Restorative justice is often used in social work and services as an alternative to prosecution. But how appropriate is it for domestic violence cases? Restorative justice focuses on repairing the harm caused by criminal behavior. It is a dialogue-based practice that brings victims and offenders together to discuss a crime’s impact – with the goal of restitution and closure for [...]
A growing number of Americans identify as multiracial, and there’s evidence to suggest that by 2050 as many as one in five Americans might claim a multiracial background. Social workers who understand the complexities and concerns of multiracial people are better equipped to work with America’s increasingly diverse cultural populations. Our Multiracial Nation Barack Obama was, of course, [...]
The Resilience Framework Resilience is an oft-used term in social work practice and scholarship that reflects the social work profession’s strengths-based perspective. While the term resilience has been defined in a number of ways, it can be generally understood to mean an individual’s ability to “bounce back” or return to a normal level of functioning [...]
Recent advances in technology have created opportunities previously unimaginable. We can video-chat with loved ones in real time across the world, control our homes remotely, and do much of our banking and shopping online. The power of the smartphone, and the many applications available for download, has also created new opportunities for maintaining and improving [...]
Play. It’s Not Just for Fun It’s 11:30am and I’m having a therapy session with 4 year-old Kyle and his mother at their home. As I’m pulling out my sand tray, dolls, Lincoln Logs and puzzles for Kyle to choose from he begins to tear open the bag with the figurines (small dolls and animals). [...]
Multiracial children are the fastest-growing youth group in the U.S. What do social workers need to know about serving and helping this diverse cohort? Social workers help a range of clients from different ethnicities and backgrounds, and their most vulnerable charges are often the children they serve, with multiracial children being no exception. Research suggests that [...]
Most social workers do not start their professions looking for fame and accolades. Yet some social workers become such prominent advocates for their communities that they find themselves in positions of great power and influence – helping shape public policy and decisions that affect people across the nation and the world. With so many diverse social worker career opportunities, the five [...]
The field of health and medicine offers many opportunities for social workers to positively impact clients and their families by working in inpatient and outpatient medical settings. While physicians and nurses focus on the physical health of a patient, social workers attend to the patient’s socio-emotional health needs. Thus, bringing social workers and physicians together [...]
Recognizing The Field ...AND Sacred Heart University for Waiving MSW Application Fees In Recognition of Social Work Month. It is a time when the nation’s 650,000 social workers are recognized for their efforts as community leaders, champions and advocates for social justice, welfare and During social work month, many of the nation's social work [...]
The goal of a community building circle is to help build trust, positive feelings, and a sense of belonging within a particular community or group of people. What is a Community Building Circle? A community building circle is a restorative approach to working with groups of people to build and strengthen relationships. Circles may be [...]
Many social work fellowships are offered to students and graduates interested in working with particular populations or within certain practice arenas. Currently, several fellowships focus on aging, due to the great need for social service workers in this area. A number of other fellowships focus on public policy and and leadership development in the social [...]
Numerous fellowship programs actively recruit Master of Social Work students and recent graduates. Fellowships offer social work students and graduates an opportunity to advance their skills during or after graduate school, usually with a focus on mentorship and learning in action, with financial support. These opportunities allow students and recent graduates to gain invaluable work [...]
Restorative approaches to social work practice are gaining traction amongst social work practitioners, researchers, and educators. The underlying values of the social work discipline are strongly aligned with the guiding principles of Restorative Justice. And although restorative approaches were developed specifically to foster transformation within the criminal justice system, they have been fruitfully applied to [...]
Many Council of Social Work Education (CSWE)-accredited schools of social work now offer online MSW programs that provide aspiring social workers with greater flexibility and affordability in pursuing graduate education. While all of these programs lead to the MSW degree, they differ in a number of ways, from field experiences to employer connections to cost [...]
<< BACK TO Top 3 Areas to Focus Your MSW in 2019 Social workers who are interested in working with a particular segment of the general population, a focus on a special population of interest will provide the skills and knowledge needed to engage those individuals and groups throughout your social work career. In this [...]
