one of the nation’s largest professions.

March is National Professional Social Work Month and this year’s theme “Social Work Matters” seeks to showcase the impact of more than 642,000 professional social workers in America.

“Social workers weave together the threads of society’s social safety net,” says NASW Executive Director Elizabeth J. Clark, PhD, ACSW, MPH. “As the profession of hope, we help people overcome poverty, inequality, insecurity, fear, violence, trauma, loss and pain. What social workers do and how they do it does matter to our country’s success.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, social work is one of the fastest growing professions in the country due to an increased need for health and aging related services, as well as child, family and school-based supports.

From 1931 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jane Addams to 2011 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Leymah Gbowe, social workers have been instrumental in achieving civil rights and human rights advances in the United States and across the globe for more than a century.

Although professional social workers are employed in more than 50 different fields of practice, their work in eight core service areas is the most recognized:

Adolescent and Youth Development
Aging and Family Caregiving
Child Protection and Family Services
Health Care Navigation
Mental and Behavioral Health Treatment
Military and Veterans Assistance
Nonprofit Management and Community Development
Poverty Reduction

“Social workers believe that a nation’s strength depends on the ability of the majority of its citizens to lead productive and healthy lives,” says NASW President Jeane Anastas, PhD, LMSW. “Every day, social workers help people navigate life’s toughest challenges to find hope and new options for maximum social functioning.”


Just want to acknowledge my esteemed collegues for continuing to fight the fight, especially during these difficult and challenging times. Thank you for continuing to demonstrate the perserverance, resilience, and commitment to those values we hold so deeply.

[deedarino]

Employment Resources Northwest-Non Profit/Jobs Program Partner
Department of Human Services-Children, Adults and Families (TANF Program)
Oregon Education and Training Association-Board Member

Proud Social Service Worker!

[suebee]

Retired social worker here. I've worked with intellectually handicapped adults, special needs children, family and child services, senior services and palliative care. (and probably one or two others that don't pop into mind just before I go to bed)

My career always gave me much more than I was ever able to give in so many ways. I'll never regret having chosen it, though the field has changed tremendously since I started down the road many years ago. It's largely an invisible profession, in that people often don't talk about the services they receive, and we have a strict code of confidentiality, but I'm sure of it's value to individuals and society as a whole.

Proud to have made the choice to be in the social work profession. It has only enriched my life.

Sue

[DapperButch]

Mental Health/Behavioral Health

Past - Chronically/severely Mentally ill - program manager for residential treatment programs, day treatment programs, off-site treatment services program, and provided outpatient therapy. Non profit.

Current - Outpatient Therapy, specializing with the transgender population. Non profit.

[dixie]

Former:
Nonprofit Domestic Violence Shelter Overnight Manager and Peer Counselor
Sexual Assault Group Case Manager
Victim's Advocate
Current: dual-enrollment college student, Human Services and Substance Abuse Counseling
Goal: substance abuse counseling/advocate specializing in LGBT population (community center outreach programs)

[Kobi]

Retired. Inpatient medical, oncology, neurology, emergency med, and maternal and child health. Ran HIV clinic. Supervisor of student social workers. Consultant to home care agencies and nursing homes.

Quite an array of colleagues here. Nice!

[socialjustice_fsu]

Licensed Clinical Social Worker:

Psychiatry: Inpatient adult psychiatric unit, Director; State Hospital, Administrator; State Hospital, Forensic Unit, Lead Social Worker.

Legal: Lead Social Worker, Jimmy Ryce Center - Children's Sexual Predator Center (Court committed habitual sexual predator program); Expert Witness for attorneys related to hate crime perpetrator prosecution; Group/Gang trend researcher; Expert Witness for individual compentency hearings.

Hospice: Senior Social Worker Hospice Inpatient Unit (16 bed) for patients at end of life; Certification in end-of-life conflict resolution, Veteran end-of-life issues and instructor at the corporate level for MD's and ARNP's; Graduate intern supervisor/mentor.

Social Work is a noble profession. I am so pleased I chose this career.

Kobi, thank you for this recognition.

[Kobi]

Social Work is the profession of hope—fueled by resilience and advocacy. Social Workers matter because they help millions of struggling people every day dream differently.

In the United States, more than 650,000 of these highly trained professionals know how daunting and immobilizing life’s tragedies and obstacles can be. But they also witness the sheer determination of countless individuals and families to achieve different lives. Sometimes, all it takes to help people get on the right path is guidance toward what is possible. Other times, social workers are an immediate lifeline in crisis—providing access to resources and new life options.

Those served by social workers possess many strengths that keep them fighting for a better future despite personal and systemic barriers to success. They climb toward what is possible rather than simply accepting what the current situation may be. Professional social workers help combine these client strengths with effective personal and public advocacy.

It is with these concepts in mind that NASW has announced the theme for Social Work Month 2013 as “Weaving Threads of Resilience and Advocacy: The Power of Social Work.”

