Join the Continuing Education Committee

Would you like to join theNASW Continuing Education Committee?

Continuing Education:  Continuing education is defined as planned educational activities intended to further the education and training of licensed social workers for the enhancement of social work practice, education, administration, and research.

Content areas appropriate for continuing education include:  methods of intervention, such as individual casework, family treatment, group work, managed care, and community practice; administration, management and supervision; consultation; planning and policy development; teaching and educational methods; research; social problems; advocacy, social change and social action; and specialized services and treatment.  (Taken from NASW Standards for Continuing Professional Education)

The Utah Chapter of NASW has criteria for continuing education activities that are aligned with the Department of Occupational and Professional Licensing (DOPL). Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSW), Social Service Workers (SSW) and Certified Social Workers (CSW) are required by Utah State Law to earn continuing education credits (40 hours for LCSW and 20 hours for SSW and CSW) every two years in order to remain in compliance with the law and rules and retain their licenses.

The NASW Continuing Education Committee members meet on the fourth Wednesday of each month at 3:30 p.m. at a designated location (Youth Services in Salt Lake County at the present time). For those who would prefer to participate virtually, the applications can be accessed via Google docs and input can be given to the committee prior to regular meetings. If you would like to join the NASW Continuing Education Committee, in addition to volunteering to support quality education for workshop attendees, it is interesting to see what kinds of conferences and workshops are being offered throughout the United States. The committee consists of members from a variety of backgrounds, experience and practice settings. Applications for workshops and conferences by agencies that provide training for social workers are submitted each month and are reviewed by the committee members. After each member has read each application there is a robust discussion about whether or not the application meets the requirements for approval. Workshop sponsors rely heavily on NASW approval as this ensures the attendees that they are receiving quality informational content. Approval is also a good advertisement for the workshops and conferences.

At the present time, all of the committee members are LCSWs. We would really like to expand the committee membership to include SSW and CSW licensed social work professionals to help review those workshops that are geared toward Social Service Workers and Certified Social Workers. Social work students and those who are not yet licensed are also welcome to participate. Committee members must be NASW members in good standing.

If you have any questions or if you would like to sit in on some of the meetings to see if the committee is of interest to you, please contact Katie Mansell, Executive Director, at the NASW office, KMansell@naswut@socialworkers.org or Elise Hutchings, committee chair at EliseHut1@aol.com.