By Brad Estes on Sun 03/11/2012 07:05am
Posted in
This year's theme for national social worker month, held during the month of March since 1984, is “Social Work Matters”.
The Sheridan VA Medical Center employs 23 social workers. John Slaughter is social work executive at the VA, he says a common misconception is that social workers just work with children.
In fact, though the Sheridan VAMC provides family therapy services to veterans and their families, they rarely work with children. Billie Chapman is a staff social worker at the VAMC, and she has organized the social worker month events for the last three years. She says what they do is similar to what's provided outside a veteran's hospital.
Slaughter added that they provide direct therapy either in a group or individual setting, and that social workers licenses allow them to do a wide array of things in the mental health care field.
He added that the VA offers internships for students in their first or second year of graduate school.
The VA will hold an ethics presentation on March 21 in the Sheridan VA Auditorium open to all area mental health care providers. We will have more on that event next weekend.
President Ronald Reagan first declared March National Social Worker month in 1984.
