From the moment that I walked into orientation at my Master of Social Work (MSW) program at The University of Pittsburgh, social work ignited me because of its commitment to people. Social work represented a movement towards compassion and a drive to change societal wrongs, such as racism, sexism, poverty, segregation, and greed. Social work, as a profession, grants skills and a belief set that teaches individual strengths through an explicit value code. As a profession social work defines six core values that act as its cornerstone: 1) service, 2) social justice, 3) dignity and worth of the person, 4) importance of human relationships, 5) integrity, and 6) competence (NASW, 2008). These six values act as an impermeable force of positive change that serves to enhance societal well-being (NASW, 2008).
Dr June Gary Hopps (1989) said this about the social work profession, "The range of talents and skills each brings to the social work enterprise is what gives our profession its unique combination of heart, mind, and action. Social work, in any of it branches, can never simply be an intellectual exercise. Our service must be to and by real people". This blog is devoted to social work and will reflect that unique combination of heart, mind, and action identified by Dr. Hopps. It will also be a forum for discussion about social work related issues and how to mitigate those very issues through the talents and skills so evident within this profession. In closing this introduction, I share a poem I wrote inspired by Social work: SOCIAL WORK MANIFESTO: An adaption of Marinetti’s (1909) Manifesto of Futurism 1. We want to sing, dance, and perform our love of justice, community, self-determination, solidarity, empowerment, and resilience. 2. THE essential element of our social work is service inflamed by love of humankind, courage, compassion, and liberty for all. 3. Now is the time where all community members of society will activate discussion to enhance the well-being of all its members. We want to exalt movements of compassion, impervious unity, peaceful protest, the perilous leap into change, the strike of lightening, dare we say profound awakening, into a new and better reality. 4. We declare that the glory of society has been enriched by diversity and tarnished by divides. We move to attack stagnation caused by oppression and ignite progress through solidarity, equality, and social justice. 5. We want to hurl humankind into harmony with the hemisphere of planet earth. 6. Those with and without privilege must love each other as one impermeable movement nurtured by warmth, caring, and empathy rather than separate entities sharing a singular earthly space. Love of and appreciation for all differences and how they combine to ignite humankind is the enthusiastic vehemence that drives us. 7. The struggle is beautiful. It illuminates the star-speckled power of courage and strength. We can, therefore we will overcome oppression. We will weave a universal blanket of peace and sincerity from the threads of greed, oppression, intolerance, heartbreak, and pain. Our beauty is struggle; our luminous blanket suffocates suffering and comforts those in need. 8. We are winged with infiniteness. Everlasting and free when unified as one human race. 9. We want to glorify community — the only cure for the world — destruction of ego, power, envy, machismo, bigotry, domination, segregation, and greed. 10. We want to demolish racism, sexism, and any form of oppression that prevents the growth of an unified humankind. 11. We will sing, dance, and perform unity, a feverish desire to exist in synchronization, dignity and worth of all; the multi-colored, multi-faceted elements of human nature: the eternal vibration of a unified Earth that flies with the milky way, the moons, the stars and the sun: the wind rustling the ever-changing brilliant colors of the leaves; the steadfast trees; melodious rivers and streams; the everything that is all: a new magnificent, brightly lit horizon created by a love for and a commitment to all. Adventurously we embark on a new and better future. References: Hopps J. G. Services to and by Real People. Social Work [serial online]. May 1989:195, 196. Available from: Sociological Collection, Ipswich, MA. Accessed June 11, 2015. National Association of Social Workers (2008). Code of ethics. Retrieved from http://workforce. socialworkers.org/pubs/code/code.asp. Nobile, J. (2015). The social work manifesto: An adaptation of Marinetti’s futurist manifesto”. The University of Iowa Poetry Contest for Social Workers Chapbook. Iowa: The University of Iowa
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