<< BACK TO Top 3 Areas to Focus Your MSW in 2019 A focus on community practice will provide MSW graduates with the opportunity to have a direct, broad-level impact on today's most urgent issues, mobilizing communities and contributing to policy development to enact needed social changes. In this section: Why Focus Your MSW in [...]
<< BACK TO Top 3 Areas to Focus Your MSW in 2019 For those interested in direct practice with a diverse range of clients, clinical practice is a growing area in social work with promising job prospects in coming years. In this section: Why Focus Your MSW in Clinical Practice in 2019 Career Options and [...]
Top 3 Areas to Focus Your MSW in 2019 For those pursuing an MSW in 2019, consider these three focus areas that will help maximize your education -- and ability -- to create change as a social worker. In 2019, three focus areas are particularly significant to the social work profession and society as a [...]
From interpersonal violence to natural disasters, traumatic experiences are wide ranging. Trauma can impact any member of society and even be passed down through generations. While trauma is universal, some groups of people are more vulnerable to trauma’s effects than others. Traumatic experiences can have a serious impact on a person’s mental health, social functioning, [...]
The Latinx population is currently the fastest growing ethnic group in the U.S. Latinx families generally have a migratory history, bicultural experiences, and are often made of mixed-status family members - all factors that give Latinx families unique strengths and vulnerabilities. For prospective MSW students interested in working with Latinx families in their social work [...]
Schools are community institutions where students, teachers, administrators, and parents come together to provide education for young people. Social workers can play a vital role in the school setting by attending to the needs of students and their families, as well as the staff responsible for providing youth education. According to the School Social Work [...]
As the Baby Boomers generation enters retirement and the later stages of life, there is a critical need for social service providers with specialized experience in working with aging populations. Elderly individuals often have complex needs related to healthcare, mental health, social connection, living independently, and navigating end of life processes. Prospective MSW students seeking [...]
Social workers are often driven by a commitment to provide support and care to those who need it most - the aging are one such population. Medical advancements of the last fifty years have prolonged human life, but are unable to alleviate many of the complications that come along with the natural process of aging. [...]
Why Get a Social Work Degree in 2019 Unlike many other professions, social work job openings are on the rise. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, overall employment of social workers is expected to increase by 15% for the period of 2016-2026, more than double the average rate for all occupations. 682,100 social workers [...]
What is the Grand Challenge Initiative? Social workers are needed now more than ever to tackle the world’s complex, global, and inter-related problems. Research has shown that social workers have positively transformed society during the profession’s last century of history. Now, social work practitioners and scholars are looking toward the future impact of social work [...]
Social workers assist organizations, communities, groups, families, and individuals in a variety of ways. Whether you’ve experienced a traumatic crisis or are just in need of additional family support, social workers are able to help by providing counseling and psychotherapy services, connecting clients to resources, and advocating for clients’ needs. The first step to seeking [...]
For social work professionals, there are many reasons to attend an annual conference hosted by a social work professional association. Social work conferences offer many opportunities to connect with colleagues in the field through networking and social events, keep up to date with cutting edge research by attending paper and poster presentations, engage in [...]
A degree in social work leads to a diverse array of career options, spanning from individual practice to community-based work and policy development. Social workers who have the appropriate training and skills in macro-level practice are being hired to lead organizations, analyze and develop policy, conduct cutting-edge research, and design effective programs. For prospective social [...]
If you’re looking for social work related content on the vast world wide web, hashtags are a great way to find sources from various social media platforms and blog posts. Following a social work hashtag is an easy way to seamlessly integrate social work content into your existing Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds. You can [...]
The Florida Project, one of 2018’s Oscar & Golden Globe frontrunners for best picture, is more than just a cinematic story centering on a motel in Florida. This emotional storytelling masterpiece invites viewers to contemplate some of the complex ethical dilemmas social workers confront every day. While social workers don’t appear in the film until [...]
