NASW Initiatives
Social Work Month is an opportune time each year to organize multiple outreach activities that enhance the public awareness of social work. It adds the value of timeliness to any information you distribute to the media and your community.
The National Association of Social Workers coordinates activities that promote awareness of social work every day. Work goes on all year long through NASW National, NASW Chapters, Schools of Social Work, sister social work organizations, and individuals to promote and advance the profession.
Social Work Month is the time to combine these activities—highlighting ongoing activities of the Association with timely local celebrations in March.
Connection to the National Social Work Public Education Campaign
The National Social Work Public Education Campaign is a multi-year effort led by NASW to improve public perceptions of social work. The goals of the campaign are to:
- Increase awareness of and respect for the social work profession
- Educate the public on the breadth and depth of social work practice
- Expand perceptions of who can benefit from social work services
- Attract young people and career changers to the profession.
This year we are choosing to focus on the fourth goal of the National Social Work Public Education Campaign—recruiting new social workers to the profession. We hope that the increased focus on recruitment will mean that more people will enter the field of social work in the coming years.
The tools for the campaign are designed to complement annual Social Work Month efforts. Feel free to integrate information that is provided through the campaign with the tools provided here for Social Work Month 2009 to offer the public the most compelling view of social work.
NASW Consumer Web site
The social work consumer Web site—HelpStartsHere.org—is the cornerstone of the National Social Work Public Education Campaign. This robust, award-winning Web site highlights many different social work practice areas, providing information to consumers from professional social workers. This unique Web site also provides real life stories of social workers helping others and the opportunity to find a local professional social worker. Email consumer@naswdc.org for more information.
Materials from the National Social Work Public Education Campaign
On Any Given Day: Social Workers Help. The Public Education Campaign created a five-minute video to educate people about all the important work that social workers do. It highlights three social workers who work to effect change with individuals, families and communities. Use this video to educate people about the importance of the social work profession. Email media@naswdc.org for more information. Click here to obtain a copy.
The Public Education Campaign has created advertising and other outreach materials that will enable social workers to educate others about their work. Click here to obtain that toolkit.
Connection to the Social Work Reinvestment Initiative
This year marked a major legislative milestone when the National Association of Social Workers kicked off the national Social Work Reinvestment Initiative. As Social Work Month is our annual opportunity to educate people about the profession and issues important to social workers, there is a direct connection that can be made between the profession’s reinvestment and public education goals. The goals of the Social Work Reinvestment Initiative complement the goals of Social Work Month and the Public Education Campaign.
The 2009 Social Work Month theme “Social Work: Purpose and Possibility” provides a good frame from which to make the case for reinvesting in the profession.
The Social Work Reinvestment Initiative is a collaborative effort among social work organizations to secure federal and state investments to recruit, train and retain professional social workers – and to support research that improves social, human and health service outcomes.
NASW, with the Action Network for Social Work Education and Research Coalition acting in an advisory capacity, introduced the Social Work Reinvestment Act into the U.S House of Representatives on February 14, 2008 and into the U.S. Senate on April 15, 2008, World Social Work Day. There are currently 81 cosponsors in the House and 14 in the Senate, including President-Elect Obama. We will be reintroducing this important piece of legislation into the 111th Congress in early 2009.
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