The 21st Annual
MSSWA Day at the Hill
Virtual & In Person
Wednesday, March 6th, 2024
at
Education Minnesota, 41 Sherburne Ave, Conference Room 6,
St Paul, MN 55103
Virtual Details to be Announced Soon.
****Click HERE for Day on the Hill Brochure**
What is Day on the Hill? Day at the Hill provides an opportunity for school social workers to come together to elevate the profession of social work and to educate state lawmakers about how school social workers address student barriers to academic success in cost effective ways.
Up to 6 CEUs awarded for those attending in-person (Virtual Participants earn 2.5 CEU's). This is a staff development/Board of Social Work approved opportunity, not a political lobby day.
Who should attend?
• Current or past school social workers
• Students interested in the field of school social work
• Friends and supporters of school social work and public education
Cost: The cost for in-person would be $40.00 for members, $70.00 nonmembers and $10.00 for BSW and MSW students, which includes breakfast and lunch. Cost for virtual $25.00 members and $50.00 for nonmembers. All who register will receive a Day on the Hill 2024 T-Shirt.
Agenda:
7:45-8:15 Registration
8:15-9:00 Welcome and Opening Remarks - Christy McCoy MSSWA Legislative Chair and Julie Campanelli MSSWA President
9:00-10:15 Keynote Presentation - Is our Help Helpful?: Re-Envisioning our Role as Agents of Change: Miriam Itzkowitz, MSW, LICSW
10:15-10:30 Break
10:30-11:00 Legislative Priorities from EDMN Lobbyist, MSSWA Lobbyist Jenny Arneson and Christy McCoy
11:00-12:00 Networking discussions centered on strengthening the impact of our advocacy at the micro, mezzo and macro levels & Preparing for visits with Legislators.
12:00-12:30 Lunch and Large Group Share Out
12:45-3pm Visits with Legislators
School social workers play a critical role in advocating, promoting and impacting the realization of educational equity and social justice for all! Day on the Hill is one avenue in which all of us can engage as true change agents on a macro level! REGISTER TODAY!!!!
Keynote Presentation: Is our Help Helpful?: Re-Envisioning our Role as Agents of Change
The Social Work Code of Ethics states that “fundamental to social work is attention to the environmental forces that create, contribute to, and address problems in living.” But what do we do when we ourselves are one of the forces that may create or contribute to problems in living? Social workers often see ourselves as forces of good in an unjust system, and we strive for this to be true. At the same time, our profession simultaneously practices within unjust and racist systems and seeks to dismantle them. Indeed, the history of the social work profession from the early “friendly visitor” model and the settlement house movement, set up a sense of ourselves as somehow fundamentally different from the people that we serve. How do we as social workers reckon, not only with the roots of our profession which shaped and provided labor for discriminatory systems and programs but with our current complicity in upholding these same systems? This talk will ask participants to reflect on where we are individually and collectively in our pursuit of our professed mission to “enhance human well-being and help meet the basic human needs of all people, with particular attention to the needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed, and living in poverty.”
Learning Objectives
Participants will:
- · Reflect on the history and current state of the social work profession with regard to practices that contradict our profession's mission to dismantle social injustice.
- · Define social work professional values that are relevant to the work of radical justice.
- · Develop strategies to move personal practice towards alignment with these social work values.
- · Discuss ways to apply this learning to the systems in which they practice.
Christy McCoy MSW LICSW
SSWAA President and MSSWA Legislative Chair
School Social Worker
Como Park Senior High School
