Social work professionals have a mandate to take action to promote the general welfare of the populace and to do so at all levels of society.  Distance and diffusion of responsibility, as well as nationalism and localism, inhibit individual responses to pervasive injustice, current crises, and emerging threats to the general welfare.  Large scale issues are seen as problems immutable to resolution vs challenges with potential situations. 

This workshop addresses the choices social work professionals make in fulfilling the sixth standard of the NASW Code of Ethics: Social Worker’s Ethical Responsibilities to the Broader Society.  It seeks to empower social work professionals to make informed choices that lead to meaningful actions targeted at alleviating current and future human suffering in the global community.  In so doing, social workers will empower individuals, families, and communities to change conditions that threaten safety and well-being.

That workshop will specifically focus on global citizenship, identifying incidents of challenges to social and ecological justice around the world, while bringing options for personal action within reach.  A model for how individuals will make choices for action in the global environment, where issues often seem insurmountable, will also be presented.

Learning Objectives: 

• Participants will gain an appreciation for their responsibilities as social work professionals relevant to the sixth standard of the NASW Code of Ethics

• Participants will have a deeper understanding of the factors involved in making the choice to act in defiance of large scale human suffering and threats to the global general welfare.  

• Participants will obtain information about avenues for responding to incidents of violations of social and ecological justice in the international arena.

Faculty:

Karen Jink, MSSW, DCSW

Karen Jick, MSSW, DCSW, has been a social work professional for nearly 40 years.  Ms. Jick is currently a lecturer in the Social Work Professional Programs at the University of Wisconsin- Green Bay and is in clinical private practice with ICF Consultants, Inc., Milwaukee.  Her background includes work in child welfare, international adoption, behavioral health university teaching, clinical supervision, program development and agency administration.  She has developed curricula and provided training for child welfare professionals around the state and has presented numerous social work ethics workshops.  Ms. Jick is a past president of NASW-WI and is the current chair of the Child Welfare of the Child Welfare Specialty Practice Section of NASW national.