Northeast Ohio Chapter

This presentation starts from Grace Coyle’s assumption that “where autocracy can be banished, where each is freed from fear or sense of inferiority to make his contribution creatively to the group, there may spring up a wide expanding of experience for us all.”

Joan Pennell, MSW, Ph.D., North Carolina State University, will present the 2^nd Annual Mandel SASS and AASWG Grace Coyle Lecture. Dr. Pennell will use video dramatizations to demonstrate how practitioners can participate in family meetings where there is a history of family violence and animosity between different sides of the family. The dramatizations illustrate practices used in North Carolina child welfare cases that are not unlike practices used in Ohio. Students and seasoned practitioners alike can learn from her presentation and the interactive dialogue that follows.

All programs are free with the exception of payment for CEU’s. Reservations are required: Pamela.carson@case.edu or (216) 368-2281.

For more information contact: Jay Toth, Chair, jtoth@netzero.net , (voice messages) 440-235-4490, 216-849-8986.

Previous minutes are available on the Members' Only Section.

OCCASIONAL NOTES

from the

NORTHEAST OHIO CHAPTER

of the

ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIAL WORK WITH GROUPS, INC.
An International Professional Organization

(AASWG, Inc.)

May 27, 2006

Here we are again already!

Included in these "Notes" are nineteen brief items written to keep you up to date on what is going on in the Chapter!

1. Andrew Malekoff to lead Workshop on Groupwork with Children and Adolescents June 9

2. AASWG international address changed . Looking forward to the San Diego Symposium - Preliminary program in July

4. MSASS provides grant to publish Grace Coyle Lecture by Paul Abels

5. Annual meeting postponed until September

6. Election postponed until summer. Nominations sought

7. Workshops on Standards and Ethics planned for 2006-7

8. Standards Workshop planned for Ohio NASW conference.
9. Chatterjee honored by lecture and reception upon appointment to Grace Coyle Chair at MSASS

10. May issue of SWwG Newsletter soon

11. Student group meetings - labeling party

12. Akron area meetings at Cracker Barrel 1

3. Congratulations to Jay Toth on his new position

14. The June meeting of the Executive Committee

15. New meeting location for Executive Committee

16. Many thanks to the Berea Child and Family Services

17. Time to renew for 2006 - Students are calling

18, Thanks to Marsha Blanks, Treasurer

19. The Chapter looks to the future

1. Andrew Malekoff will lead the highly Annual Spring Education Workshop on Friday, June 9, from 8:30 to 3 at Regina Health Care Center. 5232 Broadview
Road, Richfield.

The title is "Strengths-Based Group Work with Children and Adolescents". The cost is only $35 for non-members, $25 for members and $20 for students. The fee includes continental breakfast and lunch.

Send check payable to "Northeast Ohio Chapter AASWG" to Anna S. Fritz, LISW, 2070 Coventry Road, Cleveland Heights, OH 44118. The fee may also be
charged using VISA, MasterCard or Discover Card.

For information call Anna S. Fritz, 216-371-2337.

The workshop carries 5 hours CEU's for social workers. AASWG's Approved Provider number is RSX030002 as designated by the Ohio Counselor, Social
Worker, and Marriage and Family Therapy Board.

Malekoff is the Associate Director of the North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights, New York, and the author of "Group Work
with Adolescents: Principles and Practice, Second Edition" (Guilford Press), the highly acclaimed text which was a Book of the Month Club selection a couple of years ago when the first edition was published. Malekoff is a highly popular workshop leader well known throughout the group work community. He is Editor of "Social Work with Groups Journal", which is available to AASWG members at fifty percent discount.

The Workshop has been organized by the Chapter's Education Committee, Anna S. Fritz and Thelma Silver, Co-chairs.

2. The AASWG international office address has been changed. Please send all membership and other international correspondence to AASWG, Inc., c/o
Graduate School of Social Services, Fordham University, 113 West 60th Street, New York, NY 10023-7479. Sally Ann Tringali is now Administrative
Secretary. She will handle membership, fulfillment of orders, contributions, and routing of inquiries.

The Northeast Ohio Chapter addresses remain as they have been.

3. We're Looking forward to the San Diego Symposium this coming October 12 to 15. More details are in forthcoming May issue of "SWwG Newsletter". They
are also on the AASWG web site, www.aaswg.org, as available. Plan now to attend. The San Diego Committee has also prepared extended activities for
those who can travel early or stay late! San Diego is a great place to visit as well as conference.

