New Year's Resolution!

As 2010 winds down and it is time once again to set new goals for the New Year, The NASW MA Chapter invites you to resolve to get involved in Chapter activities!  The Chapter is currently in the final stages of setting its exciting legislative agenda for next session. We are looking for our talented members to provide testimony at the State House, mobilize your peers and of course participate in our Legislative Education Advocacy Day on March 30^th at the State House to celebrate Social Work Month. 

In the areas of Continuing Education and Clinical Issues we are closely watching payment reform and continuing our advocacy with managed care companies.  Planning for new Continuing Education programs that include live sessions, podcasts and the 2012 Symposium are all underway.  If you have a talent for writing, presenting or event planning or would like to be a part of organizing Symposium 2012 and other CE programs, contact the Chapter Office.  The Chapter is also updating our Licensing Test Prep program to comply with the new ASWB changes taking effect in 2011.  Our CEU and LTP schedules are available on our website and open for registration!

If outreach is a more appealing to you, the Chapter has unveiled its Social Work Reinvestment Initiative.  Staff and volunteers are heading out to Massachusetts high schools, youth programs, and community colleges to speak to students about considering a career in social work.  Come tell your story and help educate youth about the wonderful field of social work! We will have an informal “train the trainer” session in late January at the Chapter office for interested members. 

NASW MA has several Shared Interest Groups (SIGS) in various areas of practice that are always open to new members!  These groups meet to network, organize continuing education conferences, follow legislation, draft policy statements, represent NASW in the community, and generally serve as the eyes and ears of the chapter, feeding back information to staff and the elected leadership. To get involved, please e-mail Chapter@naswma.org. You can be added to a SIG(s) e-mail list, or connected to a staff member overseeing the activity in which you have interest. The complete list is available on our website www.naswma.org. 

To explore areas that might of interest to you please check out one of our upcoming networking events!  Our next event will be on February 8^th at Big City in Boston.  Social workers of all levels are invited! Come join us for some good food and great company! Events on the North Shore and Central Massachusetts are also in consideration.

Call the Chapter office to see how you can get involved!

Carol J. Trust

Vacation

I am just getting ready to go on my winter vacation and, as usual, a whole range of thoughts are swirling in my head and heart. The major thought is one that I am truly committed to.  It has to do with an article I read years ago about humans’ biological needs to ‘get away’ or as us modernists say ‘go on vacation.’  The article focused on our animal origins as beings of the forest, of the mountains, of the plains, of the jungles. Our early ancestors didn’t exactly get away.  They were in our view away but it was their norm. They were grazing, lazying about, climbing, walking, wandering.  And we homosapiens  have to do same.  We have just not evolved far enough  from our ancestors to be without these early experiences.  And so, vacations were created.  To bring us closer to our earlier natural environments.  Ashley Montague, one of my favorite  writers on “Man’s Early Origins’ is a huge booster for vacations, or just any get aways that take us back to the forests and the plains.  So, off I go, supported by a brilliant social anthropologist’s rationales and principles.  But not too far, as I will be checking my emails periodically.  I do love getting away and I love being in the middle of the action as well.  Can’t lose, either way.

Carol J. Trust

THE DREAM ACT AND SOCIAL WORK

We all have an immediate and great opportunity to put our values into practice on the Federal level. Right now, members of Congress are planning to bring the Development, Relief, and Education For Alien Minors (DREAM) Act up for a vote and your voice is needed to make this happen.

The Dream Act would provide an earned legal pathway to citizenship for undocumented youth who pursue higher education or serve in the U.S. military. This bill  exemplifies the core social work values of human rights, freedom from discrimination and social justice.

Many of these immigrant youth grow up without even knowing that they do not have legal status-until they find out they cannot attend college or work or join the military. Students who would be eligible for the DREAM act have already been raised and educated in the United States.  By allowing them to gain legal citizenship,  to continue their education  or to serve in the military, and to work will give our country a huge return on this investment.  The Congressional  Budget Office determined that the DREAM Act will increase government revenues by $2.3 Billion over 10 years and result in a net reduction in the deficit of $1.4 Billion over the same period.

