In thousands of ways, social workers help people help themselves. People of every age. From every background. In every corner of the country – wherever we’re needed – starting here and now. Welcome to your source for professional advice, inspiring stories – even a social worker directory. Social workers. Help starts here.

About Social Workers

Every social worker is uniquely qualified to help people right in their own environment, by looking at all the different aspects of their life and culture. We work to ensure your personal well-being, prevent crises and to counsel individuals, families, and communities. We make sure people get the help they need, from the best resources available. And for more than 100 years, we’ve been doing just that.

Social workers care for people in every stage of life, from children to the elderly. We help them overcome life’s most difficult challenges, and the troubles of everyday living, including:

• poverty
• stress
• discrimination
• addiction
• abuse
• depression
• physical illness
• unemployment
• divorce
• disability
• death
• mental illness

Our help reaches every part of the community, from hospice care to adoption agencies, and in places you may not expect, including:

• schools
• mental health clinics
• hospitals
• military barracks
• veterans hospitals
• corporations
• senior centers
• public social agencies
• prisons

Wherever and whenever you need help, social workers are there.

Professional Standards

Educated
There are more than 600,000 professional social workers in the United States who have committed their lives to making a difference. They’ve all earned bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral social work degrees, and have completed a required number of hours in supervised fieldwork.

Experienced
Social workers take pride in being the only professionals trained to work with people in their environment, looking at all dimensions of the individual’s life. Our training comes from a nationwide system of accredited education programs, and is reinforced with practice standards, credentials, and state licensing regulations.

NASW Practice Standards
The practice of social work requires knowledge of human development and behavior; of social and economic, and cultural institutions, and of the interaction of all these factors as well as skills in developing relationships, brokering and accessing services, assessing needs and facilitating change. The NASW Practice Standards address quality social work practice on the following issues:

• Substance Use Disorders
• Continuing Education
• Technology
• Adolescents
• Health Care
• Genetics
• Clinical Social Work
• Cultural Competence
• Child Welfare
• Personnel Practices
• Palliative Care
• School Social Work
• Long-Term Care
• Case Management
• Social Work Practice with Family
• Caregivers of Older Adults

Please click here to learn more.

Ethical
We blend our education and experience with a strong code of ethics. Every social worker values these principles because they prepare us to help people with life’s challenges.

Our Code of Ethics addresses:

• Service
• Dignity and Worth
• Importance of Relationships
• Integrity
• Competence
• Social Justice

Service
Social workers elevate service to others above self-interest. We help people in need and address social problems. We volunteer some portion of our professional skills with no expectation of financial return.

Dignity and Worth
We value every person and treat them with respect, no matter their differences.

Importance of Relationships
We understand that having relationships helps. We seek to strengthen relationships among people to promote, restore, maintain, and enhance the well-being of individuals, families, social groups, organizations, and communities.

Integrity
Every relationship we have is built on trust. Every day we are aware of our core values, and the ethical principles that we abide by.

Competence
We practice within our abilities and strive to develop and gain knowledge and skills that we can apply in practice.

Social Justice
We challenge injustice in the world. Particularly on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups.

How NASW Helps
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW), is the largest organization of social work professionals in the world, with more than 130,000 members—90% of whom hold master’s degrees in social work. There are NASW Chapters in every state in the United Stated, as well as in Washington, D.C., New York City, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

NASW works to promote the well-being of individuals, families and communities. Through its advocacy, NASW aims to shape legislation and public policy that:

• Protects and strengthens the social work profession
• Creates and maintains professional standards
• Promotes human rights and well-being for all people
• Strengthens communities and expands options for you and your family

For more information about NASW visit www.SocialWorkers.org.

Grief and loss are an inextricable part of life.  Through various circumstances in my life, I had been relatively sheltered from the effects of profound grief and loss.  I have had grandparents who have passed away, but due to the geographical distance between us, that experience of loss was muted.  I certainly have assisted different people through loss and tragedy, but in those losses, despite being traumatic, I did not have a long-term connection to the deceased.  This past summer, my dad died at the young age of 64 exposing me to a deep and profound sense of grief and loss I have not experienced before. 

