The Social Work Department held a conference in the ballrooms at the Overman Student Center on Aug. 28. This was the opportunity to bring together current industry professionals, educators, and degree-seeking students to expand their field. Seven faculty and 14 students of PSU attended the event as well as many other active workers. The department thanked their Crimson Sponsor: Ozark Center for their support of the event.
Check-in started at 7:30 a.m. and the day concluded around 4:00 p.m. There were various workshops and seminars with a multitude of topics and options for the participants to go learn from, that covered a diverse range of complications that they will face on the day-to-day working in social work.
Dr. Jeremey Wolfe, MSW director and associate professor, coordinated the conference. He shared that aside from recruitment and education, the event would foster the hopes that faculty and students all walk away with something greater.
“I hope that the social workers here [that attended the conference] feel a connection to both Pitt State and the profession as they move on, so that they feel a connection to our program,” Wolfe said. “But also that they feel connected to all the other social workers in the community.”
One of the many valuable aspects of this event was that every workshop that the attendees went to, they earned three hours of CEUs, also known as Continuing Professional Units. This is used to measure the ongoing training and professional development of licensed social workers.
Wolfe said that there are attributes to social work that the border community should know about.
“We provide seven percent of mental health services in the U.S. We do things like children’s division, foster, and adoption,” Wolfe stated.
Some of the academic workshop topics that were held in the morning of the event included ethics of therapy when dealing with high-custody disputes, handling severe and persistent mental illness, and suicide assessment and prevention.
At the core of their job, Wolfe said that it is all about helping people get through complex and difficult circumstances in their world.
“A lot of [social work] is around helping people who have gone through trauma or are having some mental health, relation, or emotional issues.”
The afternoon workshop options were diagnosing PTSD and trauma-informed practices as well as cultural awareness, competency, and humility. The conference also had a keynote that served as the centerpiece of the event. Melinda Lewis was brought down from KU to share her expertise in the changing career path.
Wolfe also assessed the impact that this day had on the overall mission of Pittsburg State University and said that is a two-fold.
“Giving back to the professionals in the field by providing low-cost professional development and educating professionals on things that they will have to know how to do in the field,” Wolfe said. “Our goal is to help professionals know about both our bachelor’s program and our master’s program.”
Wolfe added that the Social Work program has had many recent milestones.
“We are a growing program,” said Wolfe, “We’ve graduated our first group of 20 students last May in the graduate program and we are about to finish accreditation.”
