As we take a break for #selfcare (vacations, retreats and other adventures), please enjoy transcripts of past chats from our archives.
We’ll be back September 7th with chat partner @laurelhitchcock and new chat contributor @alyssalotmore.
Learn how you can become a contributor or a new chat partner here.
The Storify archive of this chat can be found here.
Reduce, Reuse, Recyle.
Think globally, act locally.
Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without. (New England proverb)
More than slogans are needed to reverse the alarming rate of environmental degradation we are experiencing. Social workers are part of this reclamation; indeed, we have the ethical obligation to do so: “Fundamental to social work is attention to the environmental forces that create, contribute to, and address problems in living.” The authors of the NASW Code of Ethics may originally have had a human environment in mind, rather than the broader one of earth, air, water and non-human life forms, but 21st century conditions means we must enlarge our definition of environment.
Environmental justice is needed to redress the racism, economic and gender discrimination that combine to provide a safe, clean environment to only to a certain segments of the world’s population.
The United Nations defines sustainability as what meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This is a concept that many Indigenous Peoples have as a principle.
In Sustainability, human rights, and environmental justice: Critical connections for contemporary social work, Professor Catherine A. Hawkins of Texas State University explains:
“[Social workers] need to pay more attention to the critical role of the physical environment…The important connections between social work, sustainability, human rights, and environmental justice in our contemporary world need to be more clearly articulated… for the profession to effectively pursue the goal of making the world a more just, humane, and sustainable home for all life.”
The focus of this chat will look at how we advance environmental justice and develop sustainability as a constant in our social work practice. #MacroSW chat partner Pat Shelly from the University at Buffalo School of Social Work @ubssw will host.
Questions for discussion:
Resources:
(This is adapted from the April 22, 2017 post SocialWorkSynergy.)
Poster: National Association of Social Workers
(archive of this chat here)
March is Social Work Month, a time to “educate the public about the contributions of social workers and give social workers and their allies tools they can use to elevate the profession,” according to the National Association of Social Workers (NASW). “Social workers stand up for millions of people every day. These include people who are experiencing devastating illnesses and mental health crises, our veterans, children, families and communities. Yet many people still misunderstand who social workers are and the invaluable contributions they bring to society…Social workers are trained to look at situations in a holistic way. They help people increase their ability to solve problems, to cope with stressors and to get needed resources. Social workers bring individuals together with other people and their communities to find solutions for problems that continue to plague our society, including hunger, lack of affordable housing, and equal rights for all. And social workers make organizations responsible to people through sound social policy.”
Every year, Social Work Month highlights resources and information that can lead to policy, laws and legislation that serve to increase social justice and advance the social work profession. It was established in 1963.
World Social Work Day is celebrated on the first day of Spring, March 21st.
Join the #MacroSW chat this Thursday, March 16, with host Pat Shelly from @UBSSW, as all kinds of social work organizations, practitioners, agencies, legislators, schools and students share ideas and actions that help celebrate our profession in all its aspects. We’re pleased to have Greg Wright of @NASW on the chat too!
Discussion questions:
And…
~Please share media – news, movies, books – that feature social workers~
The New Social Worker Online magazine has many articles, art and poetry by social workers in its special Social Work Month Project 2017 series.
Here is an annotated list of novels about social workers from 2015. Titles: All Our Names (2014); The Believers (2010); Fourth of July Creek (2014); The Interestings (2014); The Social Worker (2011); Unprotected (2012). And let’s add PUSH by Sapphire (1997).
Resources:
Green, Adrienne. (2016. August 11). From social worker to foster parent and back. The Atlantic. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/social-worker/495533/
International Federation of Social Workers. (n.d.) Global definition of social work. Retrieved from http://ifsw.org/get-involved/global-definition-of-social-work/
Lewis, C.E. Jr. (2017 March). Young social workers should be preparing for the future. The New Social Worker. Retrieved from http://www.socialworker.com/extras/social-work-month-2017/young-social-workers-should-be-preparing-for-the-future/
National Association of Social Workers. (n.d.) Social Work Month 2017. Retrieved from http://www.socialworkers.org/pressroom/swmonth/2017/default.asp
New Social Worker (2017 March). Social Work Month 2017. [Blog posts].Retrieved from: http://www.socialworker.com/topics/social-work-month-2017/
Social Work Licensing Map (n.d.) [Social worker’s salary guide] [Infographic]. Retrieved from https://socialworklicensemap.com/social-worker-salary/
Zimmerman, E. (2017, March 12). Social workers help many people. Sun Herald. Retrieved from http://www.sunherald.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/article137497983.html
Here’s the archive of this twitter chat.
