Social workers are often called on to use their skills to help the most vulnerable citizens in our society -- children at risk of abuse and neglect, the elderly, disabled persons, and people experiencing severe health crises.
Social workers also work to positively change systems, policies and institutions for the better. It takes a good education and a profound personal commitment to make this happen.
Columnist George F. Will takes exception to the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics provision that professional social workers advocate for social and economic justice ("Schools of social work veer left," Oct. 15).
In accepting the National Association of Scholars' report on social work education, he in effect complains that social work students are expected to learn how laws and policies are made, and how they might be improved.
In taking sections of the code out of context, Mr. Will conveniently overlooks the core values of our profession: service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, importance of human relationships, integrity and competence.
It should go without saying that social work students need to practice the skills our profession uses to achieve these laudable goals.
Maine social workers are diverse in their opinions about many social issues, but we are in agreement in our desire for social and economic justice, for all citizens.
Catherine Stakeman, D.S.W.
M.S.W., ACSW
Executive Director
NASW-Maine Chapter
Brunswick
In bemoaning and disparaging the social work profession's emphasis on "social justice," "advocacy" and the "understand (ing) of the forms and mechanisms of oppression and discrimination," George Will displays in his Oct. 15 column an absolute lack of knowledge of the profession of social work.
From social work's beginnings in this country with Jane Adams' settlement house to support the poor and immigrants in the inner city of Chicago, and Dorthea Dix's ceaseless advocacy championing the mentally ill in the back wards of the state asylums, social and economic justice have been the core business of social work.
To attempt to divorce this "ideological orthodoxy" from social work is as if to ask physicians to no longer interest themselves in the treatment and prevention of illness, but to perhaps, sell shoes instead.
There is no "surreptitious political agenda in the new code of ethics. " It is entirely explicit, and social workers are proud of this fact.
The first statement of the Preamble to the NASW Code of Ethics is "The primary mission of the social work profession is to enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty."
If Will feels that the goals and aims of the social work profession and its educational institutions mean that "conservatives need not apply," then perhaps the problem is with conservatism.
Suzanne Nemeroff, LMSW-CC
Portland
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