We are living through turbulent times in the nation’s history. Faced with many serious problems that range from the effect of climate change on our environment, the rise in gun violence especially mass shootings, humane immigration policy, education and election integrity, we are being challenged to dig deep into our souls and to struggle with the nuances of different policy positions. Each of these are serious policy issues with long histories and new complications. Policy issues are always two-sided issues that reflect value choices and political power. Neither set of value choices is the right one or the wrong one, each has intrinsic worth and significance, because the choices we make today will effect the future. Over the last four years, we’ve been challenged to examine the pros and cons of the policies put forth by the Trump Administration beginning with the travel ban imposed on Muslims from five predominately Muslim countries, an Executive Order directing federal funding for the construction of a wall along the Mexico and US border and calling for an end to the abuses of parole and asylum provisions of immigration law and building facilities to hold undocumented immigrants near the Mexican border. Later we were jolted into an alternative reality of zero tolerance policies and the separation of Latina children from their families, the official policies of the Department of Homeland Security and the Trump Administration. Many of these policies violate the very ethical standards that social workers pledge to follow, creating ethical and moral dilemmas for those who work with the populations directly affected.
Now Donald Trump is the third sitting President who has been impeached by the House of Representatives, where a majority of the representatives are Democratic. The President has been charged with two articles of impeachment: one on abuse of power, the other obstruction of Congress. The first pertains to Trump’s attempt to get the President of Ukraine to announce an investigation of Joe Biden, the President’s political rival, Biden’s son Hunter Biden and Burisma, a Ukrainian gas production company. House Democrats accuse the President of betraying public trust by withholding $391 million in military aid to Ukraine in exchange for the investigation. They further argue that the President placed his own interests above those of the country. He was seeking to serve his own interests rather than those of the country. In doing so, Trump abused his power as President. Obstruction of Congress was the second charge. Trump defied subpoenas to provide testimony issued to members of his Administration and refused to release documents requested by the House Intelligence Committee. Presidents are not immune from responding to subpoenas. The full House will vote on the impeachment charges in the next week; if a majority favors the charges then the Senate will hold a trial.
The Republicans counter these charges by arguing that the President did nothing wrong. Trump asked the Ukraine President to announce an investigation with valid concerns about corruption; Biden was not a factor. Trump was not trying to undercut Biden politically or to advantage himself with information he could use in the 2020 Presidential campaign against his rival. The Republicans argue that the military funds authorized by Congress to assist with the war between Ukraine and Russia were released therefore there was no attempt to bribe anyone. They (the Republicans) also decry the impeachment process. It (the impeachment process) was unfair. It did not permit Republicans to subpoena witnesses, therefore the evidence gathered by the House Intelligence Committee was incomplete and indirect. The evidence was based on hearsay witnesses; there was no direct evidence implicating the President.
These two positions paint very different pictures that must be weighed separately. We must carefully examine both positions, assess how they reflect our individual and professional values and their credibility before drawing a conclusion. Yet, to my chagrin Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader, has already announced during a Fox News interview that Trump would not be removed from office and that the Senate would acquit him with no censorship. Knowing the outcome before the process begins seems somewhat disingenuous. Despite McConnell’s pronouncement it behooves each of us to consider these positions, determine which we believe to be true, which is likely to have the least negative impact on the country, and which reflects our value base. We may not be able to influence the Senate impeachment trial, but we can have a voice at the voting booth in November 2020. Exercise your right to vote in all pending elections and let the candidates hear your voice.
In this issue of Smith Studies, four vastly different papers are presented. The first paper written by Rani Varghese, MSW, Ed.D., Assistant Professor at the School of Social Work at Adelphi University and Hye-Kyung Kang, PhD, Associate Professor and Director of the Social Work Program at Seattle University describes a qualitative study they conducted that explored how clinical social work educators conceptualize and define clinical social work. Among the principles the sample identified were the unique orientation of the profession which includes a person-in-environment perspective, relationship with client, and multi-level analysis and intervention. The findings from the study illustrate the core principles, concepts and theoretical frameworks the participants consider essential for educating clinical social work students.
The second paper is written by Lea Tufford, Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at Laurentian University and her coauthors Ellen Katz, Assistant Professor at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto, and Cassandra Etherington a student completing her Bachelor of Social Work at Laurentian University in Ontario. The paper describes the results from an exploratory study that assesses the impact of weekly mindfulness practices on the ability to develop attentional processes, therapeutic presence, and empathy in classroom-based role-play scenarios and practicum placements among fourth year Bachelor of social work students.
The third paper entitled “Socially-engineered trauma and a new social work pedgogy: Socioeducation as a critical foundation of social work practice”, is written by Wendy Shaia, Clinical Associate Professor and Executive Director of the Social Work Community Outreach Service at the University of Maryland School of Social Work, David O. Avruch, a private practitioner in Baltimore Maryland, Katherine Green, a high school social worker in Washington, DC, and Geneen M. Godsey an AmeriCorp Community Service Learning Fellow with the University of Maryland Baltimore County. In this paper the authors argue that social workers attend to micro-level traumas and ignore the macro level factors that lead to trauma among certain populations. The authors then introduce the term socioeducation to describe a method for raising macro social systems issues with clients to support trauma recovery, so as to initiate client and worker participation in social justice movements to disrupt oppressive systems.
The final paper in this issue was written by James Drisko, Professor at the School for Social Work at Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts and Anne Freidman, a PhD candidate in the School for Social Work at Smith College. Drisko and Freidman describe a content analysis of the social work literature on evidence-based practice and concluded that the distinction between evidence-base practice, the process and evidence-supported treatments (treatments with a specific level of research support) is inadequate in social work literature. Conflating these content areas may as some of the research shows result in social workers rejecting evidence supported treatment and the evidence-based practice process because of concerns that third parties are compelling them to use a specific treatment model taking the art out of social work practice.
As the year 2019 draws to an end I want to express my deepest sadness over the death of Gerry Schamess in June. Gerry had been a valuable member of the SSW faculty for many years and was the editor of Smith Studies for nearly 10 years. His passing reflects the end of an era. He was beloved by many and will be greatly missed.
I also want to express my gratitude for having the opportunity to serve as the editor of the journal for two years. My term as the editor of the journal ends at the end of December 2019. It has been my pleasure to work with a wonderful editorial board, the authors who submitted papers for review, the staff at Taylor Francis Publishing, and the Communications Assistant Doreen Underdue. The members of the editorial board provided very constructive critiques of the manuscripts they were asked to review, and the authors emailed to thank me for their comments. Authors often commented that the reviews helped them to improve the papers they submitted and were grateful for the attention and care the reviewers provided in the reviews.