Recommended Reading for all Social Workers
NASW’s award-winning bimonthly e-magazine, Social Work Advocates, explores topics making national headlines from a social work perspective. It bundles everything you care about—association news, social work trends, chapter happenings, social work education, member stories and more in an easy-to-read format.
Social workers rely on the magazine to keep them up-to-date and teach them about emerging issues, which puts all of the important content at their fingertips.
Wondering what’s included in the magazine?
Must-reads from recent issues
Wave of LGBTQIA+ Bills Underscores Vital Role for Social Workers
A political push across dozens of states to enact policies targeted at transgender and gender-expansive youth and the broader LGBTQIA+ community has created an urgent human rights challenge for social workers. While this legislative wave faces significant opposition and may ultimately fail, either in state legislatures or the courts, social workers and advocates warn it is taking a toll on the health and well-being of LGBTQIA+ kids who are already at higher risk for depression and other negative outcomes arising from systemic stigma, bullying and discrimination.
The Great Resignation: Social Workers Seek Better Work Experiences, but Most Stay Within Profession
A web search early this year for “start new practice” on the MyNASW community forum produced about 6,000 posts and answers. “How-to” questions covered the range of practice areas, legal issues, to-do tasks and information for starting a new private practice. Each person who posted a question received several responses and many received numerous responses. It appears many social workers who left or are leaving their jobs are staying in the field. Learn how they create that best experience for themselves while they continue helping others.
Improving Health Care: Social Workers Pursue Innovative Paths
Before the COVID-19 crisis, social workers at Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital had been working with other care managers to learn the needs and challenges of patients from its Baltimore community, which faces significant social-determinants-of-health issues. To address this, they started the Saint Agnes Health Institute, which aims to connect vulnerable patients to vital community resources. Although they didn’t know it at the time, this effort prepared the team for the pandemic—allowing the facility to make sure patients at risk had access to food, medicine and telehealth services.
The experience at Ascension Saint Agnes offers a glimpse into the increasingly important and innovative roles social workers play in advancing health care through holistic, integrated and preventive approaches. The need for social work’s mission to enhance human well-being and promote social justice has become even more apparent amid the COVID-19 pandemic when facing the dire effects of climate change and an era of sharp political polarization and rising hate crimes.
Viewpoint: Syringe Access Bill Would Help Save Lives
This year is on track to be the deadliest year yet for overdoses. As frontline workers serving the community, social workers are doing everything in their capacity to address the overdose crisis and to keep our communities safe, healthy and alive. This critical work goes beyond clinical treatment protocols and must include harm reduction services, including syringe access, as the first step in offering a spectrum of interventions to meet the needs of people who use drugs.