He was diagnosed with cancer in the summer of 2012. While his death was somewhat anticipated, nothing can really prepare someone for the onslaught of emotions that comes with such a tragic loss.  I watched as my dad aged before my eyes, the cancer turning him for a young, energetic, active man in his 60’s, to a decrepit, skinny shell of the man he once was. 

To help cope with these changes, I tried to stay busy.  I found it helpful for me to make various small changes in life (growing a beard, shaving it off; cutting down trees).  These activities seemed to create another visual reminder of the change that I was going through emotionally with the impending loss. 

I met with my dad regularly.  From his diagnosis to death I don’t know that a day went by that I didn’t talk with him.  I had the feeling that this initially annoyed my parents to have such a constant check-in when he was still feeling fine.  But it was something that I needed to do for myself.  As time progressed, I found myself at a complete loss of words as his death became more and more of a likelihood.  I think my dad shared this feeling and we ultimately settled on just saying “I love you” and if those were the final words we said to each other, there weren’t much better words to end with.

When he passed, I was left with that same wordlessness.  I was lost and felt again a desire and push to change.  I knew that with this loss my life would forever be different than I had anticipated.  I knew I was different and still changing.  But I could not identify how and, from previous experiences, realized that I might never be able to fully vocalize all the ways in which this experience is changing me. 

I decided to grow a beard: a mourning beard.  I decided that for six months, I would be in mourning and this beard would be a reminder of that.  Our culture does not have a good process for mourning.  Our employers generally give three days (at best) “bereavement leave” which seems to give some indication that we should be fine after that.  I found that generally people had a few days or maybe a couple weeks of grace around the loss, but otherwise one is expected to pick up and move back to normal quickly.  So, outside of a visual reminder, I did not have a way to help facilitate my own grieving process.  I was able to talk with my family about the loss, but as they were experiencing similar feelings as acutely as I, this was not always possible.  More importantly, I did not have the words to express myself even when I had a listening ear. 

Now I am coming up on the end of my 6 month period of mourning and I feel that my mourning beard was a good choice.  As my beard has grown on me, so has my grief grown on me.  This beard has changed the appearance of my face just as I know my grief has changed the landscape of my soul.  I will have to cut my beard off, just as it will take work to cut myself free of some of the grief and sadness that has characterized my life through this loss.  And I will have to keep working on it.  Just as my beard would come back if I let it, so could my grief.  This is not to say that I will not still feel sadness and mourn the loss of my dad.  That will be an ever present part of my life as I move forward.  As I get used to a beard free face, so too will I have to get used to how I have changed, how my family has changed, and how the rest of my life will be different moving forward.

Kevin DeBruyn is a LMSW and NASW Michigan Member

Jake Terpstra, ACSW is a specialist in Child Welfare Services

Child welfare services are far more intricate and significant than most people realize.  There are approximately 7,000 foster parents in Michigan caring for approximately 12,000 children.  Nationally, nearly a quarter of a million children enter the child welfare system each year; the average length of care remains over two years.  At any given moment almost a half million children are in care.  This indicates that in a ten year period, two and a half million children have been in care.  For better or worse, these children have a tremendous effect on society.  We generally understand that they are our future, but may not fully realize that we are their present.

The percentage of these children who are in group foster care varies widely from state to state but the average is near 10 to 15 percent.  The other 85 to 90 percent are in family foster homes.

The cast of people in the child welfare system who deal with the children are foster parents, caseworkers and their supervisors, lawyers (Guardians ad litum), and judges.  There are others who have an impact on children in the system such as Court Appointed Special Advocates, teachers, school social workers, and their parents or other relatives who may be involved; however, caseworkers and their supervisors maintain a significant amount of influence. 

Child welfare is the only discipline considered to be the domain of social workers.  For many years child welfare services were separate state organizations administered by social workers.  The educational norm for casework staff was one year of graduate school.  Schools of social work and child welfare agencies collaborated when practice issues were incorporated into curriculums.  In the 1960s, the Federal government imposed administrative changes that reduced the number of child welfare caseworkers who had social work training to 25 percent.  Because of current Federal Title XX training, funds have increased to allow 40 percent of case managers to have social work training; the majority of casework staff still has no social work training.

