Hot Topic Sessions
2015 APM Hot Topic Sessions Listed by Focus Area
Fourteen hot topic sessions, representing a wide range of emerging and important topics for social work educators that would not be addressed in the peer-reviewed format of proposals assigned to one of the 40 Tracks, were selected for the APM. They are listed below by focus area, following the structure of those 2015 APM content tracks.
Focus: Baccalaureate Programs
Ready, Set, Lead
Overview: Social work students are well equipped for "generalist practice"; however, they are ill prepared for leadership within the profession. This presentation will discuss the purpose and value of student membership in professional social work organizations and emphasize the role of social work educators in preparing students for leadership.
Focus: Clinical Practice
Financial Therapy: An Integrative Model for Change
Overview: This practice model builds on behavioral economics that focuses on irrational economic decision-making. It joins together psychology models and classical economic theory in predicting people's personal finance decisions. A transtheoretical model often used with behavioral addictions was adapted to increase the readiness for clients to adopt a responsible financial lifestyle.
Focus: Community Organization & Social Administration
Expanding the Capacity of Social Workers to Respond to Poverty
Overview: The Workplace Center and CSWE are developing a model approach that includes economic self-sufficiency and can inform social workers' response to issues of poverty. This session offers a rationale and research for this effort, delivers an illustrative curriculum segment, and discusses integration strategies for bachelor's and master's programs.
Focus: Health
Advancing Recovery and Shared Decision Making
Overview: CSWE, Indiana University, and the University of Kansas have formed a new partnership to advance recovery-oriented social work practice. This session will introduce a clearinghouse that features behavioral health recovery resources and Web events. Speakers will emphasize best practices and tools for teaching and practicing the SAMHSA-endorsed shared decision-making model.
Focus: Higher Education/Nonprofit Leadership
Called to Action: Claiming Social Work Education's Role in Contemporary Higher Education
Overview: Colleges consistently struggle to meet the needs of the contemporary student classified as the adult or nontraditional learner. Using the profession's foundation of social justice, this presentation will discuss the vital role that social work educators can play in supporting vulnerable students and faculty members fortunate to teach them.
The National Homelessness Social Work Initiative: Partnerships for Workforce Development
Overview: The National Homelessness Social Work Initiative has been launched in partnership with CSWE and flagship schools of social work. The Hot Topic describes the partnership approach to workforce development, outreach to federal agencies, use of Affordable Care Act opportunities, and innovation exchanges underway.
Focus: Interprofessional and Transdisciplinary practice
Wanted: Social Workers on Capitol Hill
Overview: Adequate curriculum and training to prepare social workers for employment or appointed service within legislative government and electability to office are often left unaddressed within the profession. Such roles require substantial training on par with clinical training. Implications for social work education and field placement will be explored.
Social and Economic Justice
Waging War Against Inequality: A $5 Trillion Initiative Over 10 Years
Overview: Present-day American wealth inequalities rival the Gilded Age, a time when the top 1% of the population possessed 20% of the nation's wealth. This presentation describes a $5 trillion initiative to decrease inequality over 10 years by revisions of the tax code that offer a major role for social workers.
Walking the Walk: A National Dialogue on Ferguson and Social Work
Overview: A panel of social work faculty members representing different perspectives in the academy will lead an interactive dialogue centered on social work's response inside and outside the classroom to the social injustice, systemic and structural racism, oppression, and inequality playing out in Ferguson, New York City, and other U.S. communities.
Social Welfare Policy and Policy Practice
Moving Your License With You: Social Work Practice Mobility in Our Future
Overview: Nearly half a million social workers are licensed in North America and are frequently on the move. They provide information, education, supervision, and services using technology that transcends geographical boundaries. This interactive session explores strategies under consideration by the Association of Social Work Boards to make licensure mobile across jurisdictional lines.
Focus: Teaching Methods and Learning Styles
Integrating Adolescent Substance Abuse Screening, Brief Intervention, and Treatment Throughout Social Work Education
Overview: Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) is a comprehensive, integrated, public health approach to the delivery of early intervention, treatment, and ongoing recovery supports for persons with risky and/or dependent alcohol use. This session will focus on the value of integrating SBIRT with adolescents into social work education.
Technology in Social Work Education & Practice
Understanding School Achievement Grades Through GIS Analysis of Socioeconomic Behavioral Patterns
Overview: Through application of a geographic information system (GIS), this research identifies the spatial intersection of school achievement and socio-behavioral variables through examination of the new 2013–2014 North Carolina public school performance grades. By integrating mapping and spatial information analysis, a more detailed and vivid picture can emerge of the schools' performance grades.
Web Accessibility: Safeguarding Schools of Social Work Websites
Overview: School websites are integral extensions of schools of social work. Websites are opportunities for recruitment of students and faculty members as well as 24/7 informational access for increasingly nontraditional students, partners, and field staff. Adherence to the Universal Design for Learning, Americans With Disabilities Act, Section 508, and the guidelines developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative is essential.
Values and Ethics
The Praxis of the Pariah: What Does Radical Social Work Mean Today?
Overview: Radical social work is often ignored or viewed as antiquated, ridiculous, and impossible. However, it is rooted in the core of the profession. Its popularity has waxed and waned over time, experiencing renewed vigor in the present day. What does it mean to be a radical social worker today?