Why do social workers need to know about the opioid epidemic?
Join us on Thursday, February 9, 2017 at 9 pm EST, 8 pm CST, and 6 pm PST as we look at the epidemic of overdose deaths in the U.S. caused by use of opioids. We’ll discuss current stats, contributing factors, and evidence-based treatment and prevention practices. The host is Pat Shelly from @UBSSW – she’ll be on the @OfficialMacroSW handle.
Our guest expert is Charles Syms, from the School of Social Work at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, using the @UBSSW handle.
Charles Syms, LCSW/ACSW, is a clinical associate professor who has been a faculty member in the University at Buffalo’s School of Social Work since 1998. A past National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) Minority Research Fellow, Professor Syms’s current teaching and research interests include the treatment of individuals with substance use disorders, particularly the impact of alcohol and other drugs on people with mental health problems and those involved with child welfare system. He works to extend this education into the on-line environment.
Professor Syms has over 35 years of professional social work practice. He received his MSW in 1979 from California State University – Sacramento. His experience includes work in child welfare, domestic violence, forensic mental health and substance use disorders. He has held numerous positions, including child protection worker, child protection clinical consultant, prison psychiatric social worker, supervisor on an in-patient chemical dependency unit, domestic violence specialist and group leader, child welfare program director, and a leadership role in coordinating two community-based, university/public school collaborative violence prevention projects. Additionally, Professor Syms shares his experience and expertise as a member of agency-based and professional advisory boards at the local, state and national levels.
Here are some questions we will discuss this week:
Resources:
“Let’s quit abusing drug abusers” by Carl Hart (19 min. video) http://www.tedmed.com/talks/show?id=309156
Understanding the epidemic: https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/epidemic/
Treatment Overview: https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/effective-treatments-opioid-addiction/effective-treatments-opioid-addiction
Prevention: The IPP model. https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/opioids/odprevention.html
Safe injection spaces: http://www.drugpolicy.org/news/2015/08/tuesday-new-film-documents-public-injection-drug-use-new-york-calls-supervised-injectio
Inside North America’s Only Legal Safe Injection Facility: http://bit.ly/2ke4B1h
Look for the archive of all tweets from this chat that will be posted the following day on February 10.
New to Twitter chats? Here is a great guide: “How to Participate in a Live Twitter Chat – Tips for Social Workers” by our partner, Laurel Iverson Hitchcock.
About #MacroSW:
#MacroSW is a collaboration of social workers, organizations, social work schools, and individuals working to promote macro social work practice. Macro social work practice focuses on changing larger systems, such as communities and organizations. It encompasses a broad spectrum of actions and ideas, ranging from community organizing and education to legislative advocacy and policy analysis. The chats are held weekly on Twitter every Thursday at 9 p.m. EST (6 p.m. PST).
-Click here for a list of chat partners.
-For the #MacroSW Chat Schedule, Recent Posts, and all chat Archives – See the column on the right side of our home page: http://macrosw.com
Here’s the archive of this chat.
Results are in; the winner of the US Presidential Election has been announced. The #MacroSW partners want to let everyone know that we will not assume we know how our colleagues / students / chat participants voted. #MacroSW chat will remain non-partisan in our role as the facilitator of these gloriously wide-ranging, informative, and stimulating chats. We plan on this chat being- as we hope all our chats are – trauma-informed.* We do expect people to be expressing feelings and opinions, with comments made in a safe and respectful way in line with the Code of Ethics and the history of macro social work.** Host Pat Shelly from @UBSSW will be using the @officialmacrosw handle to further align in a neutral position.
Votes will be in and counted; the political ads will disappear. How will you recover from this election season? Or do you want to talk about ANYTHING BUT the impact of the election?
