How Will SWHPN Change in Response to the Killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Riah Milton, Dominique Fells, and Innumerable Others?
As social workers in this pivotal moment, there are key lessons from the field of social work, and particularly the field of palliative and hospice social work, that we at SWHPN can apply to help some of us become better both in our work and our day-to-day lives.
4: keep your ethics in check
I have seen several posts now on NASW discussion boards, Twitter, and various listservs where social workers have harkened back to our professional ethics and values. Recently, social workers Lauren Schmidt, MSW, LICSW, APHSW-C, Daphne Lindsey, LICSW, Elizabeth Julian, LICSW from Seattle Children's reached out to express their disappointment that SWHPN had not posted any resources exploring the intersection of racial inequity and COVID-19. This was after their colleague Arika Patneaude, MSW, LICSW, APHSW-C, EMMHS had reached out to express a similar disappointment a few weeks back. All of this is to say that we should be doing better, and they are right: this is in our bones as social workers. Here are just two of our core values that we should be turning to right now (and really, always) as we engage in conversations about inequities across all intersections:
- Value: Social Justice
- Ethical Principle: Social workers challenge social injustice.
- Social workers pursue social change, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed individuals and groups of people. Social workers' social change efforts are focused primarily on issues of poverty, unemployment, discrimination, and other forms of social injustice.
- Value: Dignity and Worth of the Person
- Ethical Principle: Social workers respect the inherent dignity and worth of the person.
- Social workers treat each person in a caring and respectful fashion, mindful of individual differences and cultural and ethnic diversity (National Association of Social Workers [NASW], 2008).
With that in mind, below are the steps we have taken so far to change the organization and the steps we plan to make in the coming months:
- At the July board meeting, we are discussing our strategic Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) plan. This will include embedding EDI strategic plans within each committee (rather than creating a new committee specifically for EDI).
- We will be asking all educational presenters to include EDI materials in their presentations.
- We will start an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Special Interest Group (SIG) within the next few months, while also asking all SIGs to embed EDI within their goals and action planning.
- We will share new crowdsourced resources every Friday about 3 topics: Grief and Bereavement, COVID-19, and EDI. If you have read a great article, listened to a thought-provoking podcast, or watched an illuminating webinar on one of these topics, we want to hear about it! You can submit these on this form until 5:00 p.m. EST to include it in that week’s SWHPN Shares post.
- Code Switch: Why Now White People: in this episode, hosts Gene Demby and Shereen Marisol Meraji discuss theories for why the country, and specifically white people, appear to have responded to George Floyd’s killing when so many others have gone unanswered.
- Income emerges as major indicator of coronavirus infection, along with race: this Washington Post article describes who is getting sick in the pandemic. This won't be surprising information to medical social workers, as poverty is a social determinant of health and a lever of power, but it will be important to note, especially for our patients who live in places of intersectionality.
- National Association of Social Workers's Code of Ethics (2008)
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Suggested by social workers Lauren Schmidt, MSW, LICSW, APHSW-C, Daphne Lindsey, LICSW, and Elizabeth Julian, LICSW at Seattle Children's:
- COVID-19 Health Equity Resources from the University of Vermont
- The American Public Health Association's COVID-19 Health Equity Resource Page
To our members, we ask that you make a commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion both with your colleagues and with your patients. If you’re white, commit to listening to colleagues and patients who are hurting. Tell us when we make a misstep (and when it doesn’t take too much energy). This is going to be a difficult period of change and I can’t promise we will be perfect; but I can promise we will try as hard as we can, and that we will try to apply the above principles.
Allie Shukraft, MSW, MAT, APHSW-C | SWHPN Board Chair