March is National Professional Social Work Month, with this year’s theme “Social Workers: Leaders. Advocates. Champions.” We thought it would be a good time to acknowledge and celebrate the many contributions these caring professionals provide to our communities.
First off, a statistic. In the United States, there are approximately 650,000 social workers, and they work in varied settings including hospitals, community mental health organizations and private practices, among others.
They also play a wide variety of roles. Some specialize in clinical work, which means providing counseling/therapy. Some focus on working with a specific population, such as veterans or children or senior citizens. Some work advocating for policy changes and social and economic justice issues in the halls of Washington or local/regional political realms.
At North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, our social workers are versatile and perform a combination of clinical, prevention and outreach services. They operate out of our headquarters and two branch offices as well three schools and provide home visits for select families with vulnerable children that might not participate in traditional office-based mental health care.
Whatever their specialty, all social workers are bound by the NASW Code of Ethics, which calls on members of the profession “to enhance human well-being and help meet the basic needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed and living in poverty.”
“With government rolling back funding on so many programs, the advocacy aspect of social workers is more important than ever,” says Andrew Malekoff, Executive Director at the Guidance Center. “The protections that came with the Affordable Care Act are in jeopardy, so we must advocate for the funding to remain for the services that our clients need.”
One of our longtime social workers is Amy Ipp-Gelb, MSW, who is the Clinical Coordinator at the BOCES Middle School in Hicksville, where the Guidance Center provides in-school mental health services to students in our Intensive Support Program (ISP). Each year Amy honors Social Work month with a dedication at the school where she has worked since 2001.
“Many of our students stay with us from 6th to 9th grades, and then either move to our High School ISP site in Wantagh or go back to their district. We see them every day, providing mental health services in school. We see them through good days and bad days. We get to know their parents and families, too.
It’s a job that Gelb truly loves. “Over the years, there’s real transformational physical and emotional growth in these young people. The reward is phenomenal.”
We thank all the social workers and other professionals in our agency and throughout the nation. They are true life-savers.
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