Join us for this open mic:
Host: Pat Shelly @UBSSW University at Buffalo School of Social Work
We hope to have some fun, and offer ideas and resources for election season recovery! And – in case you are worried that your stress level will get too low – we might talk about how to prepare for the November/December holidays and the often fraught family time they engender. The open mic means you can introduce whatever else is on your mind.
*6 Key Principles of a Trauma-Informed Approach:
** “Macro social work practice includes those activities performed in organizational, community, and policy arenas. Macro practice has a diverse history that reveals conflicting ideologies and multiple theoretical perspectives (emphasis added).Programmatic, organizational, community, and policy dimensions of macro practice underscore the social work profession’s emphasis on using a person-in-environment perspective. Thus, social workers, regardless of roles played, are expected to have sensitivity toward and engage in macro practice activities.”
Netting. F.E. (2013). Macro Social Work Practice in Encyclopedia of Social Work 20th Edition. Retrieved from http://socialwork.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199975839.001.0001/acrefore-9780199975839-e-230
Resources:
To put things in perspective, here’s a satirical piece from the digital humor magazine The Onion:
ELECTION 2016: Nation Admits It’s Probably Going to Come Out of This Having Learned the Completely Wrong Lesson
And some bona fide research:
These elections are having an impact on the nation’s mental health:
Talking to Your Therapist About Election Anxiety : “‘I’ve been in private practice for 30 years, and I have never seen patients have such strong reactions to an election,’ said Sue Elias, a licensed clinical social worker in Manhattan.”
A report by the American Psychological Society shows that the 2016 elections were a source of stress for 52% of Americans surveyed:
Stress in America: U.S. Presidential Election 2016
Join Kristin Battista-Frazee for this chat on action leading up to the November 8th elections. What’s happening your area? What is the social work profession doing to inform our constituencies (everyone, that is!) on issues, voting rights, and more?
9PM EST/ 8 PM CT/ 6 PM PT
Resources:
A Dream Undone: Disenfranchised
Rutenberg, J. (2015, July 29). A Dream Undone: Disenfranchised. The New York Times Magazine, p MM 30. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/29/magazine/voting-rights-act-dream-undone.html *
* The Nancy A. Humphreys Institute for Political Social Work says: “Every social worker should read this article on the history of the voting rights act and the decades long (sic) efforts to undo it.”
Wilson, M.H. (2016 ). Social Justice Brief (Voting Rights Update). Washington, D.C.: National Association of Social Workers.
by Patricia Shelly
(Here is the archive of all the tweets from this chat)
What does healthy aging and productivity look like in the 21st century? Baby boomers are retiring later, millennials are starting families and technology continuously offers new ways to delegate tasks.
One Grand Challenges for Social Work paper explained the trends as follows:
“Increased automation and longevity demand new thinking by employers and employees regarding productivity. Young people are increasingly disconnected from education or work and the labor force faces significant retirements in the next decades. Throughout the lifespan, fuller engagement in education and paid and unpaid productive activities can generate a wealth of benefits, including better health and well-being, greater financial security, and a more vital society.”
The challenge of reshaping social expectations, institutions, policies, and programs so we can benefit from the older population and its growing social capital is more important than ever.
Join us on Thursday, October 6, 2016, at 9pm ET, 8pm CT and 6pm PT:
We’ll chat about how ways to increase ongoing engagement with and productivity by our older Americans.
Hosts:
Pat Shelly, University at Buffalo School of Social Work @UBSSW
Mikhail Bell, representing the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare @AASWSW
Questions for Discussion:
RESOURCES
About #MacroSW:
#MacroSW is a collaboration of social workers, organizations, social work schools, and individuals working to promote macro social work practice. Macro social work practice focuses on changing larger systems, such as communities and organizations. It encompasses a broad spectrum of actions and ideas, ranging from community organizing and education to legislative advocacy and policy analysis. The chats are held weekly on Twitter every Thursday at 9 p.m. EST (6 p.m. PST). Click here for a list of chat partners. For information about how to participate in the #MacroSW chat, view our FAQs. For chat schedule and chat archives check out: http://macrosw.com.
Here’s a link to the trailer for “The Mask You Live In.” This documentary on the American “boy crisis” explains how to raise a healthier generation of men and features interviews with experts and academics. What does it mean to be a man? American society might be pushing a masculinity on our boys that destroys them.
