by Deona Hooper, MSW
March is always a very special time of year for Social Workers because Social Work awareness, World Social Work Day, and Lobby Day all occur in the same month. The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) has recently put together a publication called “100 ways to promote Social Work Month”. Join us on Mondays 8PM EST using the hashtag #SWunited for a Live Twitter Chat to discuss various topics and how we can impact our profession. The publication by the NASW provides many innovative ways for students and professionals to give social work more visibility through media.
swhelper.org is dedicated to increasing the visibility of the social work profession. I think its great that other professions have had the opportunity to utilize media to drive support for causes most important to them. However, my desire is to participate and support projects that help to educate the broader public on the necessity of our profession. In addition, Lobby Day provides a specific opportunity for social workers to engage in the national conversation on the social safety net that we implement. Welfare and Entitlement reforms and other important legislative decisions are going to made in the near future by our leaders, but should they happen without input from the social work profession? Let’s start by increasing our online presence and visibility in the media.
Help us make #socialwork trend world-wide on World Social Work Day on March 19th, 2013 by tweeting the hashtag #socialwork.
Here are some links to see what others around the world are doing for World Social Work Day 2013: 1. World Social Work Day in Turkey 2. World Social Work Day 2013 | BASW Resources 3. European Association of Schools of Social Work 4. Australian Association of Social Workers 5. Canadian Association of Social Workers 6. World Social Work Day-Philipines