A Nation’s Fabric:

Our national fabric is comprised of many diverse lives. It is vibrant and strong because it has been woven from the stories of people from every continent into a compelling narrative of struggle, renewal, and success. Each thread helps make a brilliant tapestry that continues to be the envy of the world.

Stronger Safety Nets:

Resilience and determination alone cannot overcome all crises, but weaving those strengths with targeted advocacy often can. The Social Work profession has a distinguished history of not only providing social safety nets to the most vulnerable, but also challenging systems that impede social mobility.

Positive Futures:

Stories of hope in the face of tragedy share a common theme: better times are ahead. Illness, loss, abuse, and poverty shape our lives in profound ways, but how we learn to deal with each circumstance can determine how much those experiences define our limitations—or our opportunities.
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For my often unappreciated and unacknowledged colleagues.....thank you for hanging in there. You make a difference everyday.

[DapperButch]

Thanks for acknowledging us again this year, Kobi!

I also give thanks to all the social workers. I am amazed by those who can work in social service programs such as child protection. Hospice is a difficult road, as well. I think both of those areas take very special people.

[femmeInterrupted]

Spent over a decade in the Violence Against Women sector
Then:

Woman's Advocate/Counsellor, feminist counselling, frontline:
Residential Programs Manager: 30 bed Domestic Violence Shelter for Women and Children, over saw crisis line, 2 residential shelters, Child witness programming.

Sexual Assault/Rape Crisis Centre, Manager, Co-ordination/creation of programs, crisis line management/back up, outreach and educational programming, Clinical supervision to frontline staff/counsellors.
Specialized in compassion fatigue/secondary trauma/burn out

Now:

Back at school this coming September.
Working towards a law degree.

This was just posted on my Facebook wall:

[KCBUTCH]

Thank you to all those in the helping fields, as an addiction counselor and soon to be a MA student working towards my LMFT I have found only gratitude and life lessons in my journey of service and I am grateful to know I am not the only one who is passionate about it...

[RNguy]

Love love social workers .
Extremely smart and the way they find loop holes to help clients out is brilliant!!!!!
Thank you social workers
Love,
NurseBdawg

[starryeyes]

I work in the field as an interpreter. I am able to walk in and walk out with any baggage and forget about it (or try to) while driving to my next job. I give mad kudos to all of the social workers out there. I don't know how they can do it everyday, over and over.

[odd_boi_out]

I'll be graduating with my MSW in June. Cool to see other social workers here!

[Kobi]

To my colleagues, thank you for continuing to be beacons of hope in this troubled world.

[ProfPacker]

Wow. How cool. Worked in substance abuse, trauma, Employee Assistance, adoption, inpatient and outpatient psych, directed programs for LGBTQ, program manager, adjunct teaching and now I can say I am paying it forward.

For the past four years in full time social work education. Part of team that created a Newly accredited BSSW program. We are currently getting ready to go into candidacy for NEW program and have been appointed Director of Field Education and will also continue to teach.

Respect and support for all my frontline colleagues. I love social work.

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by odd_boi_out

I'll be graduating with my MSW in June. Cool to see other social workers here!

Congrats on graduating! What kind of work did you get into?

Originally Posted by Kobi

To my colleagues, thank you for continuing to be beacons of hope in this troubled world.

Thanks, Kobi. I appreciate you bumping this thread each year!

Originally Posted by femmepacker

Wow. How cool. Worked in substance abuse, trauma, Employee Assistance, adoption, inpatient and outpatient psych, directed programs for LGBTQ, program manager, adjunct teaching and now I can say I am paying it forward.

For the past four years in full time social work education. Part of team that created a Newly accredited BSSW program. We are currently getting ready to go into candidacy for NEW program and have been appointed Director of Field Education and will also continue to teach.

Respect and support for all my frontline colleagues. I love social work.

Well, now, someone can't focus on just one thing.... ;-)

Truth be told, I would love to shift to try something else in social work, but now that I am firmly in outpatient therapy (20 years), the drop in salary would just be too great to swallow!

Don't get me wrong, I love what I do and have had an opportunity to do lots of different things in outpatient psych (run various programs for the severely mentally ill), but it would be fun to do something outside of psych (like maybe LGBT programming of some sort).

Damn mortgage!

[ProfPacker]

No, I admit, I do have ADHD. Remember, this spans 26 years. But, you don't have time for volunteer work with lbgtq centers for programming, lol. Mentate (?) on that when staring at the walls after a full day of work, lol.

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by femmepacker

No, I admit, I do have ADHD. Remember, this spans 26 years. But, you don't have time for volunteer work with lbgtq centers for programming, lol. Mentate (?) on that when staring at the walls after a full day of work, lol.

Yes. Exactly. Sometimes I think that if I was less of an "active" therapist and instead just nodded every once in a while, I would still have at least a tiny bit of mental energy by the end of the day. I could work 12 hour days running programs and not have the brain fried. Give me 8 clients in a day and I can't do much by stare at the walls at the end! You have to like hype yourself up to stay mentally sharp for that long. Hard to explain, but indeed draining.

I know I can't keep up this pace forever....but what the boss wants....you know how it goes. Quotas!

[Kobi]