Editor's Eye

Hello --

 

 

 

Until next time,

Linda Grobman, ACSW, LSW

Publisher/Editor

THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER®

 

 

 

 

 

 

March is Social Work Month!

 

This is our fourth year to feature a Social Work Month series on THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER’s website. This year, we are calling it Social Work Project 2016! I am extremely excited about this year’s project. We received many submissions from social work practitioners, students, and educators, including leaders in our profession. The entries that were chosen for publication on our site this month reflect the diversity and talents of a wide variety of social workers and future social workers. My purpose in hosting this series each year is to honor and highlight the diverse work social workers do, celebrate the many talents of social workers and social work students, and provide an opportunity for creative expression.

 

The project starts TODAY! Each day during the month of March, we will publish one or more Social Work Month Project entries. They include essays, poetry, artwork, videos, music, and a few other surprises! You can follow the project on our Facebook page, Twitter, or by going to http://www.socialworker.com/extras/social-work-month-project-2016 each day. Follow our Instagram account (@newsocialworker) for some fun items!

 

We are starting out the month with a call to action by one of our profession’s leaders, Darla Spence Coffey, president and CEO of the Council on Social Work Education. Last year, she wrote a thought-provoking essay, Comfort the “Disturbed” and “Disturb” the Comfortable. For this year, she has written about the new Grand Challenges Initiative for Social Work. See excerpt below.

 

In addition, we are publishing an essay today by Tiffany Thompson, MSW, entitled Keeping It Light: Humor in Social Work Education and Practice. We can all use a little of that, right? It’s important for our self-care.

 

We have a lot more in store for the Social Work Month Project 2016! So, I will be sending you another e-newsletter in about two weeks to update you on how it’s going.

 

Bonus: Check out recent posts from our Real World Clinical Social Work Blog by Danna Bodenheimer:

 

 

Check out NASW’s Social Work Month activities! This year’s theme, announced by the National Association of Social Workers, is “Social Work: Forging Solutions Out of Challenges.” Indeed, social workers do just that every day of the week, every week and every month of the year. But National Social Work Month is a special time to focus attention on all that professional social workers do, both to recognize the important work of social workers and to educate the public about all the ways in which social workers help forge solutions for individuals, families, groups, organizations, and society as a whole.

 

• National Social Work Month
• Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month
• National Kidney Month
• Problem Gambling Awareness Month
• Women’s History Month

• School Social Work Week—March 6-12
• Social Work Management Week—March 7-11
• Ontario Association of Social Workers (OASW) Social Work Week—March 7-13

• World Social Work Day (March 15, 2016)

 

 

 

 

It is such an exciting time to be a social worker! It should be no surprise that social work is one of the fastest growing professions in the United States. Although one of the challenges of our profession continues to be good public understanding of what we do, it is a challenge born of our strength.  Social workers defy easy categorization because we work within and across different systems, in a variety of roles, with people across the lifespan and in various communities.  We are direct service providers that understand and affect policy.  We are policy makers that understand the biopsychosocial dynamics of individuals and families.  How can we be all of those things? The common denominator that ties these activities together is our most important role, that of being change agents.  

 

The recent launch of The Grand Challenge Initiative by the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare (http://aaswsw.org/) has great promise for social work for (at least) two very compelling reasons: 1) to communicate to the world what social workers do, and 2) to bring an army of allies in to the profession who want to make a big impact on the world. 

 

So what are the Grand Challenges?

 

The Grand Challenges for Social Work are designed to focus a world of thought and action on the most compelling and critical social issues of our day.  Each grand challenge is a broad but discrete concept where social work expertise and leadership can be brought to bear on bold new ideas, scientific exploration, and surprising innovations.

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes when I am sitting with clients, I picture where in their brains I can land a question. I know that sounds strange, but it’s true. There are questions, mostly related to cognition, that keep clients located in their frontal lobe. There are also questions, most related to affect, that move clients more deeply into the hypothalamus (the location for flight or fight tendencies) or into their bodies. It isn’t exactly that I privilege one location over another. Instead, it is that it is worth understanding the neurobiological AND interpersonal impact of the questions that we craft.