4. Dean Cleve Gilmore of MSASS has provided a grant of one thousand dollars to the Chapter to publish and distribute the Grace Coyle lecture presented
by Paul Abels last November. This is a major paper defining group work as it developed in the Twentieth Century and projecting it on into the
Twenty-first. Chapter members will receive copies. Many thanks to Dean Gilmore for his assistance to this important project.

Former AASWG President Paul Abels gave the first Grace Coyle Lecture at MSASS on November 21. The topic of his superb presentation was "What We Owe
Grace Coyle: Re-membering in Her Words". Many practitioners, faculty and students from throughout northeast Ohio attended. The Grace Coyle Lecture,
which is to be an annual event, is funded by an endowed grant provided by Anna S. Fritz and Robert Lauretig. A fuller report on the lecture is
included elsewhere in this issue. Abels is Professor Emeritus and former Director of the School of Social Work at the University of California Long
Beach. Earlier he was a member of the faculty at MSASS.

A couple of excerpts from the paper are in the January issue of SWwG Newsletter. A brief summary will be included in the May issue. The NEO
Executive Committee is working on getting the paper published and more widely distributed.

5. The Annual Meeting of the Chapter has been postponed until September on a date to be announced. Arranging for the June 9 workshop has absorbed the
energies of the Executive Committee and students.

6. In the meantime the Nominations and Elections Committee will also be working on a slate of candidates for election to the Executive Committee.
Nominations are sought. Send suggestions to Jay Toth or any of your friendly Executive Committee members.

7. Two sets of workshops are planned for 2006-7.

The first will be on "Understanding and Using the New Standards for Social Work Practice with Groups".

The second will be on "Ethical Considerations in Social Work with Groups".

Each will be presented once in East and West Cleveland, in Akron, and in other areas of the Chapter. If you would like a session scheduled near you,
please contact John Ramey or Linda McArdle.

The first Standards Workshop is being planned for late September in Akron at a location yet to be determined. John Ramey and Linda McArdle will be
the workshop leaders. Look for the announcements.

Look for presentations and workshops on the Standards at other state and national conferences during the coming years.

Other Standards Workshops also may be scheduled during the year.

8. A Standards Workshop is scheduled for the Ohio NASW conference in Worthington this October 19-20. John Ramey and Linda McArdle will be the
workshop leaders.

9. To recognize his appointment to Grace Coyle Chair at MSASS, Pranab Chatterjee presented a paper "Mission-Based Social Work: A Foundation for
Community Level Social Work" on May 16. In the paper he looks to the legacy of the settlement movement as the foundation for this orientation to social
work. Following the presentation he was honored at a reception hosted by Dean Cleve Gilmore. A brief summary of this very interesting and important
paper will be reported in the May issue of SWwG Newsletter.

10. The May issue of SWwG Newsletter will be mailed late in the month to all current members.

Each issue contains a wealth of news about group work and group workers. The deadline for copy for the August issue is July 15.

New and lapsed members sending in dues payments now will receive the last three issues of the Newsletter.

11. Linda McArdle has worked with the students who were awarded AASWG memberships this year to call regular student group meetings and get the
students involved in the operations of the Chapter. The first meeting was a "Labeling Party" on April 14 at the University of Akron to affix labels and
prepare the mailing for the June 9 workshop with Andrew Malekoff.

12. The first regular meeting of members of the Chapter's "southern tier" was held April 28 at the Cracker Barrel on West Market Street in the
Montrose area northwest of Akron. It was organized by the student group.

13. Congratulations and best wishes to Jay Toth in his new position with the North East Ohio Health Services in Beachwood.

14. The next meeting of the Executive Committee will be June 12. Regular Executive Committee meetings are on the second Monday of each month.

15. Beginning on August 14 the Executive Committee will be meeting at the East 22nd Street Center of Applewood.

16. Many thanks to the Berea Child and Family Services for providing space for the Executive Committee meetings for these past several years, first at
the office on 32nd Street and most recently at the Wrap Around Center on Prospect Street.

