BWFH celebrates Social Work Month

This March, during Social Work Month, Brigham and Women’s Faulkner Hospital’s social workers are joining social workers across the country to celebrate the profession and acknowledge the important work they do to help patients through difficult and challenging times. This year’s theme is “Social Workers: Leaders. Advocates. Champions.” Here at BWFH, our dedicated social workers are all of those things and more!

Did you know…

Our nation has more than 600,000 social workers. And right here at BWFH, we have 30 social workers!

After receiving a Master’s degree in Social Work, individuals undergo an exam to become a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW). After two years of full-time practice as an LCSW and 100 hours of individual supervision, social workers then sit for a second exam to become a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker (LICSW).

Social workers are well-versed in managing a broad range of issues. Social workers are trained to conduct psychiatric assessments; evaluate for addictions; provide therapeutic support around coping strategies for patients living with chronic illness or life-limiting illness and determining advanced directives; assess for coping and potential intervention with intimate partner abuse and other traumas; support patients in seeking concrete resource needs such as substance use treatment, mental health treatment, housing and financial assistance; and help families stay safe. Social workers seek to recognize the unique strengths of each individual in all interventions.

At BWFH, social workers are everywhere! We are proud to work within primary care practices, on the medical and surgical floors, inpatient and outpatient psychiatry, inpatient detoxification, the Emergency Department, the suboxone program, the Partners Employee Assistance Program (EAP), the Passageways Program and the Dual Diagnosis and Psychiatric Partial Hospital Programs. BWFH social workers also coordinate Schwartz Center Rounds, serve on hospital-wide committees and supervise Master’s level social work interns.

All social workers are guided by the NASW Code of Ethics, a guide to professional conduct created by the National Association of Social Workers. The Code of Ethics is based on social work’s core values of service, social justice, dignity and worth of the person, importance of human relationships, integrity and competence.

“We have an outstanding group of professional social workers here at BWFH,” says Maxine Klenicki, MSW, LICSW, Social Work Manager for Inpatient Medicine, Surgery and Addiction. “Our social workers really do intervene with patients and families as champions, leaders and advocates in all areas of BWFH. And we collaborate with each other across all clinical areas of this hospital (inpatient and outpatient) to make certain our patients and families benefit from all that we’re able to provide them.”