Welcome to Issue #203 of the Social Work E-News! Thank you for subscribing to receive this email newsletter, which is brought to you by the publisher of The New Social Worker magazine, SocialWorker.com, SocialWorkJobBank.com, and other social work publications.

 

I am so excited that our Fall issue is out! This issue includes some important articles for all social workers summarizing the NEW NASW Code of Ethics (taking effect January 1) and the new standards for technology in social work practice. Every social worker needs to become very familiar with these two documents! Other highlights include articles on interrupting Islamophobia, resilience for social workers, female genital cutting, making the most of your time as a social work student, asking for professional references, and more.

 

 

ON CLINICAL SOCIAL WORK: MEDITATIONS AND TRUTHS FROM THE FIELD is Dr. Danna Bodenheimer's NEW book. Published in July by The New Social Worker Press, it  reached #1 in new social work releases on Amazon.

 

The beautiful, full-color book - now in paperback and hardcover - makes a meaningful gift for you, a student, or a colleague. It is available  now at Amazon and Barnes and Noble (maybe at your local bookstore, too).

 

Jonathan Singer of the Social Work Podcast wrote the foreword to this book, and he said, "Danna pays attention to life’s details with a psychotherapist’s insight and writes about them with the passion of a slam poet. She speaks to the soul of social work and inspires us to think about more than just social work."

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In June 2017, the NASW, ASWB, CSWE, and CSWA Standards for Technology in Social Work Practice were released. The 64-page document marked the culmination of a 2-year process of collaboration among the four organizations. The Task Force for Technology Standards in Social Work Practice reviewed literature and emerging standards in social work and related professions. A draft of the standards was released in Summer 2016 for public comment, and the Task Force then reviewed every comment received.

 

Allan Barsky, J.D., MSW, Ph.D., served as a member of the National Task Force on Practice Standards on Technology and Social Work and Chair of the NASW Task Force on Code of Ethics Revisions. “In both capacities, my colleagues and I strove to identify what types of guidance may be helpful in helping social workers determine whether and how to implement different forms of technology in social work in an ethical manner,” Barsky says. “We did a lot of research on how other professions handled similar issues....We incorporated feedback from social workers representing a broad range of areas of practice. The process of developing practice standards was very dynamic, and not without controversy and spirited conflict. And now, the process and dialogue continue. Both task forces realized that any guidelines we establish today will need to be reconsidered as technology and its applications in social work continue to evolve.”

 

According to the document’s  Introduction, the standards “...are designed to guide social workers’ use of technology; enhance social workers’ awareness of their ethical responsibilities when using technology; and inform social workers, employers, and the public about practice standards pertaining to social workers’ use of technology.” The Standards provide general guidance to social workers and are best used in conjunction with the NASW Code of Ethics and relevant statutes and regulations. (See Barsky’s article on technology-related and other changes to the Code of Ethics.)

 

Julie Gilliam, Sc.D., M.S., BSW, Lead Instructional Technologist at the University of Maryland School of Social Work, served as a member of the Technology Standards Sub-Task Force Advisory Group. She told The New Social Worker, “In my opinion, the new standards are very comprehensive in terms of the utilization of technology for social workers. The new standards doubled in size from 28 to 64 pages. The new standards cover the following topics in terms of social work and technology: presenting, designing, delivering, gathering, managing, storing, connecting, and educating.”

 

Barsky adds, “The standards do not dictate whether social workers should use technology, or how they should use technology, but they do inform social workers about some of the complications and concerns that should be addressed when deciding whether and how to use various forms of technology in social work practice.”

 

This comprehensive document includes four main sections:

 

The document provides an extensive glossary of terms, as well as resources.

 

Section 1 (provision of information to the public) includes standards on ethics and values, as well as representation of self and accuracy of information. Section 2 (designing and delivering services) is by far the most extensive, with 27 standards. Examples of standards in Section 2 include: ethical use of technology to deliver social work services, services requiring licensure or other forms of accreditation, informed consent, providing electronic social work services, assessing clients’ relationship with technology, confidentiality, electronic payments, maintaining professional boundaries, social media policy, fundraising, using personal technology for work, and others.

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