TASSW Board Meeting
Friday, May 17th at 9:30 am MNEA Building Nashville, TN2013 Conference
“Celebrate School Social Work”
October 2-4th 2013 Double Tree Hotel Murfreesboro TNSSWAA Updates
SSWAA WEBSITE!
SSWAA has been working hard over the last few months developing our New Website at www.sswaa.org. We hope you find it more user friendly and a source of valuable information and resources. Please take some time to explore what it has to offer so far. We will soon be able to provide our 16th National School Social Work Conference sm registrations on the website and will send you another EBlast when Registrations are open.
We Need Your Help:
1. If you have not been a member for a while, you may not be able to Login until you have renewed your membership. Please log in and update your profile today!
2. In order to serve you better, please also feel free to send us resources you think might be useful to share with others so that we can review for possible posting at ContactUs@sswaa.org.
Visit the website often as we continue to add information and updates!
Sincerely,
School Social Work Association of America
P. O. Box 1086; Sumner, WA 98390
Questions? Contact Us
SSWAA Summary of H.R. 1138 “School Social Workers Improving Student Success Act”!
In her press release, Congresswoman Moore states that, “Kids face big difficulties at home even before they show up to school. These affect their learning and can make them act out, withdraw, or even skip school all together. School social workers have a proven track record of helping students overcome obstacles in their lives and succeed in school, which we know is necessary for future success.” Read the full release at http://gwenmoore.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=637&Itemid=31
Many thanks to the SSWAA members from Wisconsin who developed a relationship with Moore’s office and visited her staff during the SSWAA Leadership meeting last summer. These are the kind of results we can achieve from making contact with our State and federal legislators!
Bill Summary
Overall Purpose: H.R. 1138 amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act by establishing a grant program to fund additional school social workers and retain currently employed school social workers in high-need school districts.
1. Grant funds may be used by local school districts for the following purposes:
- To retain school social workers employed in the district or to hire additional school social workers.
- To reimburse school social workers for expenses incurred in providing services listed in #2 below.
2. School social workers providing services to students under these grants shall:
- Identify the highest-need students in each school served by the social worker and target services to those students; and
- Provide to those students social work services, including:
- counseling and crisis intervention;
- case management to coordinate delivery of and access to appropriate school social work services;
- addressing social, emotional, and mental health needs to ensure better school outcomes;
- providing assistance to teachers in designing behavioral interventions;
- working with students, families, schools, and communities to promote attendance and address causes of poor attendance, such as homelessness, lack of transportation, illness, or phobia;
- home visits to meet the family of students in need of social work services in the home environment; and,
- connecting students and families to community services.
3. Grants are awarded for a period not to exceed four years.
4. Grant recipients will report on staffing expansion of school social workers funded by the grant and the specific work performed to target high-need students.
For further information, please contact Libby Nealis, SSWAA Legislative Specialist, libbynealis@yahoo.com
or Myrna Mandlawitz, Director of Government Relations, School Social Work Association of America, mandlawitz@verizon.net.
Loan Forgiveness Legislation Reintroduced
Representative Edolphus “Ed” Towns (NY-10) has reintroduced the Increased Student Achievement through Increased Student Support Act, H.R. 3405. This bill would increase the recruitment and retention of school social workers, school psychologists, and school counselors by high-need urban and rural school districts. This bill focuses on supporting the social, emotional, behavioral and mental health needs of students as a means of improving classroom achievement by increasing the number of school support professionals available to students.
The Increased Student Achievement through Increased Student Support Act authorizes grant funding for university-school district partnerships to increase the number of school psychologists, school counselors and school social workers in low-income schools. The measure also creates a student loan forgiveness program for individuals who serve at least five school years as a school psychologist, counselor or social worker in a high-need district. Lastly, the measure will use a self-updating formula, based on the most recent census data, to fairly allocate funds between urban and rural schools.
This legislation will provide much needed assistance to teachers in high-need schools that want to raise student achievement, but need the assistance of qualified school based mental health service providers. SSWAA will continue our efforts to support further action on this legislation and its Senate companion, soon to be introduced. Stay tuned to the SSWAA e-Bell for further updates on how to assist in our advocacy.
Licensure Process
Keep up to date on the State of Tennessee Social Worker Licensure process and forms.
State of Tennessee Board of Social Work
Current Legislation for our State
Social Work Legislation in the State of Tennessee
Upcoming Board Meeting
Our next meeting will be held
May 17, 2013
at
MNEA location
Membership Dues
Due to increasing cost in planning Conferences and maintaining our organization we have decided to increase the membership dues. TASSW dues will be as followed:
Regular Members $30
Associate Members $15
Student Members $15
Retirees $15
TASSW combined with SSWAA membership
Regular Members $125—-(TASSW $30, SSWAA $95)
Associate Members $110—(TASSW $15, SSWAA $95)
Student Members $75—( TASSW $15, SSWAA $60)
Retired Members $75—-(TASSW $15, SSWAA $60)
Membership Application 2012- 2013