Hello Fellow NASW-Washingtonians!
My name is Garrett Hebel and I wanted to introduce myself to you as the new President of the Board of Directors for the NASW-Washington Chapter. I apologize if this is coming to you late, my wife and I welcomed our first child, a little girl, just a week after I took office on July 8! Some of you may have run into me through committee work with the Legislative Action Committee, seen me at the Policy Conference, or had me stop by your school. For those of you who haven’t, I hope to connect with as many of you as I can during my presidency. I moved to WA after working in adolescent residential trauma treatment in Chicago, IL. I have spent the last 5 years working at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle working in outpatient treatment for co-occurring disorders. I am a licensed SUDP and LICSW here in WA and I have been involved with NASW in one way or another every year since graduating with my MSW from Loyola of Chicago. I look forward to serving you all in this role for the next two years. I wanted to share a little bit about my hopes for our Chapter while I am serving in this capacity!
NASW-WA has been through a turbulent few years. As many of you may know, 2020 was a low point in our chapter. We lost our Executive Director in March and we found ourselves in the midst of a global pandemic. In July of 2020, after an extensive search, our new Executive Director, Jeremy Arp, took the reins and was tasked with stabilizing the chapter. I am very grateful for the work he has done in the last year with our membership, our volunteers and committee members, broader social work community, and NASW-WA Board to reinstate a firm foundation, all despite being in a global pandemic. While we have survived a pandemic and deaths in our social work community, my hope is to help our chapter become a more connected, engaged, and powerful association. I hope for us to move from surviving to thriving. My primary goal is to build the relationships we have with social workers in our individual communities and across the state, and in areas we lack connection--forge new ones. Here are some of the things on my platform that I hope we can accomplish together over the next few years:
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Deploy more accessible, modern technology tools to connect and engage members in policy, practice, and personal discussions
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Promote more networking and fun with our fellow social workers across the state (it’s been a brutal pandemic and we already are often overworked!)
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Engage and connect with our social work students in WA, the future of our profession in our state and beyond
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Nurture and enhance relationships with lawmakers, policy makers, and advocates to increase the power of social workers in WA to advocate for the needs of us and our clients
In my pursuit of a more connected and influential chapter, I hope that you will also seek to connect with me! Board members used to have their emails public on our website, but we started to get a lot of phishing emails posing as NASW business. Thus, I would ask that you please contact the Chapter at info.naswwa@socialworkers.org and they will forward me your message! I will get back to you as soon as I am able!
Sincerely,
Garrett Hebel, LICSW, SUDP
President, NASW-WA Board of Directors
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Calling all Social Work Students! NASW just launched a brand new MyNASW Student Community, by and for NASW Student Members. Log on to connect with fellow students to share resources, ask questions, & discuss student issues. Visit the new online community at mynasw.socialworkers.org/student
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Practice Alert: Members Sought to Revise Long-Term Care Standards
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) is establishing a task force that will revise the NASW Standards for Social Work Practice in Long-Term Care Facilities, published by NASW Press and last revised in 2003. The association seeks individuals with the following qualifications to join the task force:
• baccalaureate, master’s, or doctoral degree in social work
• active NASW membership throughout the life of the project
• substantive professional experience (ideally, at least 10 years) focused on one or more LTSS settings, such as nursing homes, assisted living, and home and community-based settings
• ability to participate in monthly virtual meetings for approximately 1 year and to communicate by e-mail between meetings
• willingness to collaborate with other task force members to promote quality LTSS and the social work role therein.
Task force participants need not be published authors.
If a social worker wishes to be considered for participation in this task force, they should submit their résumé or curriculum vitae to ltss@socialworkers.org by 11:59 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, September 7, 2021. For reference: View the official announcement here.
The standards up for revision are located here.
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Eastern Washington University: New Graduate Certificate in Program Evaluation
Competency in program evaluation has become an essential skill and need within both the private and public sectors, especially for those in educational, health and human services settings. With limited resources, funders are increasingly viewing their financial support as “investments.” They are requiring evidence that the organizations whose programs and policies they are funding are wise stewards of resources, are delivering on their goals and are maximizing the returns on investments. Organizations must be able to not just measure impact, but to maximize their program impact as well. In this competitive funding landscape, program evaluations are now a required component for securing grants.
Students in this graduate certificate program will gain a competitive edge and improve their marketability in this high-demand area. This program also builds the capabilities of organizations to develop and demonstrate program effectiveness, as well as to leverage external funding opportunities. Find out more here.
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From DOH: "In order to facilitate social distancing and telehealth during the COVID-19 declared emergency, it is the department's position that the requirement to sign a disclosure statement may be satisfied by an electronic signature. After termination of the COVID-19 declared emergency, use of electronic signatures may continue for the subsequent 90 days to allow adequate time for impacted professionals to transition away from use of electronic signatures."
Professions in which disclosure statements may be signed electronically include social workers.
Read the policy statement here.
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