WHAT TO DO?   Contact your Senators and Representatives in Congress and urge them to vote YES on the DREAM Act. 

Learn more about the DREAM Act at: http://www.socialworkers.org/practice/intl/2010/dreamact.asp

Carol J. Trust

Growing up in New Hampshire and the Holiday Spirit

Those of you who have met me look in disbelief when I say I am from New Hampshire. “Oh, come on, you’re from New York.  You’ve got your ‘NEW’s’ mixed up. No, really, I am from New Hampshire- Concud—just kidding, it really is Concord, but none of us townies ever quite got the pronunciation of the ‘r’s the way the rest of the country says it.  I grew up on Westbourne Road, up by the High School, down the street from the State Hospital and over by the woods.  I seem to know what I am talking about when I give these GPS coordinates.  And I have witnesses to my early residence.  There was Graham McSwiney who lived across the street with his Boxer, Mugsy.  And the Hayes kids, all 6 of them, who lived next door.  Diagonally across the street were the Clarners who talked funnier than me with their great Concud accent. I can produce witnesses. And, I guess I just look like I’m from New York.

Yet, I have a certain New Hampshire ethic inbred in me.  The one that proffers  measured frugality.  Emma Landry, my Mom’s chum and a native of Concord had a neat expression that frames the  frugality creed: “ Use it up. Wear it Out. Make it Do or do without.”  And now comes a big Holiday Season that screams another message:  “Buy me.  Buy me. Buy me.” What’s a girl to do in the face of these two conflicting messages?   Enter the Regifting concept.  I love you.  It not only fits in with my New Hampshire  roots, it is a fabulous way of sharing the wealth without succumbing to the consumer frenzy. Regifting here I come.  I just wish I could convert the rest of my circle of neighbors, friends, family. No chance.  This year my staff planned the Holiday party and everyone is a Secret Santa to someone.  Now, let’s see.  Regift or buy.  Mmmm.

Carol J Trust

Partnering for Safety

On November 19, 2010, the Chapter with its partner, the Boston University School of Social Work held the 2^nd State Wide Leadership Summit on the subject of Maximizing Social Work Safety in the Workplace. Although the subject is worrisome and scary, representatives from the public and private human service agencies as well as the schools of social work spoke with such a sense of commitment and dedication to the topic, the atmosphere in the room was transformed from fear to dedication and possibility.

The room was filled with professionals from every public agency under the auspices of the Massachusetts Secretariat of Health and Human Services: Youth Services, Corrections, Family and Children’s Services, Elder Issues, Public Health, Mental Health as well as representatives from the Private and Public Massachusetts Schools of Social Work and a number of the larger private Child and Adult Serving agencies.  It was indeed a great example of a true Partnership.

Out of the meeting has come a number of practical and recommendations that are in the process of being implemented.  These include: a web site hosted on NASW MA Chapter's home page that will be complete with numerous resources for agencies developing Safety Plans; a commitment from NASW to file safety legislation in January; the beginnings of a plan to train a cadre of social workers to provide state wide training in safety procedures and a commitment to work with National NASW on getting a Policy Statement on Safety in the Workplace accepted.

This Summit marked the fruition of two years of work by a super Chapter Task Force.  I feel very fortunate and energized by all of my colleagues who serve on this Task Force. Together in partnership we will continue to promote this topic and ensure the implementation of these important changes. 

Carol J. Trust

MUSINGS ON THE BYSTANDER

’ Wrong Side of the Bus’ is a movie featuring a seldom addressed theme: the person who sees an injustice but rather than flee or fight as Freud conceptualized, chooses to stay and stand by... The main character, a white psychiatrist,  trained in Cape Town, South Africa and then emigrated to Australia because he felt he could not live in a country that was ruled by Apartheid  principles is haunted by feelings of guilt that he did nothing to question or act against the racist rules of the South African government.  The story follows him as he returns to Cape Town for the 40^th reunion of his Medical School classmates.  He is searching for some kind of reconciliation or forgiveness for his ‘do-nothing’ stance.  From everyone:  his classmates; his mother’s former nurse; several black ladies he randomly meets in the audience of a renowned theater and finally the guide (and a former inmate) at the prison where Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 27 years.

