NASW Social Work Talks - EP2: Social Justice Initiatives with Mel Wilson

Episode Date: March 13, 2018

What are NASW's social justice initiatives right now, and how were they chosen? Mel Wilson, our Social Justice & Human Rights Manager, speaks about the issues that concern us, and that are keeping us busy in the national office and at our local chapters. See Episode 2 show notes for resources

Welcome to NASW Social Work Talks. The National Association of Social Workers is one of the largest membership organizations of professional social workers in the world. NASW works to enhance the professional growth and development of its members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social work policies. With our mission in mind, the purpose of NASW Social Work Talks is to inform, educate, and inspire. We encourage you to learn more about NASW by visiting www.socialworkers.org

and we thank you for joining us for this episode. Hello, welcome to Social Work Talks, NASW's podcast. My name is Greg Wright and I am NASW's Public Relations Manager. NASW did a survey of its members, which indicated social justice is one of the main issues that our members want this association to focus on. So today, our guest is Mel Wilson, NASW's Social Justice and Human Rights Manager. Welcome, Mel. Hi, Greg. Thank you. First off, Mel, we want you to tell us a bit more about yourself. How did you get into social work? Well, it's a long story, Greg. When I got out of the military, didn't know what to do, decided to go to college. Went to Howard University. So it was a beautiful school, a school of social work. Really wanted to get involved with social work. During that time, there was a lot of activity around social justice, civil rights, and it seemed to be the profession that I just gravitated to, and it was very important to me.

So I committed myself to going to school, and the rest is history. Okay. How long have you been NASW's social justice and human rights manager, and what excites you about that job? It's been about four years now, and it came out of a discussion with the previous executive director of NASW, recognizing that social justice was beginning to emerge as an important issue. So they asked me to take on the position. It was really exciting that because of the whole issue of criminal justice was in the forefront, and that was the prominent social justice issue,

but I knew at the time that there were many, many broader areas dealing with injustice, and the excitement was that I would get the opportunity to not only involve myself, but certainly be able to be a part of a movement where there was a clamoring for change, change, a clamoring for working together in coalitions to resolve some of the injustices that exist in the United States. NASW has set five social justice priorities. I was wondering if you could tell our audience what those priorities are and how NASW came about setting these priorities. Okay, the five are, right now, it's voter rights, criminal justice, juvenile justice, immigration, and basically economic justice or safety net issues. A little bit of background on how these priorities came together.

About a year and a half ago, our CEO, Angela McClain, and my boss, Heidi McIntosh, sat down and said that we really need to firm up what these priorities are. And so we presented them to the board, and then we also did a survey out to the chapters, got a lot of feedback, and got a consensus that these should be the priorities that we work on during at that time was 2016 to 2017, and that it was important to not try to deal with all the issues in the world, but really center on major five issues that we can focus on and put a lot of energy behind. So that's how they evolved. I was also wondering, how does NASW promote social justice priorities?

In other words, what is the work that we're doing with both Congress and other organizations in order to promote our social justice priorities? Greg, that's on a number of levels. Internally, at NASW, one of the ways that we promote the priorities is that we have distributed and disseminated the priorities to all the chapters and to the social media. I also have done a number of presentations through individual chapters talking specifically about the priorities. And pretty soon I will be doing a presentation at the University of District of Columbia to talk about the social justice priorities. So that gets it out to the social workers. But to your point of getting it out to a broader diverse population or diverse interdisciplinary kinds of organizations, We and I believe very strongly in the coalition model.

So for each of those priorities that we laid out there, there is an existing national coalition that meets on a regular basis, and NESW, myself, we are regular members. We go to those meetings. We express ourselves. We talk about our priorities. And the priorities aren't something that just are there just to talk about. They're essentially action plans.

And the intent of all these priorities and the intent of working in coalitions is to bring about real change. A good example, again, is around the issue of criminal justice. There is something called the Justice Roundtable that includes, well, over 50 to 60 national groups. And they've been really effective as a coalition of bringing about a lot of reforms or moving towards many reforms within the criminal justice system. We focus a lot on legislation across the board, legislation around voters' rights, legislation around criminal justice, really, really very much involved with the Dreamer issue that is raging right now. We are a part of the task force dealing with immigration task force so that we just try to be where the action is, and where the action is generally covers all the priorities that we've outlined in our own commitment. Mel, I was wondering if you could name a few of the organizations that NASW works with.

I have heard of a work with LCCR, but I was wondering if you could also name others. Sure. Talk about the LCCR. That is the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights. They've been around for a number of years, over 20 years, have about 200 members nationally. It includes many of the major civil rights organizations, NAACP. La Raza, just most of the major organizations, National Organization of Women, you can go down the list. They're probably the most active, probably the most cohesive and comprehensive coalition that exists.

