2022-2023 Committee/Task Forces
The NASW-Nevada Chapter is seeking volunteers in every part of the state to volunteer on chapter committees or task forces to support events and chapter priorities.
NASW is your association. Why not take advantage of all the opportunities it has to offer? Within each of our regions are ongoing leadership opportunities, CEU workshops, and networking events organized just for you. NASW-Nevada is your networking link to what’s going on in your community and the social work profession at large. This is your professional organization—make the most of your membership, and get involved!
Consider joining one of the many committees and task forces within the NASW-Nevada Chapter. For 2022-2023 they include:
- Social Work Networking North Committee - help plan and organize networking events for the northern region with the Northern District Chair. In formation*
- Social Work Networking South Committee - help plan and organize networking events for the southern region with the Southern District Chair. In formation*
- Conference Committee - assists in education review, promotes the event and solicit sponsor/exhibitors. In formation*
- Rural/Frontier Committee - standing committee tasked with looking for ways to better integrate rural social workers into the association. Currently Active.
- Legislative Session Review Committee - reviews upcoming legislative issues and session legislation for discussion and possible chapter involvement and/or action. In formation*
- Racial Equity Committee - standing committee tasked with reviewing current issues around racial equity. Currently Active.
- Membership and Community Outreach Committee - standing committee to work with community partners to further recruit members and inform the social work profession on NASW activities. Currently Active.
- ASWB Testing Task Force - time-limited task force charged with reviewing the ASWB testing results report and recommending to the board possible chapter action. In formation*
*Committees that are designated as "in formation" are committees that are currently not meeting but in which the association will be launching when needed or the applicable time period arrives. Committees marked "currently active", are currently meeting and have a formal charge.
Getting involved in your chapter is a great way to not only build your resume but to also gain leadership skills. But most importantly, if there is something you’d like to see happen in your region, whether it be starting your own Brown Bag Lunch series, a book club, a CEU workshop on a specific topic, or anything else, volunteering on a chapter committee is the best way to make it happen. This is YOUR association—make sure it reflects YOUR interests!
Please Note: You MUST be an active member of NASW-NV to be a voting member of a committee.
If you're interested in serving on one of these advisory groups, please complete an NASW-Nevada Committee Volunteer interest form.
Additional opportunities and task forces may be added throughout the year as needed by the Board of Directors. Updated opportunities will be reflected here and via the email news blasts.
Committee updates:
Rural Task Force:
NASW Nv. Rural Task Force is actively seeking additional members! The task force was formed in early 2020 with a mission to engage social work professionals that are living or working in the rural areas of the state in order to identify their unique needs, increase chapter support, make recommendations to the NASW Nevada Board, and facilitate communication with colleagues that are in the urban areas as well as our community partners.
In addition to the opportunity to network and engage with social workers throughout the state, our current activities include a rural community assessment project, a CEU workshop focused on the concerns of social workers that are in rural areas, and tracking the infrastructure bill.
If you'd like to join the task force please email kjones.naswnv@socialworkers.org Also, please consider taking a lead in chairing the task force as a social worker living or working in rural or frontier Nevada!
The Racial Equity Committee:
The Racial Equity Committee of the Nevada NASW Board under the leadership of Cyndi Carpluck, has been very busy over the past months working on several initiatives.
First and foremost, our primary activity was to revise and update the Diversity/Affirmation Action Plan. These revisions include ways in which Nevada NASW will actively fulfill one of our major tenets within our Mission Statement, which is to advance the cause of diversity within Nevada.
Our updated and revised Diversity/Affirmation Action Plan was presented to the full board and approved for implementation with the goal of updating this plan again in 2024.
One aspect of the Diversity/Affirmation Action Plan involves the expansion of member recruitment efforts. A sub-committee of the Racial Equity Task Force, consisting of members, Sandra Abdullah, Mavis Major, and Amanda Simons, has begun the recruitment efforts by reaching out to the social work departments at both The University of Nevada Reno and Las Vegas, to leverage existing relationships in an effort to gain access to the social work student body with the goal of providing workshops training and information about the benefits of joining NASW.
As a result of this effort, Sandra Abdullah was given an opportunity to serve as a Field Education liaison for Nevada NASW for a UNLV social work student! This was an exciting development. Sandra has been busy developing a macro field experience for this new student, who will be joining NASW as a student intern in the coming weeks.
Membership and Community Outreach Committee:
The NASW-NV Chapter Agency Field Instructor Sandra Abdullah and I have been working on the Community Outreach Volunteer Project since the beginning of the semester. The purpose of the project is to recruit social workers and social work students who are dedicated to serving Las Vegas communities through volunteering with local nonprofit organizations that rely on volunteers to fulfill their mission and provide their services. We reached out to four amazing nonprofit organizations and met them virtually a couple of times to discuss the feasibility of volunteer opportunities. Hope Link, Habitat for Humanity, Las Vegas Rescue Mission, and Three Square are eager to collaborate with the NASW-NV Chapter. Also, I scheduled site visits with those agencies to learn more about their volunteer activities. I made one of these visits with Three Square. I planned to make site visits with the other agencies in the following month. We are in the process of recruiting social workers and social work students to serve as volunteers for the Project… Please refer to our flyer for more information and click on the flyer to sign up to become a volunteer!
Sandra and I have been making in-person presentations to the UNLV School of Social Work students. The presentations provide information about NASW and the benefits of membership for students. I observed that most students do not have comprehensive knowledge about the NASW, except for the Code of Ethics. I also saw that students become more interested in learning about the NASW and becoming a member after the presentations since presentations included numerous perks for student members, such as webinars, seminars, insurance, etc., and even joined during the presentations.