Standing together

A message from the outgoing Board of Examiners Chair

Tonya Grant MSW, RSW, NSCSW BOE/Chair

As my six-year term comes to a close I want to express that it has been such a pleasure to have been involved in all of the innovative and exceptional work of our College. I would like to welcome the wonderful Joline Comeau as our new chair for the Board of Examiners and I would also like to wholeheartedly thank the NSCSW staff, committee members, volunteers, members and public members who have worked so hard over this past year to ensure that our practice holds a high degree of strength and integrity. As I reflect on all the outstanding social work practice across our province, I am grateful to be a part of our social work community and I have never been more proud to call myself a social worker.

There have been lots of successes and challenges along the way, especially now in the midst of a worldwide pandemic and in our recovery from an unthinkable tragedy in our beautiful province. Social work has over a century of experience working with adversity, inequality, trauma and resiliency and now we face a long road ahead of restoration and restructuring. As the pandemic moved through our province the Board of Examiners noticed time and time again how social workers were stepping up and digging deep to provide support to others at the very same time they were facing their own work and life uncertainty.

Child protection social workers continued to offer needed community visits, and health care social workers donned PPE to get the job done. Many social workers kept shelters and other community programs operating, and mental health social workers (both public and private) shifted in record speed to provide online therapy services. Many of our members, including students, were involved in organizing existing services in innovative ways, creating new services, conducting research, and consulting on response planning. The NSCSW advocated strongly for vulnerable Nova Scotians to have better services while emphasizing that the pandemic is amplifying the social, economic and health inequities that have been here harming people for decades. The College provided guidelines on social working in the context of a pandemic and worked hard to re-register retired social workers and remove barriers to work across provinces.

When the mass tragedy occurred, social workers worked tirelessly to offer support and hold spaces for people’s suffering and resiliency, in concert with dealing with their own shock and grief. Many reached out in creative ways offering webinars, social media posts, blogs, posts and their musical talents to provide comfort during such a heartbreaking time. Social workers were navigating unprecedented waters while still using a critical lens to look beyond the surface and raise awareness on the highly interdependent relationship between structural and direct violence.

Together, we can continue to work in collaboration with our communities to enhance social connections, build on collective resiliencies and raise our voices even higher to advocate for long overdue revolutions in our social, economic and health policies. In 1917, on the day of the Halifax explosion, Jane Wisdom was the only trained social worker in Nova Scotia, and today we are 2154 members strong. By standing together and using our collective strengths in advocacy, relational work, critical policy analysis and community development, we will continue to make a difference. As we move forward through the next year it will be also be important to give ourselves the same care and compassion we readily give to others. As social workers we already know how to push through, so in order to continue to do great social work it will also be essential to give ourselves permission to rest, recover, reset and heal with the rest of our community.

2019 BOARD OF EXAMINERS:

Dennis Adams, Jaqi Allan, Lynn Cheek, Joline Comeau, Tonya Grant (chair), Jeff Karabanow, Jack Landreville, Angela Penny, Shireen Singer. Government Appointees: Justin Adams, Lisandra Naranjo