 

As clinical social workers, our most frequent go-to intervention is to ask questions. We can talk about validation, normalization, reflective listening, and the tendency to use these techniques, but the fact is that the majority of what we say takes the form of inquiry. It is an awesome reality we have a shared interest in demonstrating authentic curiosity about our clients' lives. On the other hand, it is striking that we don’t talk more about how to craft questions and the significance of the process of seeking more information from our clients.

 

Thinking about questions as tools that have an impact on the pacing of a session and that deepen self-exploration informs the crafting of what we see. The first thing that I consider when I ask a question is whether or not I am seeking to down or up regulate a client. What I mean by this is that there are times in a meeting or session when a client can seem particularly deadened or disengaged. It is at moments like this that I will create a question that ideally will up regulate the client, or bring the client into the room, back to life. For example, simply asking, “What are you feeling in this exact second?” can accomplish this. You can also say, “Can you tell me where you are right now?” Notice, of course, the words “can you.” The reason why I pad the question like that is that it gives the client a protective barrier between them, me, and the intensity of the question. I am not directly saying: “Tell me where you are right now.” There is a way in which that can be experienced as intrusive and aggressive. In the work of up regulating, it is often quite hard to also remain respectful of boundaries and sensitive psychological processes. But it can be done.

 

To down regulate, to calm a client, I will often ask questions that might move them away from overwhelming affect. Although overwhelming affect is often a gift and essential to a client’s work, it does not often help for a client to feel completely awash in intense emotion as a session nears the end. It is our responsibility, in many ways, to prepare our clients for re-entry into the world following the intimacy of our exchanges. These questions, for me, include, “What do you plan on doing after this?” or simply, “What are you thinking about as we wrap up?” The reason I would use the word “thinking” is that cognition can often stabilize someone’s emotional state. If you move someone into the frontal lobe, with a question more directed toward that part of the brain, the hypothalamus can calm and soothe itself.

 

 

What does a life in social work look like? You might look at it as a series of “sideways” stories! “If life were black and white, we’d have no need for social work.” Read Ogden Rogers’ collection, Beginnings, Middles, & Ends: Sideways Stories on the Art & Soul of Social Work. Available on Amazon.com (print and Kindle), Google Play (e-book), directly from the publisher, and other bookstores. Do you know a social worker or social work student who loves to read? This book is a welcome retreat from academic textbooks.

 

Job Corner

• Yearly Merit Increase
• LICSW supervision available
• 403b
• 2 Weeks Paid Vacation Per Year
• 10 Paid Holidays
• Fully Paid Medical and Dental
• Fully Paid Life and Disability Insurance

 

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Find jobs for new grads and experienced social work practitioners at http://www.socialworkjobbank.com, THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER’s online job board and career cen

In Print

White Hat Communications, publisher of THE NEW SOCIAL WORKER magazine and the Social Work E-News, has published several books about social work. These books make great gifts (for graduation, holidays, or other occasions) for yourself, or for your friends, students, and colleagues in social work!

 

We also publish books on nonprofit management. Want to start your own agency? We have a book for that.

 

 

All of our books are available through our secure online store at:

 

Most are also available at Amazon.com.

 

You can also view and download our catalog in PDF format.

 

Breaking News

From our colleagues at Social Justice Solutions: Social Work Day on the Hill is kicking off this morning. Check out the live stream discussion panel on H.R. 3712—Improving Access to Mental Health Act introduced in October by social worker and Rep. Barbara Lee. A companion bill, S.2173, was introduced in the Senate by Senators Barbara Mikulski and Debbie Stabenow (MI).

 

Featured on the panel will be Dr. Darla Coffey, president and CEO of CSWE, and Tanya Rhodes Smith, director of the Nancy A. Humphrey’s Institute for Political Social Work (NAHIPSW).

 

Following the panel discussion, students from social work schools and departments will fan out across Capitol Hill to visit offices of their Congressional representatives to urge them to sign on as co-sponsors for the bill.

 

The stream will go live on Tuesday 3/1 @ 9 a.m. EST at: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/naswtv

 

Reminders

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