The 91 minute film is available for viewing on Netflix.
by Laurel Hitchcock
Read the Storify summary of this chat here – our “biggest” chat ever!
Also, here is another version of the transcript with stats from Symplur.
(Note: The post that is reblogged below is by Laurel Hitchcock. Laurel is one of the nine #MacroSW partners who rotate as host of our weekly Twitter chats. Her blog post below is a good introduction to our July 14 chat, hosted by @ubssw and @officialmacrosw. We find it especially useful due to her use of a specific example – one of the standards on social work education – and the NASW interpretation of the ethical use of technology. This example underscores the importance of feedback to NASW on the draft for these standards.
The task force that wrote this draft of the standards includes the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE), Clinical Social Work Association (CSWA), and the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB). This is the first update on Technology Standards since 2005.
Please join us for the July 14th chat. Your comments and tweets will be included in the comments that our #MacroSW Chat group submits to NASW before the deadline on the 20th.)
The following is reblogged from http://www.laureliversonhitchcock.org/
I am so pleased that the draft Technology Standards for Social Work Practice have been released for public review. NASW, CSWE, CSWA, and ASWB developed a task force to collaboratively draft these technology standards, which you can access the draft standards here.
I am working with several groups to provide comments to the task force and, I also plan to submit my own comments. Once adopted, these standards will be considered a model for best practice in social work. Given the important legal and ethical role that practice standards have in the professional lives of social workers, I believe it is essential to offer constructive and timely feedback on this document. I want to encourage everyone in the social work community to review and submit their feedback. You do not need to be a member of any group to offer feedback. The timeline is short for submitting comments – the one-month comment period closes July 20th.
Here are some highlights about the document. The draft standards and their interpretations are 82 pages. If you do not want to read 82 pages, you may want to know that these standards cover the following:
Overall, I applaud the effort to revise standards that are over a decade old and no longer relevant to many forms of technology commonly used by social workers in their professional lives. It is a challenging task to write effective and informative standards that will help social workers navigate the use of technology in practice with the fast pace of change in digital and social technologies. A definite strength of the committee’s work is that the standards strongly reflect the NASW Code of Ethics, with multiple references to the Code throughout the standards.
However, these standards are also very specific, providing detailed directions on how social workers should use technology in an ethical and professional manner. For example, under Standard 5.10: Educator-Student Boundaries, the interpretation of the standard recommend that “to maintain appropriate boundaries with students, social work educators should avoid the use of personal technological devices and accounts for professional (educational) purposes.” As a social work educator, I agree that all educators should maintain appropriate ethical and professional boundaries with students and colleagues, but I should have the choice and autonomy in how I establish and maintain those boundaries. I’d like to see the evidence that using my personal smart phone to answer calls or texts from students violates an ethical boundary. In fact, I believe it makes me more accessible to my students. I started using text messaging with students many years ago, after working for a semester with a student who had a hearing disability. Texting was easier for the student to ask me questions, and allowed us to communicate outside of class without an interpreter. As a result of this experience, I developed guidelines for texting with students which I still follow today.
Further, many of the standards address the use of technology in practice settings without recognizing the parallel situations such as the “in-person” equivalent or the use of more commonplace technology. Considering Standard 5.10 as described above, this would suggest that social work educators should never give out their home phone to students or call students from their home phones. Further, this interpretation would suggest that educators not answer emails or access their institution’s learning management system from a home or personal computer or tablet. All of these options are impractical to me, and would result in an undue burden for the educator, especially adjunct educators who often use personal technology to communicate with students.
I would like to see these standards modified to offer practical, clear, and realistic guidelines that can be adopted and operationalized by both social workers and social service agencies across all practice settings. One of the groups I am working with to write group feedback has drafted this statement, which I believe provides an ideal general recommendation for how the draft standards can be re-framed:
The guidance provided by these technology standards should support aspirational goals related to technology use in our profession (including access, innovation, and consumer protection and voice), and encourage thoughtful and professional judgment related to technology use, while not directly specifying how one should carry out their use of technology in social work practice. To do so, limits innovation and will cause those who already practice outside the scope of these standards (or will in the near future as these standards become dated) to seek identity alignment outside of social work.
