Learning from leaders in social work

LEARNING FROM LEADERS IN SOCIAL WORK

BY APRIL MUNRO-WOOD, MSW, RSW, PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE CHAIR

The mission of the Professional Development Committee is to continue thinking outside the box to create opportunities that will challenge, engage, strengthen and expand the knowledge base of our membership. By continually challenging the membership, we will have the opportunity to meet the everchanging needs of our population.

To this effect, our committee took on a new challenge: seek out and review professional development opportunities, and make them available to members in their own regions. This new venture has already proven its worth in gold. Thanks to the committee’s hard work, for the first time ever social workers will be able to complete their professional development hours entirely from opportunities provided by the College. Delivery of these opportunities has already begun, and there are so many great topics still on the horizon for the rest of 2019.

This year’s spring conference, Keys to Resilience, Healing and Trauma Informed Social Work Practice, has been a labour of love for the committee. So many wonderful members came forward wanting to participate. It’s going to be an exciting two days.

With each new year, our committee is challengedto provide fresh, new, innovative topics relevantto the practice of social work.

Our goals are to showcase social workers as leaders in their various fields, and to offer learning opportunities that align with the topics social workers have identified in past survey results as being most relevant to their practice.

If we continue to build opportunities for our membership, we will continue to grow and become stronger as a collective. I am proud of the dedication of past and present members, and I look forward to continuing to think outside the box.

COMMITTEE MEMBERS:

April Munro-Wood (Chair), Holly Meuse (Co-Chair), Craig Besaw, Mary Burey, Brandy Gryshik, Crystal Hill, Helen Luedee, Claire Sampson-MacDonald, Joanne Sulman, Annemieke Vink (staff liaison)