National Association of Social Workers
About Them:
The National Association of Social Workers Foundation is an organization created to support NASW's educational and charitable initiatives through a wide range of programs and projects. The Foundation serves the Three P's:
- the profession – by honoring and investigating in social workers past, current, and future;
- the practitioner – by enhancing social workers past, current, and future;
- the public – by providing information and resources to help individuals, families and communities.
How is the National Association of Social Workers responding to the Black Lives Matter Movement?
"NASW is committed to ending racism through public education, social justice advocacy and professional training."- NASW
NASW's members understand cultural and ethnic diversity and strive to end discrimination, oppression, poverty, and other forms of social injustice. These activities may include direct practice, community organizing, supervision, consultation, administration, advocacy, social and political action, policy development and implementation, education, research and evaluation.
Racial Equity:
NASW has created chapter activities, racial justice training, advocacy, and briefs and reports.
This is the direct response and the plan of action that CEO Angelo McClain gave regarding the racial crisis:
The NASW has chapters in each state, and each state held a conference or an event regarding the Black Lives Matter Movement and racial justice.
This was a report on the Ohio Chapter Conference:
In the Ohio Conference, they came together to clarify the social work profession’s role in addressing systemic racism and police violence against people of color.
These are some of the things that the people who attended this event recognized the things that must be done in order to ensure that black lives matter.
In a podcast interview, NASW Senior Policy Consultant, Mel Wilson was interviewed on Let's Talk Social Work, and how real change needs to be done regarding social injustice:
Andy McClenaghan: "what is the role of social work in challenging institutional racism?"
Mel Wilson: "I give you an example, you mentioned housing and discrimination in housing, which has a historical racist background on it. NASW is a part of a national coalition that is called Opportunity Starts at Home. We're on the steering committee and I serve on, we just formed a racial justice subgroup and I serve on the subgroup. And we had a long discussion about discrimination and housing and what we need to do. And this is a collaborative effort, but these efforts are not again, just advocacy. It implies and insist upon rather action. We have to as social workers individually and as NASW, we have to be committed to actions that bring about change."
For more information about the NASW, it can be found at:
https://www.socialworkers.org
To watch a briefing on NASW and Black Lives Matter Social Work:
https://youtu.be/BzeG6X7eaeM