They are right now headed by a woman named Vanita Gupta. And Venita used to be the head of the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice under the Obama administration. Before then, it was headed by, for 20-some-odd years, by Wade Henderson, who was one of the leading or is one of the leading civil rights leaders of the United States. It focuses on civil and human rights in a literal sense. So all those areas that we talk about, voters' rights, immigration, criminal justice, Every area that deals with human rights, there is a working group that LCCR has that works under its umbrella. And the key word with LCCR is that it is an umbrella organization, meaning that they do not direct individual member organizations on their day-to-day operations,

but there's a consensus amongst member organizations that we will work as a collective to resolve some of the major issues of the day. Mel, I was wondering, why is it so important for NASW to partner with other organizations? I've heard you mention before that there is strength in numbers. Is that the reason? Yes, that is the reason. The coalition model isn't new. It emerged perhaps 10 years ago where many organizations recognized that you have to have a multitude of organizations around the issue to work together, to plan together, to advocate together. There is strength in numbers.

If we try to, for instance, address the issue of criminal justice, one of the issues that we're about to get into is bail reform. We try to do that individually as NESW. It would be very, very difficult to get the attention of members of Congress, the attention of other agencies, even of other organizations. But when we do it with LCCR or with the Justice Roundtable, then we are much more strong and able to have much more leverage with some of the most powerful folks in this country. So it is imperative that organizations really want to bring about change and social justice.

We have to work as a collective. Now, if I'm a member of NASW and I want to get involved in advocating for social justice issues, what can I do? You really should start and work from your state and even lower than that in your locality. There are often, especially in the largest cities, a number of coalitions, a number of social activist groups that are working on a range of issues, and you need to identify or at least try to find out if you have a particular concern. Let's say, again, voters' rights. If you have a particular concern about the way voting goes on in this country,

then you need to search out a number of groups such as the LCCR's coalition around voters' rights in Washington, D.C. But in New York, there's just a number of organizations that you can join and join in their activity. On a national level, I'll use another example, the Justice Roundtable and the LCCR. Each time there's a meeting, these are open-ended. You don't have to be qualified as an organization or have any specific qualification. You can just join to be a part of that coalition. And each time they have a meeting, there is a call-in number. So you don't even have to physically.

You can live in California. The meeting is happening in Washington, D.C. You can call in, join in that dialogue. There are often subgroups or working groups that are available. You can participate as a working group member, and I actually recommend that because that way you get a chance to really get involved in hands-on kinds of activities, and you get a better sense of what some of the outcomes or where some of the major issues are trending towards. So a lot is incumbent up to the individual to find out what's going on in their jurisdiction or in their state, But certainly there are many opportunities on a national level.

Right now, NASW has five social justice priorities. Once more, as you said, they're voting rights, criminal justice, juvenile justice, immigration reform, and economic justice equity. But is there a possibility that this association may actually alter its priorities based on what's happening in our current political environment? Yes, Greg, when we developed the social justice priorities, one of the things we did, we wrote in sort of the guidelines, and one of the areas that we really paid attention to was that things evolve. And so that the suggestion, the recommendation was that on an annual basis, the NESW board, the NESW CEO, the chapters will have a chance to look at all five current social justice priorities and have a dialogue and make a decision as to whether or not we should replace one, two, or more of those priorities.

But it was designed to be flexible. It was designed to recognize that a given priority that might emerge in a given year, so therefore you must be able to adjust and add new priorities. But one of the most important things that we wanted to do is not expand priorities just willy-nilly. We want to keep it at that level of five. Now, five is somewhat arbitrary, but it seemed like a reasonable number of priorities that an organization can work on in a given year. So we're at that point now where we'll do a survey. We'll get out to the chapters.

We'll have a conversation with the board and with the CEO and work out a mechanism where we can get feedback. And there's a possibility, for instance, the issue of environmental justice is not one of the priorities now, but it's certainly one that should be considered. So there's a strong possibility for the 2018 year that environmental justice would become one of the priorities, and we may drop another one. Mel, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. You have been listening to NASW Social Work Talks, a production of the National Association of Social Workers.

We encourage you to visit NASW's website for more information about our efforts to enhance the professional growth and development of our members, to create and maintain professional standards, and to advance sound social work policies. You can learn more at www.socialworkers.org. And don't forget to subscribe to NASW Social Work Talks wherever you get your podcasts. We also invite you to join us for the 2018 NASW National Conference, which runs June 20th through the 23rd in Washington, D.C. You'll have an opportunity to earn 20-plus CEUs, hear nationally renowned speakers, participate in unique professional development workshops, and enjoy fulfilling networking opportunities. To learn more and to register today, we invite you to visit www.socialworkers.org. Thanks again for joining us.

We look forward to seeing you next episode.