Congratulations to Susan Blacker, who has been chosen to receive SWHPN’s 2010 Social Work Leadership Award. Currently the Director of Cancer Services, Planning and Performance at St. Michael’s Hospital, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Susan juggles multiple leadership and administrative, teaching, and research roles - from championing interprofessional practice, education and research in oncology and palliative care at St. Michael’s Hospital, to teaching as a lecturer at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto. She is a much sought after speaker in social work and interdisciplinary forums throughout Canada and the United States addressing both psychosocial oncology and palliative care and presenting innovative approaches and strategies for integrating these areas in health care.
Prior to her work at St. Michael’s Hospital, Susan was a member of the Department of Oncology Social Work at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. In addition to her clinical and supervisory role, she was the Director of the Continuing Education Program in Psychosocial Cancer Care. Susan previously received a Social Work Leadership Development Award from the Open Society Institute’s Project on Death in America to support her two-year project, Social Work & End-of-Life Care: An Education Initiative. This project reached more than 250 social workers across the United States and set the stage for the creation of a network for social workers in this area.
Susan has published extensively in social work and interdisciplinary journals and books on all areas of end-of-life and palliative care. She was the volunteer lead for the committee that developed the NASW Standards for Social Work Practice in Palliative and End-of-Life Care and was the co-editor of the 2005 Social Work Series in the Journal of Palliative Medicine.
Susan has been a driving force behind the formation of SWHPN. She was co-chair of the 1st and 2nd Social Work Summits on End-of-Life and Palliative Care in 2002 and 2005, and served as a founding member of the SWHPN Board of Directors from 2007 to 2009. Susan has moderated the SWHPN online community and discussion forum, which has become a major benefit to its members.
SWHPN has previously presented this unique Project on Death in America (PDIA) Social Work Leadership Award, made possible by the Open Society Institute, to 3 outstanding social work leaders: Debra Parker Oliver in 2007, Shirley Otis-Green in 2008, and Barbara L. Jones in 2009.
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