Leading From Possibility

No Old Stuff here, please.

More and more, I am hearing from people-colleagues, friends, members, neighbors, pedestrians- that the reason they didn’t hear, or didn’t remember, or messed up was that it was a sign of age, a senior moment, memory lapse, the aging process.   This has become, in my estimation, the #1 excuse on the street for folks in my age group (under 100.)  It has become an irritation, an annoyance, a complaint for me such that I wonder if there is some truth to it.  Do most of us really start losing it after 40?, 50? 60?  

I don’t forget about aging.  And that is that the MA Chapter’s Nursing Home SIG (Shared Interest Group) is just holding its very successful 33^rd annual conference.  This conference, on the topic of older people- the clients and those professionals working with the aging population is far from feeling the effects of its age.  In fact, this Annual Conference is sharp, pithy and substantive.  The organizers keep coming up with fresh ideas for working with the elderly, creative resources and novel sites for holding the conference.  I am totally taken with the Chapter’s SIG and the committee that puts the conference together.  Led by Chair, Elise Beaulieu, the group continues to mobilize, sharp speakers, exciting exhibitors and an audience of professional social workers who are unstoppable in their quest for new knowledge on the subject of treating old people. There is no ‘old stuff’ at this conference- just possibility. 

Carol J. Trust, LICSW

Leading From Possibility

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO ‘THANK YOU’ AND ‘YOU ARE WELCOME’?

For a while now, I have been noticing something that is quite peculiar.  It has to do with how people respond to compliments or being thanked for something that they did or a way they are looking.  For instance, when a colleague thanks you for your taking her place at a meeting that she was assigned to attend but could not because of a case emergency, what do you say?    Is it ‘No Problem?’ or  ‘I didn’t have anything else to do during that hour’.  And when someone compliments you on a new tie or a great pair of shoes, do you respond with, “Oh, I’ve had these for a while,” or “do you really like it?”

I want to know whatever happened with the old fashioned, “Thank you very much,” or “ You are most welcome.”  What is with this “NO PROBLEM” response?  Do you realize that there are two negatives in this phrase?  The negative is the word ‘NO’ and the second is the word “PROBLEM.  How odd of us to respond with a double dose of negatives when someone is complimenting or thanking us?  Where is our sense of civility and genteelness?   I want to bring it back, or if we never had it, start generating it.  Right now.

With this in mind, I want to thank our great NASW members for all that they do. Thank you! For choosing social work for your  profession when  you could have  chosen a more lucrative,  often less stressful career, for supporting communities in reaching the goals they have set, for putting your caring into practice rather than keeping it solely in words, for being part of NASW so that your professional organization can represent you and the clients you serve in the legislature, and other governmental and private settings that influence public policy.  Thank you for what you do and for your dues.  And thank you most of all for giving me a great job, where every day when I come up on the elevator I enter Suite 409 at 14 Beacon Street, Boston, with a big smile on my face.  Thank you.

Carol J. Trust

DCF’s Stars amid a Cloudy Sky

I just returned from a meeting of the Department of Children and Families State-Wide Advisory Council, where Commissioner Angelo McLain and his staff updated the group of advocates, providers, foster parents, birth parents, community volunteers, and professional societies the latest happenings at the Department.  A lot of time was spent on the budget and the impact of budget cuts on the critical services that the Department provides or contracts to community groups to provide.  The cuts that the Legislature is proposing are heart rending and will certainly mean that services will have to be cut and that social workers may be laid off.  We talked about prioritizing budget line items that we could directly advocate for given the across the board reductions. I marveled at the tenacity of the Commissioner and his staff to ‘soldier on’ with their commitment to continue to provide the valuable services they offer to our vulnerable families and children.

There was one very telling piece of information that was presented and that was the poor record MA holds in the number of foster home placements that Department of Children and Families (DCF) kids experience.  MA ranks 43^rd out of 51 states on placement stability. Commissioner McLain, instead of being defensive, directly conveyed that the state must do better. His staff shared with us all the actions they are taking to improve the situation and then they urged those present to add our ideas about what the Department could do.

