Social workers from throughout the Central Valley will meet in Fresno on Friday, March 11, for the annual social work conference presented by California State University, Fresno, Department of Social Work Education.
This year’s event, “Empowerment: Promoting Reciprocal Relationships in Practice,” will be held from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Radisson Hotel and Conference Center, 2233 Ventura Ave., in downtown Fresno.
The conference will examine how empowerment enhances social work practice andwill offer new strategies for its application in a variety of work settings. Keynote speakers will be Barbara Solomon, DSW, and Lorraine M. Gutierrez, Ph.D., both international experts in the field of empowerment practice.
Solomon has published widely on the delivery of social and mental health services to underrepresented minority populations. Her book, “Black Empowerment: Social Work in Oppressed Communities,” is considered a landmark publication introducing the concept of empowerment in social work practice.
Solomon’s keynote address will focus on how social workers can implement empowerment approaches in their practices. She will also examine the dilemma faced by social workers when human service organizations and policies can make individuals and their families feel more powerless than empowered.
Solomon returned to teaching full-time at University of Southern California in 1999 after serving 13 years as dean of the graduate school, vice provost of Graduate and Professional Studies and as vice provost for Faculty and Minority Affairs.
Gutierrez, the second keynote speaker, is an internationally recognized scholar in multicultural practice. She has published more than 35 books and articles on empowerment practice, working with women of color, group work, multicultural organizational and community development, and community based research. She teaches at the University of Michigan.
Gutierrez will discuss community-based approaches and how partnerships with community members can enhance empowerment within social work practice.
The conference is sponsored by Fresno State’s College of Health and Human Services and the Department of Social Work Education, the California chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, Fresno County Department of Children and Family Services, Central California Child Welfare Training Academy, Specialized Foster Parent Training, Title iV-E Child Welfare Program, the California Pistachio Commission and Cingular Wireless.
The event is open to educators, practitioners and students. Conference rates are $100 individual, $40 student and $85 per individual if registering in a group of five or more from the same agency. Lunch will be provided.
For more information, contact the Department of Social Work Education at (559) 278-3992 or visit www.csufresno.edu/socwork.
(Copy by University Communications student-intern Jennifer Stapp.)
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