I am looking forward to beginning my two year term as President for the New York City Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. During my thirty years of professional practice both as a government social worker and as a professor of social work and gerontology at the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service, I have always been an active and committed member of the NASW and the New York City Chapter. I know the critical importance of our membership association in promoting excellence in social work practice to ensure the best possible services and outcomes for our clients of all ages, as well as the importance of continuing to promote our professional identity and value within the health, mental health, education, aging, and social service sectors in NYC and the global community.

As a long time NASW member, I have served as member and co-chair of PACE, member and officer of the Board of Directors, Delegate Assembly member, member and chair of the Women’s Issues Committee, member and chair of the Nominating Committee, and long time member of the Gerontological Social Work Committee. While these are examples of ways I have contributed to the NASW-NYC Chapter, I believe there are many more ways the Chapter has contributed to my professional and personal life. It has provided me with a forum to share and develop ideas on issues about which I care deeply, a broad network of colleagues that has led to friendships, professional learning, job opportunities and collaborations, professional and personal growth, and opportunities to participate in advocacy activities in which I could not have engaged through paid work settings.

I feel very privileged to have this opportunity as your Chapter President to give back to the Chapter, our association, and our social work community. Some of what I have gained as an active member over the past thirty years. I hope the next two years would be productive ones as I serve the NASW membership and work in collaboration with all of you as members and as active participants in the many important initiatives in which the NYC Chapter is engaged!

Who am I (as social worker and as human being)

I came to work for New York City government as a caseworker from the Midwest after graduating from college in 1967, and although I treasure my Wisconsin roots, I am a committed New Yorker! My first involvement with the NASW-NYC Chapter was as a new professional member and then Co-Chair of the Chapter’s Women’s Issues Committee beginning in 1979. For me, this was a milestone in my lifelong commitment to promoting issues and concerns related to women and girls of all ages from an empowerment perspective. In my subsequent career, this commitment has remained core to all my other professional interests: in the fields of child welfare, domestic violence, public welfare, health and mental health, housing and homelessness, and gerontology.

Currently, I am Faculty Director for the Institute for Women and Girls at the Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service; Principal Investigator of the Fordham – Hartford Professional Program for Aging Education (HPPAE); Main Representative for the International Network for the Prevention of Elder Abuse (INPEA), a non-governmental organization (NGO) with special consultative status at the United Nations; and member of the NGO Committee on the Status of Women. In all these capacities I seek to promote the professional development and leadership of social work students and new professionals, particularly women, and students and professionals of color in the public sector. I am also honored to be a NASW Pioneer and an increasingly active member of the Metro-Pioneers committee.

Vision for the organization and the field

I strongly believe that social workers across public, voluntary and private sectors must develop a common language and commitment to work collaboratively together to strengthen professional services with our shared clients. The fragmentation of the current social, health, mental health, aging and other service delivery systems, along with growing poverty among our clients and residents of New York City, lack of affordable housing, uneven job opportunity distribution, and continued budget and service cuts, to name a few challenges, puts our clients in extreme jeopardy. It also challenges the members of NASW and our partners in other organizations to find ways of working together to provide seamless and relevant services that truly bring change to communities and organizations, and improve lives. While addressing fragmentation of service systems is a formidable challenge, addressing the fragmentation within our own profession is a responsibility that is well within the NASW organizational mission and must be aggressively pursued.

Second, as I noted in my platform statement while running for office, there is an intensifying demand for social work expertise in gerontology and geriatric care management. I believe social work is the profession that is best equipped to take the lead in this growing practice field, but only if the profession also takes the lead in setting standards for education, training and continuing education in New York State for LMSWs, LCSWs, BSWs, BAs and other currently non-licensed aging service and social service professional levels of workers in gerontology and geriatrics to maintain currency within the field. With the continued graying of the population, and the growing diversity of aging in New York City, workforce issues in aging, social services, health and mental health are increasingly coming to the fore. I believe certification for gerontological social work and geriatric care management is essential for the social work profession to achieve and maintain a leadership role within the field of gerontology in New York.

I believe there are four interconnected initiatives that NYC NASW should undertake related to licensing. First, there is an urgent need to revisit the NYS Social Work licensing law and regulations with both the legislature and the State Social Work Licensing Board and seek to address areas of confusion and concern expressed by many of our membership as an NYS Social Work Licensing Program continues to roll out.  Two, there is a need to add requirements for continuing education credits at all licensing levels. Three, there should be considerations for MSW graduates with English as a second language built into the social work licensing examinations. Four, in my view it is important to revisit and correct the misperception created by the current licensing law that the LMSW and LCSW levels are hierarchical, which they are not. Rather, they represent complementary dimensions of social work practice.

Although I realize that some of my concerns that I have presented are controversial and not shared by all members of our association, I hope to promote opportunities for dialogue and consensus building on these and other issues as Chapter President.

Thoughts on the status and recognition of social work and issues of pay equity

The salaries of social workers, particularly those in gerontological social work, are unacceptably low. NASW, with other social work professional associations, unions, and management, must work assertively with our collective memberships to correct this deficiency. We must do this by clearly articulating the value of social work, across fields of practice, coming to consensus with partnering organizations and coalition members on fair and equitable salaries for social workers within the fields of practice in which we serve, and achieving discipline among members to make uniform and focused demands across sectors for deserved recognition of the value of our professional services. NASW alone cannot achieve this: there must be unequivocal and active commitment by its membership, partnering organizations, and coalition members to achieve this critical objective. I look forward to working closely together with the Chapter’s valued partners in 1199, District Council 37, and the UFT as well as management and City and State officials in both legislative and executive branches to begin to address issues of professional status and salary inequities.

Encouraging people to get involved

I hope to be someone who will listen to the concerns and interests of members – to students, to BSWs, to new professionals and to social workers of all ages and diversity: I want to hear their voices. As a government social worker, I worked in a multi-disciplinary environment most of my professional life. The NYC Chapter of NASW has been critically important throughout my career to my professional development as a social worker, apart from my career development as a public servant. Although I did not get involved with NASW until I became a new professional, as a social work academic I now recognize the value of getting involved as a social work student, whether at the BSW, MSW or doctoral level. Not only do students benefit from their professors’ involvement with and promotion of membership in our professional association, but academics can benefit as well. Active membership in the NASW-NYC Chapter provides opportunities for professional service, along with opportunities for partnerships with practitioners in the community that can lead to productive scholarship and research initiatives, and promotion of leadership opportunities for students and graduates. There are opportunities and benefits for all of us as members of the NASW-NYC Chapter!

The Strengths of the Chapter

The Chapter provides opportunities for social workers to come together and continue to work and expand our organization at the political, educational, and grass roots levels. There is also power in numbers. As members of the Chapter we are 10,000 voices strong, and as the only local NASW Chapter in the Country as well as the third largest, we can promote member services, influence policy, and inform practice. The NYC Chapter represents one of the most diverse memberships in the country serving among the most diverse clientele. We are at the cutting edge of practice trends, policy advocacy and member service delivery.

We are also very fortunate to have exemplary leadership for our Chapter. Bob Schachter, our Executive Director, has been recognized by his peers as the most outstanding head of any NASW chapter. The Chapter leadership has always recognized the outstanding work of Dr. Schachter and his staff, and the membership know him for his dedication, intelligence, and inspired vision that keeps us moving forward in strength and numbers.

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