It is this kind of genuine acknowledgement of failing grades and disappointing facts without any excuses that distinguishes Angelo McLain as a leader of integrity and inspiration.  I worked for DCF years ago and remember the impossible situations that the child welfare staff faced but I don’t recall this level of authenticity and candor displayed.  I am glad that Angelo is at the helm and we should do all we can to support him and his staff.

Carol J. Trust

PRACTICE SAFE SOCIAL WORK

It seems that every couple of weeks or so either I or my staff get a call from a worried and sometimes frantic member with an ethical dilemma that needs immediate attention.  Usually the person identifies himself or herself as someone who has been practicing for many years, has experience with tough clinical issues and has never had a problem like the one they are presenting.  'What do I do?' is the question posed to us.

Now, the MA Chapter has a wonderful service for its members who are faced with potential and real ethical dilemmas.  The Chapter's Ethics Hotline committee members, composed of social workers, highly trained in identifying and addressing ethical issues. They do an exemplary job helping callers with their ethical dilemmas.  What I want to stress is that social workers have an opportunity and a responsibility to be aware of potential ethical pitfalls BEFORE they occur.  As professionals, we must be totally aware of, trained in and knowledgeable about these unexpected situations that can occur in anyone's practice; regardless of the number of years one has practiced.  We cannot be arrogant about our knowledge of social work practice.

With this in mind, I want to remind all social workers to look for opportunities to become fully trained in 'avoiding' and 'addressing' ethical dilemmas.  One of these opportunities is coming up on June 10, when the MA Chapter holds a Continuing Education program specifically geared to raising social workers awareness, not only of the potential pitfalls but also of how to deal with them.

This program titled, “Protect Your Clients and Yourself” is particularly relevant now, as it will focus on the problems associated with the use of social media in one's professional AND personal life. The MA Chapter President, Betty Morningstar and I will be attending as we view this training as crucial to our professional lives.

The workshop will take place at Lantana in Randolph, MA on the morning of June 10^th (9-12:30) with registration starting at 8:30am. To learn more or sign up for workshop Click Here.

 Carol J. Trust

Power & Corruption *Updated

This has been quite a week with news items ranging from President Obama's speech on the Middle East, to Newt Gingrich's turbulent comments on his entry into the Republican Presidential campaign, to the annoyingly prevalent news coverage of the sexual misdeeds and alleged assaults of powerful men on women.

I am going to focus on the latter issue as it comes up so often, persistently gets people's attention and from my perspective continually astounds me.  The issue of powerful men factually and/or allegedly having liaison's with or attacking women in their personal and professional lives.  What is this about?  Of course, the clinicians, the anthropologists, the historians and the mavens among us have their views. The clinicians may give it a CPT code labeling the dysfunction with a variety of diagnostic categories.  The anthropologists may say that the behavior is primal and has to do with the male of the species declaring their territoriality for survival purposes.  The historians just may say that it is part of the human historical experience.  And the mavens?  Well, their unempirical view may range from "Ladies, watch out.  Proceed with caution.  Pay attention. Be on guard" to "It all goes back to the relationship with Mommy and Daddy."

I imagine that the answer to this 'phenomenon' may contain elements of all the above.  And what do we do about this reoccurring violation?  I am interested in your ideas and your responses.  I will be watching the responses to this blog, closely, and will be sharing some of the responses next week.

My own response is incredulous whenever I hear of powerful men who in their public lives have contributed in highly meaningful and valuable ways and who then behave in harmful and often illegal ways.

Standing by for your thoughts.


I am attaching the following article written by a clinical social worker who takes a clinical look at the issue of ‘sexual misbehaviors’ vs. “sex addiction.”  I would take a harder view and call those sexual actions by men or women who are in more powerful positions than the partner they ‘connect’ with, misguided from the most benign perspective to felonious, for those that exert physical and psychological force on the victim.
Sex Addict? 

Carol J. Trust

Weathering The Storm

If you are having trouble figuring out how the proposal for Health Care (Payment) Reform will effect your practice of social work, you are in good company.  Everyone is struggling, wondering and obsessing.

I am not just talking about social workers who have clinical practices, or to the majority of NASW members who practice their trade in the dozens of other social work settings but to all.  If you are a clinician providing mental health services to clients you need to be particularly vigilant as the changes will impact your livelihood and your personal health care needs.  If you are practicing social work in any other setting, you need to be aware of the changes for the population and communities that you are working in, as well as for yourselves and your families.