Many studies indicate that this lack of training is significant for both workers and clients:

• Albers E., Reilly, & Ritner B. (1993). Possible Factors Affecting Permanence. This article shows that social workers with BSW and MSW degrees are more effective in developing permanence for children who have been in foster care more than two years.
• Anderson & Dinah. (1994). Coping strategies and Burnout Among Veteran Child Protection workers.  The study shows that social work education, especially graduate education, reduces burnout which is a major cause of turnover.  These findings are especially significant.  A study in Milwaukee several years ago indicated that if a child has one caseworker there is a 70 percent chance of achieving permanence.  With two caseworkers, the chance of achieving permanence drops to 17 percent.
• Child Welfare League of America. (1990). FL Recruitment and Retention.  This study showed that workers without educational preparation for child welfare were most likely to leave before one year.  The study links to research by Hess, Floran, and Jefferson; and Jefferson, which found that worker turnover was a major factor in failed reunification efforts.
• Agency support also was cited as a major factor in social worker retention by Harrison, Selma, and Garret (1995), whose study found that workers who believe their knowledge, skills, and professional education are underutilized are most likely to leave.

What is “permanence”? It simply means that a child has been connected with a lifetime family, connected with their own relatives, or adopted by non-relatives.  While this sometimes is not possible, it should be the goal for every child and is the primary focus of the caseworker.

The quality of social work education also depends on whether schools of social work provide courses specific to child welfare.  Social work theory is necessary, but learning how to apply it is equally as important.  In my opinion, courses specific to child welfare can do this and should be encouraged at both the BSW and MSW levels.

The attitudes and actions of persons with authority can help or hinder performance of the people they supervise. A 2006 University of South Florida study in child welfare indicated that about 40 percent of workers who resign do so in order to get away from a supervisor. With careful selection, training, and administrative oversight this can be avoided.  Turnover of foster parents, like agency staff turnover, is extremely expensive for agencies and reduces positive outcomes for clients.  Many of the dynamics are similar for worker-supervisor relationships and worker-foster parent relationships. 

Child welfare agencies often provide training for supervisors.  Even though foster parents are not supervised administratively, the process in many respects is similar.  Caseworkers who work with foster parents need supervisor training as much as casework supervisors do.  Some of the qualities applicable to both supervisors and caseworkers are:

• taking responsibility for knowing agency  policies and its resources, utilizing them when needed
• clarifying expectations of foster parents
• being aware of community resources that foster parents can use
• maintaining positive relationships with other units of the agency where cooperation is needed
• accepting that their role is to educate, support, guide and encourage
• encouraging  foster parents to provide quality care and supporting their efforts
• promoting  team effort with parents
• listening to concerns of foster parents, children, and their parents
• willing to learn from the knowledge sets of others
• being sensitive to the unique needs of foster parents and children
• keeping a sense of humor

Child welfare agencies train casework staff and foster parents; some agencies combine training for both casework staff and foster parents with positive results.  This has many advantages and often increases the sense of teamwork.  Foster parents also are able to conduct training of staff as it helps foster parents explain their needs of caseworkers and the agency.

The best of training can be negated when the agency CEO is not aware or supportive of what is taught.  This is extremely difficult for staff.  Administrators need to learn alongside their staff in order to be able to support the training or make changes.

One of the most difficult experiences for foster parents is being accused of abusing children in their care.  It is especially frightening because agencies stop all contact with them until the report has been investigated.  While this may be unavoidable, foster parents need to know in advance what the agency policy is.  They also need to connect with someone who can be supportive of them when it occurs while also remaining neutral. 

If agencies are not able to provide that service they can encourage other foster parents to take that role.  There are many advantages to developing a local foster parent association and this is one of the ways they can provide support to their own members.

Caseworkers have a central role in a complex social service system while at the same time must adhere to judicial orders.  Each person in this system needs to be well informed about the roles, tasks, and responsibilities of each stakeholder involved in a foster care case.  Because of this, older children, foster parents, and parents, where reunification is possible, are needed in court hearings to help the judge be as informed as possible about children and parents’ needs, potential, and goals. 

The catalyst role of the caseworker can make this possible and hopefully always keep the focus on the simple question: “What is best for the child?