I fear What the past will do to me In the future - Yehuda Amichai, Concrete Poem Part 1 Through the Eyes of a Trauma-Informed Social Worker Last year, 20 years after receiving my Master’s Degree in Social Work I completed an 18 month certification in Child and Parent Psychotherapy with an emphasis on treating [...]
Natural disaster, civil war, ethnic conflict, economic depravity, and gang violence are just a few of the reasons that people in today’s globalized society are left with little choice but to flee their home countries in search of safety and prosperity elsewhere. As more and more individuals and families are impacted by these and other [...]
For those looking to gain some new perspective on a certain topic, learn about innovative practices in a variety of fields, or hear fresh ideas on pressing social issues, TED Talks are a great place to start! With TED speakers from a variety of disciplines, TED offers a diverse array of voices and viewpoints [...]
What is Family Separation? Since April of this year, thousands of children have been separated from their parents at the Southern U.S. border. Horrifying images showed children being held in cages, while their parents detained without any information about their child’s whereabouts. This traumatic process of family separation was enacted due to a “zero-tolerance” immigration [...]
Aging populations face unique challenges, as their biopsychosocial needs change over time. The aging often have complex medical needs and care requirements, and face the risk of increasing social isolation and diminishing independence as they enter the end of the life course. In the United States, the aging population is growing due to a combination [...]
As the social work profession has grown and gained recognition for the valuable work of its practitioners, social workers have recently become the subjects of documentaries, magazine articles, and other media pieces. These five social workers have been prominently featured in the media, bringing further recognition to the profession as a whole and to the [...]
The internet age has provided social workers a variety of social media platforms to share their viewpoints, practice experiences, research findings, and more. Leading social workers are taking to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to connect with followers interested in social work topics - from clients to colleagues and everyone in between. If you’re interested in [...]
One of the mandates for social workers (especially those who have received licensure) is to stay up to date in the field. This ensures that social workers are always learning the most current and effective ways to engage with individuals, families, and communities based on the constantly-evolving evidence base for social work practice. To align [...]
In 2012, former President Barack Obama took executive action to protect the lives of immigrant young people who came to the United States as children. These young people are known as Dreamers, based on proposed legislation called the Development, Education, and Relief for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act “that would have granted legal status to certain [...]
On August 4th 2003, four months after my daughter was born, I was arrested for possession of cocaine with the intent to sell. This was the end of a period of time in my life when I had struggled severely with Substance Use Disorder (SUD) and the negative consequences of the street lifestyle that I [...]
For social workers serving Latino clients, understanding the diverse range of nationalities, countries and cultures that make up this community is critical. Developing this cultural competence and cultural humility will help them to improve the way they serve and communicate with their Latino clients. As one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the U.S., Latinos accounted for more than half of [...]
Social work is proving a popular second career for many professionals. What does the path to social work as a second career look like, and what is the career outlook for social workers? More professionals are choosing social work as a second career – one that offers them greater satisfaction than they found in their former careers, along with the [...]
Savvy social workers often seek out peer support, mentoring and networking opportunities. Who can you turn to for guidance and connections? Social workers do their best to meet the needs of others – every day, year after year. While this can be highly rewarding, it also puts you at significant risk of burnout if you don't feel supported [...]
In the last several years, researchers from social work and related fields have set out to determine what measurable impact social workers make in a variety of settings by collecting and analyzing data that evaluates the difference their work makes. From North America all the way to Tokyo, recent studies have found qualitative and quantitative [...]
What is Design Thinking? Design thinking “is a methodology for creative problem solving.” It emerged in the last 20 years from a long history of innovators working to solve “wicked problems” in a variety of fields through highly creative approaches and methods most commonly used in design firms. The basic idea is that design [...]
Across the nation, social workers are being recruited to apply their skills to the diverse human population at accelerated rates. The overwhelming mental and socio-emotional health needs of individuals in modern society create significant demand for the professional skills that social workers possess. In some cases, the amount of available social work positions has expanded [...]
Remember me For I will soon be gone Remember me And let the love we have live on And know that I'm with you the only way that I can be So, until you're in my arms again Remember me Those No Longer Physically Present Still Play a Significant Role These are some of the [...]