There are a number of the key issues that we are looking at from the social work perspective :  First, is the place of mental health services and specifically social work services in the proposed reform.  Social workers are in an excellent position to play key roles in the new Accountable Care Organizations (ACO) models.  We are expertly trained for the case management or care coordination roles that are integral parts of the Health Reform proposal. (Keep in mind that there are numerous phrases that describe this 'coordination' function and care management, care coordination, case management, etc. are just a sampling of the job functions.)  From our theoretical and practice training  we know that a client/patient/individual needs to be seen from the perspective of 'person in environment' which basically means being aware of all the influences on a client's life and not just one medical or emotional symptom that the individual may present at the doctor's office. Besides this expertise in coordination, social work clinicians are highly trained to provide therapy services to those individuals with mental health and emotional needs. 

Social workers provide over 60% of mental health services delivered in the country.

We need to make sure that social work is the profession of choice in the new system. There are job opportunities that we need to be vigilant about and promoting amongst our colleagues and the schools of social work.

Second, we are wondering, where mental health is going to fit? If the ACO's are going to be given a certain amount of money to provide for all the health needs of its clients, how can we be sure that the ACO (headed by a medical/PCP person) will deploy some of that money to the mental health needs of its patients when mental health treatment is indicated? NASW is working hard to get to the bottom of these questions.

The MA Chapter is paying close attention to these two major concerns of our members and the clients they serve.

Besides having established a work group made of NASW members who are knowledgeable about systems, health care, advocacy and practice, THE CHAPTER WILL TESTIFY ON MONDAY MAY 16^th at the State House about our concerns.  We are on the 'case' in the State House, with the administrative bodies that are charged with implementing the new Health reform proposal and with our colleagues in the other mental health and patient advocacy groups.

We ask that you keep abreast of the proposed changes in health reform by reading the accounts in the newspapers and other media, talking with your elected officials and continually bringing your questions and concerns to the Chapter.  We need to get feedback from you and take full advantage of your wisdom.  You can reach me at trust@naswma.org

Carol J. Trust

Ms. Trust goes to Washington

Each year the NASW Annual Leadership Meeting (ALM) brings together all the Executive Directors, the Presidents or the President Elects of the Chapters (there are 55 chapters), the National NASW Board of Directors and the National staff to receive training on issues common to the Leadership of the Association.  It is an extraordinary experience being in among all this brain power, exuberance, leadership and passion for the profession. One day is spent on building strong relationships between elected volunteers, leaders and staff so that this team can go home and recreate the powerful voice of social work in its local Chapter.  The training that our President, Betty Morningstar, and I received will be passed on to our Board of Directors and other Committee and Shared Interest Group Chairs as we increase the strength of leadership in the Chapter.

President Morningstar and I had the opportunity to visit the offices of our two Massachusetts Senators, John Kerry and Scott Brown, as well as each of our Congressmen, Barney Frank and Michael Capuano.  Our main objective was to lobby our Congress people to sign on to the Dorothy I. Height and Whitney M. Young Jr. Social Work Reinvestment Act (HR 1106/S.584.  This Act will not only strengthen the social work profession by giving it National Visibility, but it will also provide demonstration grants advancing the implementation of social work practice models in agencies and organizations throughout the country.  Senator Kerry has just signed on as a co-sponsor, as a result of our visit. You can count on President Morningstar and me to lobby the other three Congress people to a favorable decision.

A highlight of the 3 day event was the awarding of National Awards to exemplary social workers and public citizens.  The Massachusetts Chapter’s nominee for Public Citizen of the Year, Clementina Chery won the award with her exceptional vision and passion for creating the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute in Dorchester , MA.   In 1993, Ms. Chery’s son, Louse, was shot and killed while on his way to a Christmas party given by a group called Teens Against Gang Violence- a violence prevention, intervention and peer leadership development program. The Institute is dedicated to carrying on their son’s legacy of preventing violence in their community. The audience of National leaders and citizens were spell bound by the work of NASW-MA Chapter’s Ms. Chery.

So that’s a short round up  of what your Executive Director is up to on these yearly trips.  I am proud and grateful to represent the Massachusetts Social Work Community in the Nation’s Capital.

Carol J. Trust