COALITION FOR SOCIAL WORK AND HEALTH:
ABOUT US
The Coalition for Social Work and Health seeks to elevate social work’s role and value in improving health and well-being of diverse populations across the lifespan by creating a common voice and coalescing efforts in the following areas:
Practice innovations
Training and education
Policy analysis and advocacy
Research and evaluation
Communications
The Coalition includes representation from over 30 social work professional groups and schools, and is managed by the Center for Health and Social Care Integration at RUSH.
ABOUT SOCIAL WORK
“social workers are specialists in providing social care…”
“With expertise in patient and family engagement, assessment, care planning, behavioral health, and systems navigation, social workers identify and address multiple factors that contribute to health and well-being.”
-From the 2019 National Academies report on Integrating Social Care into the Delivery of Health Care
OUR HISTORY
The Coalition developed out of a workgroup initially convened in 2013 by CSWE’s Gero-Ed Center that focused on social work’s role within healthcare reform.
The passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and a growing understanding of the importance of social determinants of health led a small but passionate group of social work practitioners and educators to form and brainstorm how to leverage this moment to raise the profile and underscore the value of social work in health care. The group was initially convened by CSWE’s Gero-Ed Center and focused on articulating to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) the importance of social work inclusion in teams and in CMS’s Innovations Center projects.
In 2014, workgroup members collaborated with the Center for Health Administration Studies at the University of Chicago, the Brown School at Washington University, and the College of Social Work at the University of South Carolina to put on a strategic planning meeting to develop recommendations for how social work can maximize its contributions to the ACA’s goals. Read more about the convening here.
With project management support from CHaSCI and alignment with the National Coalition on Care Coordination, our workgroup continued to meet to discuss practice models, workforce training needs, and policy opportunities that would help social workers be more effective in helping achieve health equity.
From 2016-2018, we built a campaign that created a National Academies consensus study on integrating social care and health care.
In spring 2016, we began pursuing a consensus study on social work practice, training, and financing needs from the well-respected National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. After collaborating with National Academies staff to design a study, it was ultimately approved in January 2017 with a broadened focus not just on the social work profession but on the entire workforce and care models that address social risk factors and social needs as part of healthcare delivery. Our workgroup convened again in Chicago to continue the momentum, and expanded to include more social work leaders, including social work deans, directors, researchers, practice and education organizations.
For the next year, we led a fundraising campaign to bring the study to fruition. Dozens of social work academic programs and professional associations invested in the study, along with 12 philanthropic organizations. The study ultimately launched in spring 2018 and the final report was released in September 2019.
From 2019-present, we have built on the NASEM report's findings and recommendations.
Coalition members have actively disseminated the report and acted on its recommendations, including hosting regional convenings with interprofessional stakeholders, advocating for Medicare to recognize social workers' roles in promoting effective management of health needs, and contributing to the development of health curricula standards for master's of social work programs.