1. Complete the preparations for the 2008 Midwest School Social Work Conference.   This is a major undertaking hosting a quality conference serving not only Missouri but 10 other Midwestern states.   Consequently, this will be our main goal this year. There are a slew of details and major objectives to plan, arrange, and execute. See the section of this newsletter and/or the website, www.sswam.org, entitled, “2008 Midwest School Social Work Conference” for details as to how you can help.

2. Prepare for another try at certification. As many of you know this has been a major goal for me personally and one of the main reasons I volunteered to be part of SSWAM. With the conference taking most of our energies, certification will have to take “a back seat” this coming year – however, it will not be dropped altogether. This is too important for that. Our plan is to get our “ducks all lined up”, so the following administration can complete this goal, once and for all.  As in the past, we will continue our efforts to work with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education in securing their final support. We will also attempt to continue to secure legislative support as needed.    In order for us to push forward we need to update our database.  Here is what we need to focus on so we can prepare for this:
   1. Get an accurate count of how many SSWs there are in Missouri. Whether we talk with DESE or the General Assembly, we are always asked “How many members do you have?”  According to our state consultant, there are about 350 SSWs in Missouri, but we only have around 70 members. I wonder why we only have 1 in 5 Missouri SSWs in SSWAM, but more to the point of certification, we need to get these SSWs on board with us re: certification. 350 people lobbying DESE and/or the Missouri General Assembly will have a much better chance to get certification for SSWs.  Many SSWs are not necessarily called “SSWs”. These multiple job titles only contribute to the difficulties of getting an accurate count.   This count will also be needed to calculate the potential financial impact on districts/DESE and/or the state in order to obtain their endorsement.     If you are interested in assisting with this project, please let us know. 
   2. We also need to know where SSWs live. If we need to pursue certification legislation, we will need to contact every state legislator we can – AND specifically those who are involved with DESE- i.e. those on the educational committee so that can put the most pressure on DESE to certify us.
   3. On the membership form we will have a space for members to note how many SSWs work in your district. This will be very valuable info as we gather our accurate count of SSWs. Please complete this diligently. Also on our membership form will be a spot for members to volunteer to be a regional representative for our certification efforts. Their responsibility would include getting an accurate count of the SSWs in your region and when we are ready, contacting those SSWs to get them to contact their state legislators to influence them in our direction.
   4. Please note that the SSWAM board is getting older and just to use myself as an example, some of us are getting to that age where it will be too late for certification to help us when we retire. Some of us would lose money by not having enough years under the certification status, so it is imperative that younger members step up and help out. If you are waiting on the “sidelines” for SSWAM to magically make this happen, it may not happen. Please don’t get me wrong, I am still dedicated to obtaining certification. Even if it doesn’t personally benefit me, I would still like to be part of the group that finally got it done. The SSWAM board consists entirely of volunteers, who have jobs, families and lives just like each of you. It will take many volunteers to make this a reality. Please join this cause.

Now some members would prefer that we focus on certification and not the conference. That is not an option. We are obliged to host once every 11 years or so. Now if some members want to form a task force to push for certification, Dot Kontak, our state consultant, and myself, would be willing to help that group in any way possible. Our contact info is elsewhere in this newsletter. Dot has been working on this issue for over a decade, so she would be an excellent resource. Please let one of us know if there are members who would want to take this on. If a portion of that group lived near Jefferson City, that would be a big plus.