17. Time to renew for 2006. It's really most important that your dues for 2006 be paid as soon as possible. You really can't imagine how close to the
line an organization like AASWG operates! We're almost totally dependent on dues for paying current operations. Renew online or by snail mail, but
please renew. As we noted in the heading here, a membership application and renewal form is attached. Students have been calling members who have not
renewed from 2005 and 2004.

18. Many thanks to Marsha Blanks, our Treasurer, for her work in consolidating our accounts in one location in Cleveland and preparing a new
computerized accounting program and report.

19. The Executive Committee looks to the future with planning now for programs for 2006-7. Let us know if you have any suggestions or favorites.

For information about the Chapter contact Jay Toth, 440-286-4490,
jtoth@netzero.net.

Enjoy the summer! Keep in touch.

Respectfully submitted,
John H. Ramey, Secretary
jhramey@uakron.edu, 330-836-0793, 800-807-0793, fax 330-836-2136

Occastional Notes From NE Ohio Chapter

March 2006

Included in these "Notes" are 16 items!

1. Mamadou Seck accepts position in Indiana

2. Jay Toth now Chair

3. Paul Abels gives first Grace Coyle Lecture

4. Chatterjee appointed to Grace Coyle Chair at MSASS

5. Time to renew for 2006

6. January issue of SWwG Newsletter mailed

7. New edition of group work practice standards published

8. Andrew Malekoff to lead Education Workshop in June

9. Fritz and Ramey visit Groza's class at MSASS

10. Two required courses on group work at MSASS

11. The next meeting of the Executive Committee

12. Seven named to receive student memberships

13. Concise Encyclopedia of Social Work with Groups in the works

14. Looking forward to the San Diego Symposium

15. Three presenters from NE Ohio at Minneapolis Symposium

16. The Executive Committee looks to the future

1. Our Co-chair, Mamadou Seck, has moved on to a new position in Ft. Wayne Indiana. In December Seck was appointed Coordinator of Field Work at St. Francis College. We wish him well in his new challenge. It's the kind of assignment with which many of us are very familiar.

2. Our other Co-chair, Julius "Jay" Toth, is now Chair.

3. Former AASWG President Paul Abels gave the first Grace Coyle Lecture at MSASS on November 21. The topic of his superb presentation was "What We Owe Grace Coyle: Re-membering in Her Words". Many practitioners, faculty and students from throughout northeast Ohio attended. The Grace Coyle Lecture, which is to be an annual event, is funded by an endowed grant provided by Anna S. Fritz and Robert Lauretig. A fuller report on the lecture is included elsewhere in this issue. Abels is Professor Emeritus and former Director of the School of Social Work at the University of California Long Beach. Earlier he was a member of the faculty at MSASS.

A couple of excerpts from the paper are in the January issue of SWwG Newsletter. More will be included in the May issue. The NEO Executive Committee is working on getting the paper published and more widely distributed.

4. Pranab Chatterjee appointed to Grace Coyle Chair at MSASS. We are pleased to note that Pranab Chatterjee has been appointed to the Grace Coyle Chair at MSASS. The Chair is now once again occupied by a group worker.

5. Time to renew for 2006. It's really most important that your dues for 2006 be paid as soon as possible. You really can't imagine how close to the line an organization like AASWG operates! We're almost totally dependent on dues for paying current operations. Renew online or by snail mail, but please renew. As we noted in the heading here, a membership application and renewal form is attached.

6. The January issue of Social Work with Groups Newsletter was mailed in early March to all current members. The twenty-eight page issue contains a wealth of news about group work and group workers. The deadline for the May issue is April 15 (an auspicious day for deadlines!) New and lapsed members sending in dues payments now will receive the last three issues of the Newsletter.

7. New edition of group work practice standards published. After several years of work by the Practice Committee and the Board, including open meetings at several Symposia, the expanded, second edition of AASWG's landmark Standards for Social Work Practice with Groups has been published. Copies have been mailed to all 2005 and 2006 members.

The new edition is in the same format as the first but has been greatly expanded from twelve to twenty-eight pages with much new material and detail.

Over the years Paul Abels and Charles Garvin have served as Chairs of the Practice Committee. A substantively complete draft of "Standards" was approved at the June meeting of the Board. During the summer and fall it was reviewed and tweaked for editing by Board members. John Ramey completed the editing and production early in the new year.

Already many inquiries and orders have been received for the new Standards. It will be especially useful in teaching and will be included in a forthcoming new text on social work with groups as well as in other texts where the first edition has been included.

