NASW Social Work Talks - EP8: 2018 NASW National Conference, Part 2

Episode Date: June 5, 2018

With the conference just days away, we speak again with the conference organizers to give you idea of what you can expect, whether you attend in person or virtually.

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 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 of NASW Social Work Talks. I'm Kim Simpson with NASW.

In this episode of NASW Social Work Talks, we take another comprehensive look at the 2018 NASW National Conference, which is right around the corner, June 20th through the 23rd, at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. The 2018 National Conference is the ultimate gathering of the social work profession. More than 2,000 social workers and other helping professionals will gather for four days of unparalleled opportunities for professional development, continuing education, networking, and thought-provoking conversations tackling the most pressing issues facing the social work profession worldwide. I'm so pleased to have two guests back on the show for another conversation. They're the backbone of the team that is responsible for planning the 2018 National Conference. Rafael Vitale, NASW's Director of Professional and Workforce Development, and Richard Loomis, NASW's Manager of Conference and Event Planning. Thanks so much for joining us, gentlemen.

Thank you for having us, Kim. So the 2018 National Conference is just a few weeks away. What can folks expect when they arrive on day one, June 20th? I see pre-conference workshops, keynote presenters, and an opening reception among the highlights. Thanks, Kim. Yes, indeed. The opening session of the conference on Wednesday, June 20th, is going to be a very busy day. We actually start first thing in the morning with an advocacy program that will be held on Capitol Hill.

It's a voter engagement-focused event, teach-in type of event. That will be followed by eight pre-conference workshops. Among those will be sessions on ethics, on self-care, private practice, and there'll be, as said, choices from eight different topics. And that will lead into the formal kickoff of the conference, which will be at 3 o'clock, And that will involve both remarks from our leadership, a presentation by a spoken word poet, Cain Smigo, and then our opening keynote presentation from Van Jones, a journalist and commentator on CNN. What can you tell me at this point about the offerings in terms of the workshops and breakout sessions? It looks like a pretty comprehensive set of breakouts.

Yes, indeed, Kim. Thank you. In fact, this is the case. Setting aside the keynotes and the plenary sessions, we do have over 100 breakout sessions. Each session is 90 minutes long, so there are plenty of opportunities for attendees to really, really dive deep into several topics. We had to basically scheme over 500 applications for presentations for content for the conference. So we were able to really select what looked like top-notch content. And it covers all topics.

It really spans across the broad spectrum of social work as a profession. And they are all going to count for continuing education credits. It's like many events this size. The individuals will have badges with the barcode on them. and they will be scanned at the entrance of each of these breakouts. And that scanning basically will ensure that they get credit for attending that session when the CE certificate comes out at the end. So it sounds like participants can earn up to 25.5 continuing education credits.

What kinds of topics? Scanning the list of offerings, it looks like you can learn about aging, and just the entire gamut of topics that social workers would be interested in. That is correct. 25 and a half is an accurate number, is where we are at right now. There's always changes at the last minute, but it looks like it's going to be the total number of CEUs, assuming that a participant attends the maximum amount of sessions

that are not happening at the same time, clearly. But yes, there will be breakout sessions that cover ethics, clinical social work, addictions, school social work, really anything you can think of, there will be several breakouts that cover that topic at different levels. As I said, because all the sessions are 90 minutes long, we really are able to, for each of the sessions, really dive deeply into that topic and ensure that it's properly covered. Of course, there is the opportunity to ask questions, which is always very thought-provoking and engaging for the audience. We'll have breakout sessions in the morning and in the afternoon of each day.

except for Wednesday, of course. So there will be breakout sessions in the morning of Thursday and the afternoon of Thursday, as well as Friday and Saturday. So there will be plenty of opportunities to make sure that you really get to attend those sessions that you deem are important for your job. And again, folks just need to, it's first come, first serve. So our participants can scan the agenda,

choose the topics for the breakouts that they want to participate in, and then you show up. That's correct. It is what is referred to as open seating. You make your decision as to which breakout session you want to attend and participate in. And as Rafael mentioned, the calendar, the scheduled breakouts, reflect the broad spectrum of social work from advocacy to mental health to school social work, aging. aging. It's really going to be a wide variety, quite a menu. And the, as I said, it's open seating. You go in, first come, first serve. Once the room reaches capacity, then we'll have to move on to others. Yes, there will be a program in the bag that each registrant receives a check-in, but also they will be able to download the event app, our conference, NASW conference app, that

It also gives a full schedule of events that are happening and so allows them to navigate which ones they want to choose. That's an important part of conference and our participants can download the app prior to conference, prior to arriving, and that app will include information about all of the keynote presentations. I mean, we're heavy on wonderful content for the breakout sessions, but we also have some wonderful content during the actual keynote presentations and the plenaries. Can we talk about how things have shaped up for this conference in terms of the content that folks can expect to

hear from some nationally renowned speakers and plenary speakers? Indeed, both nationally and internationally renowned speakers. We mentioned earlier the opening keynote will be delivered by Van Jones, author and contributor on CNN, and Kane Smigo, a nationally acclaimed spoken word poet from California. We'll also have Freddie Lajvardi from Arizona, who is quite an inspirational speaker. We'll talk about how he, as an educator, has worked with disadvantaged children. And then the wrap-up on Saturday will be best-selling author and blogger Gretchen Rubin. So we are quite pleased with the array and diversity that we have amongst the keynote speakers. And one other way that our participants can glean additional content is to visit the exhibit hall,

in which we'll have a very wide array of different organizations exhibiting. Can you tell us about who we can expect to meet at conference? Indeed, it'll be a robust exhibit hall. Once again, with a good diversity of exhibitors, there'll be academic and educational programs with a variety of schools of social work exhibiting. There'll be advocacy organizations, government agencies, different health care services, treatment centers. So, indeed, it's going to be quite an opportunity to, you know, see some of the best offerings being made today. What else can folks expect throughout the conference in terms of special events? Well, we do have several events that are meant to, again, enrich the participants' experience and also to lighten up the mood a little bit as well.

