Good-Bye & Hello: The New Social Worker's Top Social Work Articles for 2018, Editor's Picks, and More

17 Articles That Made a Big Impact in the Past Year

by Linda May Grobman, MSW, LSW, ACSW

     Good-bye 2018, hello 2019! Another year approaches, and it is time for our annual "wrap-up." What have we accomplished this year, and what can we look forward to in 2019? What have social workers been reading over the past year? Let's look at The New Social Worker's most popular articles from 2018 to get some ideas.

Top 8 Articles Published in 2018 in The New Social Worker Magazine

     First, let's look at the eight most popular articles (based on number of online page views) of those we published in 2018. It's a pretty awesome list. Read them for yourself, if you missed them! They are:

#1

Suicide Risk in Schools: What Social Workers Need to Know, by Jonathan Singer. This article was published as part of our widely-read Suicide Prevention Month series online (in collaboration with the American Association of Suicidology) and in the Fall 2018 issue.

#2

The Profound Act of Sitting With Difficult Emotions and the Value of Process in Social Work Practice, by Pamela Szczygiel, from our Fall 2018 issue. Using a case example, this article looks at "sitting with" and resisting the urge to "fix."

#3

Loss and Suffering: The Role of Social Work, by Elizabeth J. Clark, from the Winter 2018 issue. Social workers witness many types of loss and suffering. Small acts and the presence of a caring person can make a difference.

#4

Social Work Leadership: What Is a Leader? Are You One? Can You Become One? by Elizabeth J. Clark and Becky S. Corbett, from our Winter 2018 issue. This article kicked off Clark and Corbett's "Social Work Leadership" column published throughout 2018. They emphasized that social workers have leadership skills and that our profession has a long leadership tradition.

#5

Ethics Alive! Boundaries in a Small Community - Where Everybody Knows Your Name*, by Allan Barsky, from Spring 2018. This article from the Ethics Alive! column addresses ethical obligations for social workers who live in small communities where dual relationships are unavoidable.

#6

Social Workers Learn From and Raise Awareness Through Mental Health First Aid, by Barbara Trainin Blank, from our Spring 2018 issue. Likened to CPR for mental health, Mental Health First Aid has become a popular program for educating the general public and non-mental health professionals about mental health issues.

#7

Your Client Is More Tired Than You Are, by Molly Skawski, from Summer 2018. Molly points out that no matter how tired you are as a social worker, your client is more tired.

#8

Historical Trauma and Social Work: What You Need To Know, by Marcos Martinez and Elisa Kawam, Spring 2018. This article addresses the effects of historical trauma on individuals and communities.

Editor's Picks

     I have chosen one additional article from each issue in 2018 to share with you. These are representative of some of the topics we cover on a regular basis (#MacroSW, technology in social work, and social work career development) and a campaign we participated in this year on voter mobilization. And they are...

Top Web-Exclusive Articles for 2018

     The following articles are the top web-exclusive articles (by page view) published on The New Social Worker website in 2018. If you haven't read these already, you know what to do!

  1. A Letter to Social Workers for the New Year (Real World Clinical Blog)
  2. My Truth in Child Protection: Know Who You Are
  3. Social Workers, Need Complex, and Professional Burnout (from Self-Care Summer series)
  4. Social Workers: Three Key Powers We Develop (from Social Work Month series)
  5. Social Workers, Be Prepared for "13 Reasons Why," Season 2 - New Toolkit Helps With Resources and Guidance

What Was New in 2018?

     In 2018, in addition to continuing our Social Work Month Series and Self-Care Summer Series, we collaborated with the American Association of Suicidology to publish a new, informative series of articles during Suicide Prevention Month in September. My thanks go to Jonathan Singer, Colleen Creighton, Julie Cerel, Chris Maxwell, and everyone from AAS who contributed to making this happen.

     We also collaborated with Loyola University Chicago School of Social Work to hold a Reverse Poetry Contest. The winning poems were published during Social Work Month. Thank you Dean Goutham Menon, Professor Brian Kelly, and student Charity Weishar for the collaboration!

     Also during Social Work Month, we held our webinar series. The self-care webinar was with Erlene Grise-Owens and Jay Miller, two of the co-editors of The A-to-Z Self-Care Handbook for Social Workers and Other Helping Professionals. The salary negotiation webinar was presented by Jennifer Luna Jackson, social work career development expert extraordinaire, who also wrote articles on career development and will continue to do so in 2019. Thank you to BSCorbett Consulting for collaborating with us on this webinar series!

     Elizabeth J. Clark and Becky S. Corbett are two of the top experts in leadership in our social work profession. We were so fortunate that they wanted to share their wisdom in the form of a Social Work Leadership column for the year 2018. Click on their names to read their amazing bios and find links to their articles.  I want to thank both of them for their contribution to The New Social Worker on the topic of leadership. 

     Addison Cooper, who wrote the Social Work Goes to the Movies column for five years, also said good-bye to us this year, as he pursues other endeavors. This fun column will surely be missed, as he always had great insight into how social workers could use movies with clients or in their own self development. Thank you so much, Addison!

     It's not really good-bye. Elizabeth (Betsy) will still be writing career development articles for The New Social Worker this year. Becky and Addison may continue to appear in our pages from time to time, as well, so watch out for them!

     More recently, SaraKay Smullens has been writing movie reviews and commentary for our website. She takes a deep look at the meaning of popular movies such as The Tale, Three Identical Strangers, Boy Erased, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, and A Star is Born.

What Do We Have Planned for 2019?

     This year is our 26th year of publication. Our Winter issue will be out next week.

     We are already planning our awesome month-long celebration of social work during March - Social Work Month 2019! We are seeking submissions of 500 words or less on the core values of social work for our Social Work Month Series. (Choose one of the 6 values to write about. Send submissions or questions to me - Linda.)

     We are working on plans to bring you a new blog, beginning in January 2019. Stay tuned!

     Erlene Grise-Owens will continue to write the Self-Care A-Z blog and is always looking for social workers to write posts for it.

     The New Social Worker is sponsoring the NASW New Mexico chapter's Social Workers at Sea cruise, scheduled for October 2019. Watch for details.

     We currently have almost 173,000+ Facebook fans, 10,600+ Twitter followers, 8,800+ Instagram followers, and 28,000 LinkedIn group members.  Are you one of them? We look forward to connecting with you on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

     What else is in store? Follow us and subscribe to stay up to date!

     THANK YOU to our readers and to our writers, who share their experience and expertise with our readership!

     I look forward to seeing many of you around the web, on social media, and face-to-face at social work conferences in the coming year. I look forward to hearing from you and hearing about the innovative work you are doing. If you would like to share something with our readers, let me know.

     Peace and a good year to you,

              Linda