The second edition of "Standards" is a major contribution to the practice of social work as a whole, but particularly social work with groups. It established new benchmarks for the evaluation of practice.

We anticipate that it will be the topic of discussion at numerous workshops during the next few years as its full implications are realized.

Single copies are free. Multiple copies are $1.00 each plus shipping and handling. They may also be copied from AASWG's web page, www.aaswg.org. Copies may be made for professional and educational uses under specific conditions. Contact the web site, AASWG, or John Ramey directly for details.

8. The Education Committee is pleased to announce that Andrew Malekoff will lead its highly successful Annual Spring Education Workshop for Field Instructors in June. Malekoff is the Associate Director of the North Shore Child and Family Guidance Center in Roslyn Heights, New York, and the author of "Group Work with Adolescents", the highly acclaimed text which was a Book of the Month Club selection a couple of years ago when the first edition was published. Malekoff is a highly popular workshop leader well known throughout the group work community. He is Editor of "Social Work with Groups Journal", which is available to AASWG members at fifty percent discount.

9. On January 18 Anna Fritz and John Ramey presented at Victor Groza's group work class at MSASS. In addition to discussing the importance and place of group work practice in social work, they reviewed the history of group work's origins at MSASS under Grace Coyle and the origins of AASWG beginning with the 1979 Symposium in Cleveland with support of MSASS.

10. The Education Committee continues its consultation to MSASS in support of two required courses on group work. Pranab Chatterjee is the instructor for a conceptual course and Victor Groza will instruct the new, required methods course. Templates for two other group work courses are being developed.

11. The next meeting of the Executive Committee will be March 13. Regular Executive Committee meetings are on the second Monday of each month at the Wrap Around Center of Berea Child and Family Services in Cleveland.

12. The Student Membership Project. Linda McArdle and other members of the Executive Committee have been working hard at securing renewals of membership from 2005 and previous years. She has also picked up on the program of membership awards for area students. Seven students from three schools have been selected this year. They are (from University of Akron) Tracy Bell (Canton), Amanda Giorgio (Cuyahoga Falls), Carol Schneider (Canton), Donna Boals (Canton), (from Cleveland State University) Paul Theodore (North Olmsted), Cailen Thornton (Lakewood), and (from Mandel School of Applied Social Science) Amanda K. Blue, Westlake. McArdle is working with these students to establish a regular meeting for students starting in March. A regular Akron Area Unit meeting will also begin to meet in the near future.

The students will join with the Education Committee at its meeting on March 24 at the Gathering Place to plan the June Field Education workshop.

13. A new Concise Encyclopedia of Social Work with Groups in the works. AASWG recently signed a contract with The Haworth Press, Inc., for preparation of the "Encyclopedia". Alex Gitterman, Past President of AASWG, and Robert Salmon, Past Treasurer of AASWG, have agreed to be the Editors-in-Chief. Salmon is on the Faculty at Hunter College in New York City and, in addition to being a highly popular workshop leader, is the co-author of the CSWE/AASWG publication "Teaching a Methods Course in Social Work with Groups" (with the late Roselle Kurland) and Haworth's "Group Work and Aging" (with Roberta K. Graziano). Gitterman is on the faculty at the University of Connecticut. He is co-editor (with Larry Shulman) of the "Handbook of Social Work Practice with Vulnerable and Resilient Populations and the Life Cycle". Stay tuned for details on the development of this important new work.

14. We're Looking forward to the San Diego Symposium this coming October 12 to 15. More details are in "SWwG Newsletter" and will be on the AASWG web site, www.aaswg.org, as available. The deadline for submitting proposals is coming up very quickly, March 15. The Call for Papers is on page 23 of SWwG Newsletter. Plan now to attend. The San Diego Committee has also prepared extended activities for those who can travel early or stay late! San Diego is a great place to visit as well as conference.

15. Our delegation to the Symposium in Minneapolis included three presenters, Genine Apidone of the International Institute, Timothy McCarragher of the University of Akron, and Ollie M. Collier-Jones of Akron.

16. The Executive Committee looks to the future with planning now for programs for 2006-7. Let us know if you have any suggestions or favorites.

For information about the Chapter contact Jay Toth, 440-286-4490, jtoth@netzero.net.

Respectfully submitted,

John H. Ramey, Secretary

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