we do have returning events like for instance we will host the Night of the Awards gala event for NSW Foundation where awards, national awards will be given but also it's an opportunity to meet and network

with colleagues and thought leaders within the field we'll have the film festival like we did in prior years we'll host three different uh films and um that's part of the your registration fee so there's no additional dues for that one audition fees for that one and it's been quite popular and um also we'll have

new events events that we haven't done before but we're excited about for instance we will have a kind of a dance reception uh after the film festival on thursday we're not sure about how what we're going to call that but we like the idea of calling it nsw club or something of that nature There will be music, there will be light refreshments served, but mostly it will be an opportunity to just relax a little bit for a couple of hours and dance your way into the Friday morning. So we need to bring our dance shoes. Absolutely, yes.

And also very important, for the first time this year, we are hosting a career development opportunities. Through the gracious offerings and work of the Consortium for Career Development in Social Work Education, which is a consortium of schools of social work, we will be able to offer two workshops, which will happen around lunchtime on Thursday and Friday,

that will focus on career development, as well as one-on-one coaching sessions that will happen throughout the conference at specific times, and people can reserve their spot for those one-on-one coaching sessions. We're excited about those, and I want to take a moment to thank

the five schools that are part of the consortium that will be basically providing these services at the conference. And they are the University of Texas at Austin, University of Houston, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Illinois at Urbana, and University of Chicago. We are really excited about these initiatives because, again, it's the first time we're doing that, but we feel like it's an important part of someone's career development,

the opportunity to speak with experts about simple things like how to write your resume, how to negotiate for better salaries, how to maintain and curate your LinkedIn profile. So we're looking forward to those events as well. So the opportunities for learning and networking are virtually limitless in terms of, I mean, there's a little bit of something for everybody. Indeed, and I think that is also one of the major motivators as to why people do go to conferences is that ability and that opportunity for networking.

And that really underlies a lot of the conference offerings is to maximize the opportunity for people because it's a national conference. It's an international conference. There are eight other countries outside of the United States that will have representation at the conference. And so that opportunity to build your own network through meeting with others. Raphael mentioned the film festival, and we talked about CEs. And it's just an important point to note is that you can also earn two CEs by attending and participating in the film festival. So for our listeners who are intrigued and perhaps have not visited the NASW website yet or registered, folks can still register. What's the process?

Where can they get more information? And how long can they register? Registration, we'll take registration right up to the conference itself, so right up through June 20th. But in advance of that, people are encouraged to visit the NASW website, socialworkers.org, click on events, and then you'll see a link for the 2018 NASW National Conference. And that will just take you right through a very easy, very user-friendly registration process. And, of course, there is a virtual option for those who can't be in Washington, D.C. for this year's event. Tell us about that. What's being offered, the cost, and how can folks register?

Yes, we do recognize that it is expensive for a lot of folks to not only reserve your spot at the conference, but also having to make travel arrangements and come all the way to D.C. So we want to still try to give as many people as possible an opportunity to join in some of the most important content that's going to be shared. So we will be broadcasting live all the keynotes, the plenaries, and probably between 10 and 15 of the breakout sessions so that people that cannot make it to the conference for all different reasons can still try to join remotely and at least take in that very important content that's going to be shared. We don't have a price point yet at this point, but clearly it's going to be a much lower price than the actual registration fees for the conference. We did the same thing in 2016, and it was very successful, and so we'll use the same platform, and we got only good feedback from the use of the platform in terms of ease of registration and ease of logging in and attending those sessions remotely. We're very confident that the technology partner that we are partnering with is going to be able to, again, support and provide this fully.

the last thing I wanted to mention about that is that as an added bonus individuals that will not be able to attend even if they register for the remote live online sessions but they cannot attend them for whatever reason they will also be given access to the recordings of those sessions afterwards so even if you don't get to attend the live session

as it happens you can still watch it afterwards so there is that added bonus of making sure that once you're registered eventually you're going to get the opportunity to see that important session So there's some exciting opportunities for folks to participate, whether they're here in Washington or watching from their home or office. Anything else that comes to mind that you'd like to add?

Yes, Kim, I want to add one more thing that it's really hard to describe simply, is that just the energy at the event is incredible. This is the most common feedback we receive. I just was so re-energized by attending the event so ready to go it really feels like we've done our job even just by that just by looking at people around on the conference

and see how they're smiling and they're just feeling energized so if anything else come for the rejuvenating energy you're going to get out of it we encourage all of our listeners to visit the website and look at the agenda

and follow through on registration. Absolutely. I've enjoyed the previous conferences that I've attended, and I'm really looking forward to this one. Raffaele, Richard, thanks so much for joining us. Thank you, Kim. Thank you, Kim. Until next time.

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 policies.

You can learn more at www.socialworkers.org. Don't forget to subscribe to NASW Social Work Talks wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks again for joining us. We look forward to seeing you next episode. Thanks for watching!