The approaching storm and the NASW umbrella
I had lunch the other day with Max Manning of The Door, an agency that has earned its positive reputation serving high school age kids. Max told me that he would like to pursue obtaining mental health funding but most of his time needs to go into youth anti-violence programming. This is by no means a complaint on his part, he expresses a keen sense of optimism when it comes to working with youth. He told me that he feels hopeful because young people are responsive to having opportunities to discuss their issues and to learn about their options.
I felt upbeat after our conversation. So much else that's happening is downright scary and depressing, from the election of a governor who is threatening to reduce the revenues that pay for services, to the power shift in Congress. And there is our Mayor, acting more like a steamroller than a statesman, who will drag us through several more years of projected billion dollar deficits. We have every reason to be expecting a storm as each level of government moves to cut revenues, thereby increasing pressure to cut funding for services, then claiming that taxpayers will no longer tolerate paying for "failed solutions." We don't know yet just how bad the storm will be, but we must get prepared.
Many people say that there will always be a need for social and health services, and social workers will be needed to staff those services. From this perspective, the majority of people will not tolerate seeing increased suffering, there will be an increased realization that services are cost effective, and the pendulum will swing back again toward enhancing services, although in some new forms. Time will tell whether this view will be borne out, or how quickly and pervasively.
The essential question for the present is: what do we do now? I'm not referring to the big political questions that are being discussed everywhere. I'm talking about what does the social worker attempting to provide quality services and earn a living do? What does the graduating student do as s/he looks to make career decisions? What do agencies and departments do as they re-organize in the face of mounting pressures? What do the schools of social work do? And, of course, what must NASW do as the collectivity of professional social work in New York City?
At NASW we played an important role in the formation of a coalition of human service organizations that brought people out to City Hall to call attention to the mid-year budget cuts. With only seven days of organizing, over 2,500 people turned out to form a "human chain" around City Hall. The turn out, quite high by past experience, reflected the level of need. Such organizing should continue and grow. The Chapter is also holding hearings on February 27 and 28 at The Lighthouse. (See page 4 for details) so that vital information about the impact of budget cuts on services can be shared and understood, in human terms. What we call social action is an essential set of activities that must be done vigorously and with the involvement of individual members.
We also have to examine how to make the transition from inpatient services to outpatient and community based services. As managed care continues to unfold in New York City, the number of hospital beds will shrink, and personnel will shrink accordingly. The Chapter is now working closely with health care practitioners and the Society of Social Work Administrators in Health Care in order to develop a strategy for making the necessary transitions that are already unfolding.
Managed care is also affecting members in private practice, and an active Chapter group is now carving out a strategy in this area. On a related front, intensive discussions are continuing on moving from the current certification of social work to licensing, which could add needed protections for consumers and respond to what the profession requires. And members who are at the forefront of the welfare reform debate are forming a speakers bureau within the Chapter in order to counter the punitive and often bias related attacks on the poor.
The current activities at the Chapter are meaningful attempts to address serious issues. They also reflect an optimal utilization of resources, including the expertise of very knowledgeable members. But there is an imperative for the Chapter to strive to go beyond what it is doing. Just how to do this should remain an open question that we grapple with.
One idea for moving forward is "dialogue". This is a term that refers to what you can do when agreed upon solutions are not readily at hand. It requires serious interpersonal engagement, involving openness, respect, tolerance for difference of opinion, and support. Creative outcomes are the desired goal.
With this issue of Currents, we are beginning a dialogue involving the most distinguished members of our profession in New York City, the deans of the five graduate schools of social work. We must keep this dialogue going beyond the news-letter, spreading to the faculty, the agencies, their workers, and students. Anyone can get it going. It can be done everywhere. It can be done at NASW, in its existing committees, and we must explore having new forums. If through this effort we can become more cohesive, more supportive of one another, the umbrella covering the profession will become wider, stronger, more resilient, and better able to keep us from getting drenched.
I found myself pressed to find the time in a busy schedule to meet Max Manning for lunch so that we could get to know each other better. Indeed, I learned a lot about working with kids and felt a renewed inspiration for social work. He reminded me of how important it is to be open and self revealing for trust to take hold, not only for working with kids, but with each other. Perhaps this is what our initial task is all about with each other. Perhaps this is what our initial task is all about.