Important Dates and Events

The Council on Conferences and Faculty Development (CCFD) invites deans, program directors, field directors, and interested faculty to attend the CSWE Summit on Field Education 2014 at the CSWE Annual Program Meeting in Tampa, FL.

• The Summit will be held as a preconference event on October 23, 2014, from 8:30 am–4:30 pm; a separate registration process will be followed.
• Learn more by selecting the CSWE Summit on Field Education 2014 page for this event.

CSWE Leadership Networking Reception

The CSWE Leadership Networking Reception is one of three CSWE Leadership Institute initiatives and provides an opportunity for current, new, and future social work leaders to network at APM. Launched at the 2008 APM, this event honors new leadership in the profession and serves as a forum for discussing relevant topics significant to social work education. Among those to be honored at this year's reception are the CSWE 2014 Summer Leadership Scholarship Program recipients.

The reception will be held Thursday, October 23 from 5:00 pm–6:00 pm in Room 14-15 of the Tampa Convention Center.

2014 APM Opening Ceremony

During the Opening Ceremony CSWE will welcome APM attendees and highlight events of the conference. The recipients of the CSWE 2014 Significant Lifetime Achievement in Social Work Education Award and the Distinguished Recent Contributions in Social Work Education Award will be honored. Learn more about these three members here.

This event will be held in Ballrooms A–B of the Tampa Convention Center.

Opening Reception

Discover program innovations, learn about new resources, and catch up with colleagues during the Opening Reception in the APM Exhibit Hall. Co-sponsored by the 2014 APM Regional Planning Committee, this reception offers an assortment of hors d’oeuvres, cash bars throughout the Exhibit Hall, and exhibitors who welcome discussion of their products and services.

This event will be held in the West Hall of the Tampa Convention Center.

Jared Bernstein, PhD
Renowned Economist and Author

Getting Back on Offense: Diagnoses and Prescriptions—What’s Gone Wrong and What Social Workers Can Do About It

NEW: Select his October 24, 2014 blog posting for the slides of his APM presentation.

 Jared Bernstein began his career as a social worker helping poor people in New York City. He believes that most economists and politicians haven’t spent enough time in actual neighborhoods where people are just trying to get by. Social workers do just that, and therefore they understand the context in which economic problems exist. Dr. Bernstein argues that inequality has been caused by increased globalization, diminished unionization, technological changes, the decline in the real value of the minimum wage, regressive changes in the tax code, and financial deregulation—and that nearly all of these are policy issues, which means that changing the situation will require changing policy. He believes that it will take a movement, which George Packer defines as “an idea of the future that’s genuinely shared by large numbers of people.” Bernstein will encourage social workers to go on the offensive by using their unique skills to mobilize groups of people into an economic rights movement and to lobby and advocate for increased educational opportunities for all, raising not just the minimum but also the median wage, a Full Employment Act, and a national policy that promotes accountability and opportunity for all.

Biography Sketch

Jared Bernstein joined the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in May 2011 as a senior fellow. From 2009 to 2011, Bernstein was the chief economist and economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, executive director of the White House Task Force on the Middle Class, and a member of President Obama’s economic team.

Bernstein’s areas of expertise include federal and state economic and fiscal policies, income inequality and mobility, trends in employment and earnings, international comparisons, and the analysis of financial and housing markets.

Prior to joining the Obama administration Bernstein was a senior economist and the director of the Living Standards Program at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, DC. Between 1995 and 1996 he held the post of deputy chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor.

Bernstein is the author or coauthor of numerous books for popular and academic audiences, including Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed? and nine editions of The State of Working America. Bernstein has published extensively in various venues, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Financial Times, and Research in Economics and Statistics. He is an on-air commentator for the cable stations CNBC and MSNBC and hosts a popular economics blog at jaredbernsteinblog.com.

Bernstein holds a PhD in social welfare from Columbia University.

Membership Meeting

The annual CSWE Membership Meeting offers members an opportunity to meet many of those involved in CSWE leadership positions. Those representatives will provide updates concerning CSWE activities and will be available to answer questions related to CSWE membership.
This event will be held on Friday, October 24 from 5:00 pm–6:00 pm in Room 22 of the Tampa Convention Center.

Michael Spencer, PhD, MSW
Associate Dean and Professor of Social Work
University of Michigan
 
Power, Privilege, Intersectionality, and Action in Social Work Education and Practice

NEW: The slides used during his October 25, 2014, lecture are available here.

This lecture will address some of the most pressing issues of the 21st century as they relate to equity and social justice in social work practice and education. While the 20th century brought forth great progress in policies to protect disenfranchised populations from overt bigotry, there has been a growing trend toward more implicit and subtle forms of discrimination, such as micro aggressions, color blindness, and postracial attitudes that perpetuate inequality and limit opportunity. This lecture will provide an overview of these issues and will attempt to identify ways in which we can better understand how and why these forms of discrimination exist and the role we all play as individuals in maintaining these systems of oppression. Methods for taking social action against these systems will also be discussed, particularly methods that promote nonviolent action and communication. Strategies for incorporating these issues and forms social action into social work education and practice will also be discussed.

Biography Sketch

Michael Spencer, PhD, MSW, is professor of social work and associate dean of educational programs at the University of Michigan. He has taught across the social work curriculum and held a number of leadership positions nationally in social work research and education.

Dr. Spencer's research examines interventions for reducing disparities in physical and mental health and service use of populations of color. He is the principal investigator of the REACH Detroit Family Intervention, a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project funded by the National Institutes of Health that seeks to reduce disparities in type 2 diabetes through the use of community health workers among Latino residents in Detroit. Dr. Spencer also investigates the association between discrimination and physical and mental health and service use among Latinos, African Americans, and Asian Americans. He has initiated several CBPR interventions on issues related to environmental justice and intergroup relations and has authored more 70 publications in social work, public health, psychology, medicine, and sociology.

Below: Dr. Spencer reflects on his experience in 
CSWE's Minority Fellowship Program.

Asher Ben-Arieh
Professor of Social Work, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Director, Haruv Institute in Jerusalem
Israel

From Child Welfare to Children’s Well-Being: What Can We Learn From Children?

NEW: The slides used during his October 26, 2014 lecture are available here.

Children’s well-being is a multifaceted phenomenon. The speaker will argue that the concept of well-being is changing, and as a consequence the way we measure it and the goals we set for society and social work are shifting. One major change is the growing voice of children and the need to include their perspectives in any effort to understand and promote well-being. Findings from 15 countries on the subjective well-being of children (ages 8–12) will be presented and their implication for social work will be discussed.

Biography Sketch

Asher Ben-Arieh is a professor of social work at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and director of the Haruv Institute in Jerusalem. He served for 20 years as the associate director of Israel’s National Council for the Child. Ben-Arieh has been a visiting fellow at Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago and at the Institute on Family and Neighborhood Life at Clemson University. From 1990 to 2011 he worked as the founding editor in chief of the annual State of the Child in Israel.

Professor Ben-Arieh is a leading international expert on social indicators, particularly as they relate to children’s well-being. He initiated and coordinated the international project "Measuring and Monitoring Children’s Well-Being" and was among the founding members of the International Society for Children Indicators, for which he was elected the first co-chair. Currently, Ben-Arieh is a principal investigator of the multinational, multimillion dollar International Study of Children’s Well-Being research project.

Professor Ben-Arieh has published extensively on children’s policy, child welfare, and indicators of children’s well-being. He is the founding editor in chief of the Child Indicators Research journal and the Child Well-Being: Indicators and Research book series.