Past Special Projects

The NASW Foundation is proud of its collaboration with NASW and outside partners on special projects that promote our commitment to enriching the social work profession and empowering social workers to be leaders in social policy and practice.  To live up to this commitment the NASW Foundation administers a variety of educational, research, and training programs.  In many of these projects NASW and the NASW Foundation have partnered with other organizations, including Foundations and the U.S. Federal Government, that provide funding for the initiatives.  

NASW HIV/AIDS Spectrum Project

The NASW HIV/AIDS Spectrum: Mental Health Training and Education of Social Workers Project (NASW HIV/AIDS Spectrum Project) has offered education, training, and technical assistance to health and behavioral health care providers on the impact of HIV/AIDS on the mental health and wellness of individuals, families, and communities affected by HIV/AIDS. The project has worked in collaboration with federal and state agencies, universities, community-based organizations, NASW chapters and other professional associations.

The goal of the NASW HIV/AIDS Spectrum Project is to provide necessary practice skills on mental health, substance use, trauma, end-of-life care, ethics, long-term health impact of HIV/AIDS, and medication adherence to enhance and promote culturally competent practice with individuals, families, and communities affected by HIV/AIDS.

Program content has been presented via knowledge-focused, skill-based training that addressed mental health and HIV/AIDS within a strengths-based bio-psychosocial–spiritual perspective. Participants typically have been university lecturers, program directors of local CBOs and NGOs, mental health practitioners, community advocates, health volunteers, and other community health professionals interested in the psychosocial aspects of care for persons living with and affected by HIV/AIDS. The HIV/AIDS Spectrum Project has offered the following skill-building workshops, each using a lecture, case studies, and small group exercises:

• Providing services in complex times: working with clients living with HIV/AIDS and co-occurring mental health disorders. This workshop addressed the bio-psychosocial factors of living with HIV/AIDS; identification and early intervention with mental health problems; HIV-related neuropsychological problems; and highlighted tools for working with clients with dual or multiple diagnoses.
• Addressing ethical dilemmas in an era of complex practice issue: HIV/AIDS as a case study. This workshop explored legal and ethical issues, individual and institutional attitudes that may affect services, opportunities to provide culturally competent services, and a framework for ethical decision making.
• Substance use, mental health, and HIV/AIDS: An integrated response. This workshop addressed common risk factors; assessed professional and personal issues; the effect of micro and macro issues on services; identified risk reduction techniques; and demonstrates the application of a comprehensive and integrated practice model.
• The role of the social work in medication treatment adherence: HIV/AIDS as a case study. This workshop reviewed factors affecting adherence, the role of the mental health care provider in adherence, the benefits of risk reduction strategies, and stages of behavior change to identify barriers and steps to adherence. The ADHERE model has been presented as a framework for promoting culturally competent practice with individual clients, their family, and within the broader communities affected by HIV/AIDS.

In addition to curriculum development and training/education programs, the project model has included a training-of-trainers component; webinars and online education. Twenty-four expert social workers participated in the train-the-trainer model.

The NASW HIV/AIDS Spectrum Project has reached more than 18,000 providers in the United States and worldwide through in-person skill-building workshops. Online programming offered through NASW WebED courses have ensured that an additional 20,000 social workers from 38 countries better understand HIV/AIDS as a global health pandemic.

The project Advisory Committee, composed of social workers with expertise in HIV/AIDS and mental health social work, guided the work and served as Senior Faculty for workshops as well as specialty modules. Advisory Committee: Lisa Cox, associate professor, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey (NJ); Nathan Linsk, Jane Addams College of Social Work, University of Illinois and Midwest AIDS Training and Education Center (IL); Dimas Moncada, clinician and trainer; Jill Sabatine, social services director, AIDS Care Ocean State (RI); Dianne Green-Smith, Ph.D., LMSW, ACSW, program director, School of Social Work, Grand Valley State University; Melissa Sellevaag, project director, JBS International; and Terry Tauger, clinician and trainer. Jeremy Goldbach, Assistant Professor, University of Southern California serves as the Project Evaluator.

The project was funded through a multi-year SAMHSA/CMHS Contract # 280-09-0292 with the NASW Foundation and NASW that concluded in 2017.  For more information about the project, its body of work, and other HIV/AIDS-related information, please visit the NASW website.

Partners In Program Planning

• increase public and professional awareness of the health status and policy issues relevant to adolescents; 
• increase the level of social work competency and advocacy on behalf of adolescents and their families; 
• promote the health status of adolescents by building interdisciplinary efforts and enhancing collaboration of PIPPAH Partners and MCHB affiliated entities; and,
• enhance communication between the Office of Adolescent Health and NASW membership.

The PIPPAH partners included the National Association of Social Workers, the American Bar Association, the American Dietetic Association, the American Medical Association, the American Nursing Association, and the American Psychological Association. PIPPAH used a public health perspective to disseminate health promotion and disease prevention information. Past activities included presentations at the NASW Meeting of the Profession, NASW Chapter conferences, and collaborative presentations with other PIPPAH partners. 

Bereavement Training Curriculim

Practice Research Network

The NASW Practice Research Network (PRN) sought to expand the research knowledge base about social workers and social work practice.  The initial PRN initiative focused on clinical social work  practice and substance abuse.  The results of a survey of practitioners filled gaps in knowledge about identification, treatment, and referral of substance-abusing clients who present for treatment in private practice settings and in agency settings.  Subsequent PRN initiatives were tailored to capture information on critical social work service or policy issues. 

• develop knowledge about the scope and effectiveness of social work practice by NASW members;
• generate practice-relevant information for planning future service delivery, policy, research, and financing decisions pertinent  to social work; and,
• improve prevention and treatment outcomes for individuals, groups, families, organizations, and communities through practice-based research.