A friend recently asked me whether I thought the social work profession would exist in 20 years.  My perhaps too quick answer was, “It depends on the compensation.”   By this I meant that our future is tied to both the level of social work salaries (relative to other professions and occupations) and to the many factors like organizational respect and support that also influence social worker recruitment and retention in graduate education and agency-based practice.   As the local and national economic environment figure prominently in this equation, NASW aims to increase our public image and support, and to reengage states and the federal government in investing in our future.   As this year’s theme for National Social Work Month suggests, “Help starts here.” Collectively, we must continue to assure that our value as social workers is understood, appreciated, and demonstrated through fulfilling jobs, positive work environments and competitive professional opportunities.

NASW is not a union or governmental entity with direct influence over salaries and benefits.  Nevertheless, there are initiatives we can take, relationships we can forge, actions we can stimulate to better protect, promote and create potential for the profession and for you as individual members. 

Many of NASW-NYC’s current and projected efforts are geared to bring the issue of social work working conditions to the forefront, and to take concrete, if modest, steps that social workers will recognize as meaningful to their everyday working lives.  Let us remind you of the many valuable member benefits that are here to support you.

Reducing Debt, Increasing Commitment

The February/March 2007 issue of Currents highlights the results of the first year of the one million dollar New York State Loan Forgiveness program, NASW-NYC’s number one lobbying priority.  Given the huge debt with which many social work students enter professional school, let alone graduate with as an MSW (the highest debt of any profession, according to the Public Interest Research Group), the ability to assist students to pay off educational loans is a valuable arrow in our quiver, with direct impact on social work recruitment and retention.  Effective advocacy at the State level by our lobbyists, Cynthia Dames and Lisa Reid, our vital collaboration with 1199 SEIU, and member mobilization support by our New Professionals Task Force and staffs’ savvy use of the web - all make possible our goal of a five million dollar increase for the Loan Forgiveness Program, moving from 150 to 750 social workers serving clients in shortage areas.

The article on this year’s Loan Forgiveness recipients demonstrates what aggregate statistics alone can not.  Loan Forgiveness has provided career opportunities for talented professionals serving this City’s critical human service shortage areas with the opportunity to pursue the careers they love.  It also has allowed all of us to benefit from the expertise the awardees will continue to bring to social services and the New York City community.  I congratulate them and welcome other beneficiaries to share their stories with us.

Regulatory Standards to Maintain Hospital Social Work

The Task Force on the Future of Social Work in Hospitals, chaired by Francis Gautieri, with the active participation of hospital social workers, administrators, 1199 leaders and NASW-NYC staffer Harriet Putterman, is shoring up the historic presence and function of social workers in hospitals. Following a year’s work, they are preparing testimony for a Spring 2007 City Council hearing on the necessity for enforcement of State regulations requiring social work departments.  

Although some experts believe that the future of social work in health care will be in community-based vs. institutional settings, advancing our discipline to compete in this arena - or any other - is an economic and social imperative.  It is especially important for hospital patients in desperate need of effective psychosocial intervention while in hospital facilities and to bridge their return to adequate and dignified community living.

Supporting Social Work Learning and Quality Service

The NASW-NYC Board of Directors has authorized the establishment of a work group of fellow professionals to examine the issue of support for agency-based social work practice.  This is in response to the perceived decrease in the availability of educational supervision in a broad spectrum of agencies and fields of practice.  Whatever we choose to call the process by which professionals develop expertise and judgment - and this may differ across practice areas - we know that systematic, continuous learning of role, function and method is essential for the protection of clients and the development of professional competence. 

Supervision also is a worker benefit and investment - one that prepares the professional not only for a specific job but also with transferable knowledge and skills to build a career.  Thus, the work group will examine the issues and make recommendations on models of practice support that can work in today’s hard-pressed agencies, together with what can be done to increase the availability of supervision to meet the requirements for advanced clinical licensure (the LCSW).

As the convener of the work group, I look forward to engaging a diverse group of experienced colleagues in this most challenging but central endeavor, and will keep you posted on the ideas and possibilities that emerge.

NASW-NYC - An Honest Broker

As the very wise professor of social work, Hunter College School of Social Work’s Harold Weissman, often said, the solution to one’s problems often lie outside one’s own agency or organization. 

In many ways, his advice defines NASW-NYC’s strategy, i.e., to develop our capacity and resources - and that of our members - through collaboration and problem-solving with other constituencies and organizations.  Whether it is to address the ongoing problems associated with the 2004 licensing law and regulations or to leverage City and State assistance to recruit and retain Latino and other bi-lingual, bi-cultural social work students and practitioners - we see our professional association as helping bridge the often separate worlds and interests of agencies and academia; of administrators and line workers; of policy, politics and practice. 

In this regard, we hope to encourage agencies with exemplary reputations for supporting quality social work practice to share their experiences and strategies with others.  Similarly, we will bring educators, practitioners and administrators together to develop an anticipatory model of learning about the expectations of licensing and career that begins with graduate school.  We also are collaborating with the National Network of Social Work Managers to develop a post-masters Leadership Institute to prepare social workers for human service leadership positions.  This is an essential investment not only to fill the leadership gap expected with baby-boomer retirements; but also to help social workers compete successfully with lawyers, MBA’s, nurses and other professionals for social service executive positions. 

Finally, to balance this needed focus on external conditions and entities, there is an important role that NASW-NYC must continue to play in strengthening our own body politic.  Here too we can help bridge difference and separation, whether related to institutional racism, practice area, practice method, age or the perceived social change-social service dichotomy.   Fortunately, leadership groups like the NASW-NYC Social Work Pioneers, the New Professionals Task Force, the Task Forces of Social Workers of Latino, Asian, and African Descent and many others are actively working to raise crucial issues and build constructive communication and relationships. 

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