Events List View

July 23rd 12-130 PM
1.5 CEUs

Facilitator: Lauren Gil Hayes, LCSW, LISW

Workshop Description:
Loneliness is more than a personal feeling; it’s a public health crisis, a structural issue, and a growing concern across all areas of social work practice. In 2023, the former U.S. Surgeon General named loneliness a national epidemic, citing health risks comparable to smoking and chronic illness. For social workers, this moment is a call to action.

In this interactive workshop, we’ll explore how loneliness shows up in our clients’ lives—and in our own. Drawing from national research and grounded in real-world case examples, we’ll examine how loneliness intersects with identity, inequity, caregiving, and disconnection across the lifespan. Together, we’ll look at micro, mezzo, and macro strategies to address loneliness in practice and policy—while also naming the emotional toll of our work and the need for connection among helping professionals.

Whether you’re working in healthcare, schools, aging services, mental health, or administration, this session will offer both insight and tools for building more connected systems of care.

Presenter: 
Lauren Gil Hayes, LCSW, LISW is a social worker, therapist, and PhD student at the University of Iowa whose research explores loneliness, estrangement, and end-of-life care. She brings over a decade of experience in hospice, caregiver support, community-based health, and, now, in private practice. Lauren enjoys integrating clinical insight with systems-level thinking, working at the intersection of emotional care and structural change. 

Flyer

Registration

CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION

VIRTURAL WORKSHOP

This event will not be recorded. 
Content from this LIVE WEBINAR will not be available at a later date. You will need to attend this event on the scheduled date and at the scheduled time. 

Presenter: Lee Westgate, MSW, MBA, LCSW-C, LCSW

Sign-In: 4:30 pm - 5:00 pm CT

Workshop: 5:00 pm - 8:45 pm CT

Cost: Member - $50.00/ Non-member - $80.00 

3.0 CEUs

Please note that NASW-Iowa Chapter charges a $25.00 administrative fee for all cancellations.

Workshop Description:

According to a seminal report prepared by the Institute of Medicine, the annual national costs associated with chronic pain are estimated to be $560 to $635 billion. Providers attempting to respond to this growing clinical crisis face difficulties in providing effective interventions for complex pain despite its prevalence and the parallel growth of the opioid epidemic. There is a profound deficit of empirically based best practices for pain management, and much of this deficit is driven by stigma and archaic conceptualizations of pain. Furthermore, pain as a phenomenon is fundamentally medicalized and subject to myriad provider-based biases, both of which are significant drivers of ineffective and disparate care. There is also a lack of attention to how individuals assign value and meaning to their lived experience of being in pain. This training aims to ethically frame the need to listen to individuals reporting pain by highlighting the human costs resulting from ineffective treatment, the connection between chronic pain and early complex trauma, and the available research-informed strategies to engage with patient populations that have been failed by medical institutions.

Presenter: Lee Westgate, MSW, MBA, LCSW-C, LCSW (he/ him/ his) is a transgender advocate with extensive professional experience in social work policy, practice, research, and education. He has held numerous organizational leadership roles and has served as an educational consultant to a variety of associations and organizational clientele. He has served as a medical social worker in the fields of oncology, critical care, as well as in integrated behavioral health settings. Mr. Westgate has participated in a CSWE-sponsored National Trauma Task Force workgroup that focused on the intersection of ethics and trauma-informed practice and he was awarded an immersion fellowship through Boston University to study addiction and behavioral health. He has participated in AIDS Education and Training Center on behalf of the University of Maryland, School of Social Work, Baltimore, MD since 2017 and participated in the MidAtlantic AIDS Education and Training Workgroup on COVID and HIV. 