Regardless of these individuals’ responses, ranging from full forgiveness to indifference to his haunting guilt, the protagonist just cannot let it go.  He wants it to disappear.  He wants to be free from the torment that he did nothing to raise a hand against a sickening law and its noxious consequences.   His guilt dominated and controlled his life. I came away from the film with a growing annoyance for this highly trained educated man.

And as I talked with my film going partners, I began to see the relevance of the bystander concept to social work practice. Often I get calls from social workers asking or even complaining that NASW is not doing anything or enough to end homelessness, or reduce the cuts to social service programs or to stop managed care and insurance company cuts in reimbursement rates to clinical social workers. On a different level, I hear that one’s therapy progress is stuck, going nowhere. “I still feel terrible that I didn’t do more for my mother when she was alive’ or that ‘I didn’t tell someone about the abuse.’

We all can be affected by what we didn’t do or didn’t do enough of or what we did that we are ashamed of.  Somewhere along the line some of us got what I consider a ‘distorted’ idea that we, the social work profession, can always be the problem solvers, the fixers, the guilt relievers. Another way of looking at this could be:  We do the best we can as transformers or contributors to positive change, but that many times, we do not get the results we hoped for. Sometimes, we do nothing on one issue because we are involved in others just as meaningful.  And other times, we may just watch.  We indeed are bystanders.  It is this latter stance that I wish to address, particularly for those of us who have clinical backgrounds.

 I came away thinking that this person well never rid himself of his guilt.  He is, in a way, hard wired to feel guilty.  It is his default position.  And that what clinicians (and those of us in the field that worry about what we haven’t done enough of) may have to do is help ourselves and others just ‘be with’ those old, persistent feelings and on a parallel track, proceed with our lives in the areas where we can make a difference.  So we didn’t intervene when that bad thing was happening and we think we should have? We just watched or held back? The challenge or assignment for us could be; Let it go to free our energies for what we can do now. I many ways, life is so complicated and immense that we have always been occasional bystanders, we will always be bystanders and we definitely are bystanders right now.

Carol Trust

Be Picked

Pick Me! Pick Me! 

This is a big week throughout the country. With elections in every state, candidates galore, and folks exercising their right to vote. I am always fascinated with the number and range of people who throw their hat in the ring to run for public office.  Regardless of the problems that face them, or their motivation, these candidates are unwavering in their commitment to serve. It is truly  impressive.  I get caught up in the excitement surrounding the elections.  Who will win?  Will they live up to their pre-election promises? 

On the local level-the very local level, the Massachusetts Chapter of NASW will shortly be joining the swirl of election activity.  I get just as excited for the MA Chapter candidates as I do about the Massachusetts State elections. I can’t help it. I love contests and I love to share in the excitement.

So, dear NASW members, I am bringing you into the action.  The Chapter’s Nominations and Leadership Identification Committee, which you elected over the last two years, is in the process of identifying potential candidates for the Chapter’s slate. Chapter election will be this spring and the Committee is in the midst of its ‘Talent Search’.  I am opening the search to you, our members.  We are looking for a few good men and women to throw your hats into the election ring. Running for and being elected to  a leadership position in your profession is an awesome event.  You are declaring, publically, your interest in being part of the process that influences the direction of the social work profession.   This is your change to get in the game, rather than observe from the bleachers.

I am, here by calling on that part of you that urged you to be a social worker. That part of you that said “I want to make a difference.”  Here is your chance.  You have until November 15 to let us know that you are interested in being considered.  The open positions are posted on the Chapter website.  http://www.naswma.org/displayemailforms.cfm?emailformnbr=145243

Get out of the bleachers and into the action.  Have your chance to “Be Picked.”

Carol J. Trust