While you may agree or disagree with my interpretation of the draft standards, I urge you to read through the standards and give your feedback. This is your opportunity to join the conversation and give back to your professional community.
If you are interested in working with a group to provide feedback, here are two options:
Here are the details about how and when to submit your individual feedback:
TECHNOLOGY STANDARDS IN SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE – Draft released on 6/20/16
Description from NASW: The draft Technology Standards in Social Work Practice were developed jointly by the National Association of Social Workers, Association of Social Work Boards, Council on Social Work Education, and the Clinical Social Work Association to create a uniform set of practice guidelines for professional social workers who incorporate technology into their services. The draft standards were developed by a task force comprised of representatives from each of these social work organizations.
Request from NASW:
Your comments and feedback are requested to help make the technology standards a model best practice document for social workers. Please consider the following questions as you review the standards:
Submit your comments no later than July 20, 2016. Comments regarding the content of the draft standards are preferred rather than edits.
Here are two additional questions specific to the July 14th #MacroSW Twitter Chat:
Addendum: This is the link to the Storify version of the tweets from this chat: https://storify.com/UBSSW/technology-standards-in-social-work-practice-give-
In the wake of the Orlando shooting (we will use #PulseOrlando as our hashtag for this chat), we feel heartache, sadness and anger. We may be left wondering why this happened and how we can prevent future tragedies. The details of the shooting and the stories of survival and loss after #PulseOrlando reveal some of the most complex social problems of our era: homophobia, racism, hate crimes and gun violence.
(Read the edited archive of this chat here)
Join us on Thursday, June 23 at 9 pm EST / 8 pm CT / 6 pm PT for an open mic chat to share thoughts, further our understanding and explore solutions for building a safer and more tolerant body politic.
The Orlando shooting shows once again how LGBTQ people are more likely to be a target of a hate crime; the intersections of race, gender and sexuality; the consequences of easy access to guns; internet influence on domestic terrorism; and the vilification of Islam in the US. Trauma-informed care will be of utmost importance and advocacy in this election year, spearheaded by macro practitioners and many others, will shape our national response to these issues. Our coordinated approach as a profession is crucial.
Some questions to guide the discussion:
Resources: (another resource list – an Orlando Syllabus for Social Workers – is posted below )
#PulseOrlandoSyllabus – Extensive resources crowdsourced and collected by librarians
Park, H. and Mykhyalyshyn, I. 2016 (June 16). L.G.B.T. People Are More Likely to Be Targets of Hate Crimes Than Any Other Minority Group. New York Times. Retrieved from: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/06/16/us/hate-crimes-against-lgbt.html?_r=1
Note: Many tweets about #PulseOrlando use “Latinx” instead of Latina/o. Why?
“The ‘x’ makes Latino, a masculine identifier, gender-neutral. It also moves beyond Latin@ – which has been used in the past to include both masculine and feminine identities – to encompass genders outside of that limiting man-woman binary.
Latinx, pronounced ‘La-teen-ex,’ includes the numerous people of Latin American descent whose gender identities fluctuate along different points of the spectrum, from agender or nonbinary to gender non-conforming, genderqueer and genderfluid.”
http://www.latina.com/lifestyle/our-issues/why-we-say-latinx-trans-gender-non-conforming-people-explain
AN ORLANDO SYLLABUS FOR SOCIAL WORKERS
Much has been written in the media regarding the massacre that took place in Orlando on June 11th. Politicians, pundits and other talking heads have discussed the motives of the attacker, the morals of those that were injured or killed, and of course, they have talked about gun control.
Hate Crimes
About #MacroSW:
#MacroSW is a collaboration of social workers, organizations, social work schools, and individuals working to promote macro social work practice. Macro social work practice focuses on changing larger systems, such as communities and organizations. It encompasses a broad spectrum of actions and ideas, ranging from community organizing and education to legislative advocacy and policy analysis. The chats are held weekly on Twitter every Thursday at 9 p.m. EST (6 p.m. PST). Click here for a list of chat partners. For information about how to participate in the #MacroSW chat, view our FAQs. For chat schedule and chat archives check out: http://macrosw.com