VIRTUAL WORKSHOP

Presenter: Greg Nooney, MSW. ACSW, LISW

Friday, August 15, 2025

Sign-in/Registration: 12:30 pm – 1:00 pm (CT)

Workshop: 1:00 pm – 4:15 pm (CT)

Member Rate: $40.00/Non-Member Rate: $60.00

3.0 CEUs

CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION

Workshop Description:

We will explore the strengths and weaknesses of the DSM, including its pathological bent, and its reliance on a categorical classification system. We will consider ethical and cultural issues regarding social worker’s usage of it. By focusing on how to best utilize the diagnostic criteria sets with a few common diagnoses, these skills will then be able to be generalized without having to become an expert on every diagnosis.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this presentation, attendees will be able to:

• Understand how the DSM fits in history & its current importance for social workers in day-to-day practice.
• Be familiar enough with the structure and organization of DSM to be able to utilize it as a resource.
• Understand the methodology of criteria sets.
• Develop a familiarity with some of the most common diagnoses and know how to use those criteria sets to match symptoms gathered during the client assessment process.

VIRTUAL WORKSHOP

This event will not be recorded. 
Content from this virtual workshop will not be available at a later date. You will need to attend this event on the scheduled date and at the scheduled time. 

CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION

Presenter:Stephen Cummings, MSW, ACSW, LISW

Tuesday, September 16, 2025

Check-in: 5:00 pm - 5:30 pm CT

Workshop: 5:30 pm - 8:45 pm CT

Cost: Member: $40.00/Non-member: $75.00

WIth intermitten breaks

3.0 CEUs

Workshop Description:

Social workers play a crucial role in medical settings, providing support across inpatient care, outpatient services, emergency treatment, and end-of-life care. This presentation will offer an overview of the diverse healthcare environments where social workers are making an impact. Additionally, we will explore the application of the NASW Code of Ethics in the hospital setting, highlighting key ethical considerations and best practices.

The course will cover legal standards related to self-determination and the least restrictive environment, emphasizing their implications for practice. Through case studies and real-world scenarios, students will apply ethical decision-making frameworks to navigate complex situations, ensuring professional and responsible practice in diverse settings.

Goals and Objectives:

• Participants will gain insights into using the NASW Code of Ethics as a framework to analyze and resolve complex ethical dilemmas.
• Identify the various approaches to completing biopsychosocial assessment.
• Describe current legal standards for self-determination and least restrictive environments.
• Apply approaches to ethical decision-making in difficult situations.

The opinions, findings, recommendations, or conclusions expressed by the presenting author or speaker do not necessarily reflect the views of NASW-Iowa Chapter.

WHO DO I CONTACT WITH MY QUESTIONS?

• Can’t log in to your NASW Member account? Contact NASW Member Services at 800-742-4089 or me

VIRTUAL WORKSHOP

This event will not be recorded. 
Content from this virtual workshop will not be available at a later date. You will need to attend this event on the scheduled date and at the scheduled time. 

CLICK HERE FOR REGISTRATION

Wednesday, October 8, 2025

Sign-In:  8:30 – 9:00 am (CT)

Workshop – 9:00 am – 12:15 pm (CT)

Member Rate: $50.00/Non-Member Rate: $85.00

3.0 CEUs - Ethics

Workshop Description:

Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly prevalent in social work. AI is being used to conduct client risk assessments, assist people in crisis, strengthen prevention efforts, record clinical notes, identify systemic biases in the delivery of social services, provide social work education, and predict social worker burnout and service outcomes, among other uses. This webinar will examine cutting-edge ethical issues related to social workers’ use of AI; apply relevant ethical standards; and outline elements of a strategy for social workers’ ethical use of AI. Join Dr. Frederic Reamer as he examines ethical issues and risks related to informed consent and client autonomy; privacy and confidentiality; transparency; potential client misdiagnosis; client abandonment; client surveillance; plagiarism, dishonesty, fraud, and misrepresentation; algorithmic bias and unfairness; and use of evidence-based AI tools.

Learning objectives:

At the conclusion of this webinar participants will be able to:

1. Identify ethical issues related to social workers' use of artificial intelligence.
2. Apply key social work ethics standards.
3. Implement best practices when using artificial intelligence.
4. Develop policies and protocols to protect clients.