Dr. Barbara Head’s passion for education and our specialty of hospice and palliative care has helped to support, nurture, and strengthen so many social workers, nurses, physicians, chaplains, students, and other health professionals. We are all very grateful for her service. Barbara is currently receiving hospice care. Please join us in acknowledging the impact she has had on the lives of so many through your donation to honor her as a Florence Wald Champion. 

Barbara has been a lifelong champion for hospice and palliative care. Prior to entering academics, she worked at a large hospice program in Louisville, Kentucky, as a home care nurse, quality-improvement director, and staff/community education director. She has served as both a board member and president of the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) and the Hospice and Palliative Credentialing Center (HPCC) and as a member of the Social Work Hospice and Palliative Care Network (SWHPN) Board of Directors. 

We wanted to give a shout-out of recognition to several of SWHPN's Board members who are doing some amazing work!

Myra Glajchen, DSW, MSW, BSW, ACSW, APHSW-C

Dr. Myra Glajchen is the 2022 recipient of the Hyman J. Weiner Leadership Award. This award honors a member of the Society for Social Work Leadership in Health Care who possesses outstanding qualities as a teacher, scholar, advocate, change agent, and humorous and compassionate person. Candidates are selected for their demonstration of these qualities, as well as for their excellence in the advancement of the practice of social work in health care settings.

We are excited about the introduction of HR 8840/S4873 Improve Access to Advance Care Planning Act. We applaud Rep. Blumenauer, Sen. Collins, Sen. Warner, Sen. Collins and Sen. Klobuchar for proposing this bill.

This bill improves access to advance care planning (ACP) in multiple ways, and improved access is better for value-based health care. ACP conversations are important voluntary conversations that engage patients in sharing their values, goals, and preferences regarding future medical care. Advance care planning is associated with documentation of values and preferences, patient and surrogate satisfaction with communication, and positive surrogate outcomes such as caregiver burden and distress (1). Allowing for billing of ACP incentivizes the health care system to engage in this beneficial practice, and thus far these codes are considered somewhat underutilized.

We, the board members of the Social Work Hospice and Palliative Care Network (SWHPN) recently made a statement in response to the demographic data released by the Association of the Social Work Boards (ASWB). We noted our concern about the inevitable inherent racial bias embedded in the exam. Representing an organization of social workers working to bring humanity to serious illness and end-of-life care, we continue to reflect on ways to challenge the systems that deny and defy the basic humanity in all of us. It is in this endeavor that we respond to the recent New York Times opinion piece written by John McWhorter. 

In his opinion piece, Mr. McWhorter takes issue with the protest against the ASWB exam as racist. He points to the petition on Change.org and derides it for not sufficiently explaining why the tests are racist. Whether or not you believe the assertion that the test is racist depends on whether or not you believe the educational system in the United States, from preschool to graduate school, is embedded in a racist system and is infused with racist practices. There has been sufficient research data that support the fact that there are “categorical inequalities between Black and white students” in disciplinary policies, access to advanced courses, assignment to gifted and talented and special needs programs, and in practices of racialized tracking. The truth is that 68 years since the US Supreme Court ruling in Brown v Board of Education, high levels of racial and economic segregation persist in most metropolitan areas and with it, disparities in education. 

Hello SWHPN Members! On behalf of the SWHPN Board and staff, we hope you are enjoying a relaxing and safe summer. At the 2022 Conference, we extended our commitment to enhanced communications and transparency with our members. We hope you have enjoyed the new monthly Membership newsletter which came out last week, as well as our first Advocacy and Policy newsletter.  It was developed in conjunction with several Board members, and is generously supported by Healthsperian, a Washington DC-based company that provides healthcare advocacy on behalf of non-profits across the country; they are providing this to SWHPN free of charge to help our members stay abreast of policy issues that may impact our field, and have been supporters of SWHPN conferences for a number of years.

Additionally, we are working to write more regular blog posts, to provide more opportunities to gather feedback from members, and to develop new member benefits, including leadership and professional development opportunities. We also want to make sure our members stay up-to-date on what is happening behind the scenes with the Board and staff as we take on our own development to transform the organization into an anti-racist, inclusive space. 

SWHPN Statement on SCOTUS Dobbs v. Jackson Ruling

The Social Work Hospice and Palliative Care Network (SWHPN) is outraged and profoundly disappointed at the decision released on Friday, June 24 by the Supreme Court of the United States in the Dobbs vs Jackson ruling. This decision not only becomes the first Supreme Court decision to take away recognized individual liberty by ignoring stare decisis, it also places many people’s, and in particular, women’s autonomy lives, and well-being in jeopardy.  It conflicts with the Social Work Code of Ethics by interfering with social workers’ commitment to the dignity and worth of every person, and people’s rights to self-determination, especially over their bodies. Bodily integrity and autonomy are cornerstones for liberty within our society. We anticipate that those who have been historically marginalized and excluded within our society will suffer greatly, and disproportionately, from this decision. We will remain vigilant and encourage our members to work for unfettered access to high-quality health care for every person in our country. Social workers will stand firm in our commitment to social justice, access to quality healthcare, including reproductive health, and the right of every person to self-determination and liberty.