Greetings Clinical Social Work Community. And welcome to the end of summer, 2023. I hope you’ve all had plenty of warm weather adventures and were able to spend ample time with friends, family, and other loved ones during some time away from work and other responsibilities. The Great Minnesota Get-Together has lured many of us in to experience its annual charms (ah, those cheese curds and mini donuts and….) and those back-to-school and other fall transitions are well underway.
While your MSCSW Board has taken a hiatus from meeting this summer, our monthly webinars have continued and have been as well attended as ever and the Executive Committee has remained active as we plan for the Annual Meeting on September 28th and a Board Retreat in early-mid October.
We have also continued our recruitment of new Board members, thanks in large part to Mitch Leppicello, the Board’s Past President, and Leadership Development Committee representative who has found continued success. He was instrumental in helping to recruit Colleen Starkey, MSW, LICSW who was recently elected President Elect. Please join me in welcoming her into this role for the next year when we’ll work closely together to prepare her to step into the role of President for a two-year term. Our next goal will be to find a President Elect who can step in after her.
Mitch also recently recruited Kim Debeer, MSW, to join the Board as she returns to work after a maternity leave. Please also help welcome her to the Board.
As your main advocate for clinical social work in the State, MSCSW’s goals continue to be to:
- To provide networking opportunities for members.
- To represent your professional interests to various parties.
- To provide legislative updates.
- To distribute a society newsletter.
- To host professional education workshops.
- To disseminate research and educate professional social workers in best practices.
- To uphold and promote ethical and responsible standards in social work.
- To advocate optimum mental health services and ethical practice for all stakeholders (constituents, citizens) through legislative endeavors and
- To collaborate with educational and public organizations to promote clinical social work practice.
We continue working actively to achieve these goals and will continue to invite participation from members or other organizations to augment our work in these areas.
We also continue to be in frequent contact with our national organization, the Clinical Social Work Association, which serves as a guide and resource for MSCSW and the social work community in many ways. Their recent letter titled Artificial Intelligence and Psychotherapy reminded us to be aware of platforms such as Zoom and Simple Practice and their policies and practices using forms of AI, to consider whether the data they access is completely redacted and de-identified and whether using algorithms to help guide or make clinical decisions is most beneficial to clients. Their CE programs are also worthy of consideration, including one in November on Trans-Affirming Care: Clinical Approaches and Psychotherapy for Trans Individuals.
I’m proud to announce that some of the past six month’s achievements include:
- Filling our two Low Fee Supervision Groups.
- Growing our membership to over 350 and increasing participation among outstate members.
- Continuing to offer monthly webinars that are highly relevant, educational, thought-provoking, and well-attended through the efforts of our Education Committee.
We have been planning two major events for this fall.
We will hold our 2023 Annual Meeting on Thursday, September 28th at Holman’s Table located at the St. Paul downtown airport, Holman Field. We are looking forward once again to seeing many of you face to face at a time when doing so continues to present challenges. We will be hearing from some of our charter and early members who will give a panel presentation, Our Living History Shared by Those Who Created It. Please sign up now and join us if you haven’t yet done so.
The Board is also planning an all-day retreat in October when we plan to address board roles and recruitment and retention strategies, member recruitment strategies and succession strategies for board leadership roles.
We continue to challenge ourselves to expand and diversify our membership and Board participation by out-state and BIPOC clinicians. We plan to solidify some concrete next steps at our Board retreat this fall that will clarify and update Board job descriptions and confirm our goals and priorities for the next several years.
In choosing to extend my role as President one additional year so a smoother transition can be made to the next President, I’m hopeful to leave this position and organization stronger and with more clarity of roles and purpose and to then be able to continue in some other capacity to support the Board and its priorities.
I continue to feel honored to be part of an organization that represents the best of what clinical social work has to offer and will continue to advocate for and challenge policies or procedures that inhibit our ability to provide the best clinical services possible.
I hope to see many of you at our Annual Meeting and encourage you to bring a friend or colleague along. And as always, should you have any questions, thoughts, or concerns about our work at MSCSW, please feel free to reach out to me or any of the other Board members. We work for you and your clients and the communities we all serve.
And finally, thank you all for your support through your continued membership and for the important work you do in your community.
