Planning

Once you decide on your audience and your focus, it will be time to draw up a plan. When planning, it is important to consider those you hope will support your endeavor.   If you plan to ask your administrator for financial support to put on a recognition luncheon, go to that administrator and ask what their thoughts might be regarding how to best recognize the staff. Work together to creatively finance the effort.

If you want to have your colleagues join you, it is best to involve them from the beginning. Be open to their ideas and feedback. Encourage them to participate in a committee effort.

Once you have others involved and have heard their ideas, develop a plan with concrete tasks and deadlines. If you are fortunate and have a group of people working with you, allow them to select tasks they wish to complete. The more involvement, the better.

Give yourself and your group plenty of time. Hurrying around at the last minute, when you have a full caseload, will not bode well for your health or your nerves. Plan ahead, develop a list of tasks, involve others, and meet frequently to update each other and look for loose ends.

Recognition

It has been a rough year. Perhaps your agency has gone through a major change, laying off staff.

You decide that the focus of National Professional Social Work Month this year should be recognition of the staff.

Here are some ideas:

• Involve the leadership of your organization in putting on a special breakfast or luncheon honoring social workers. Appoint an administrator to give a brief speech of gratitude and support.
• Develop and place posters honoring the social work staff in key places around your organization. Visibility is rewarding.
• Organize and host a "Caring for Yourself" retreat. Send the staff off-site for an afternoon of relaxation, self-care tips and even neck and shoulders massage.
• Work with your organization's public relations department to devote an issue of the organization's newsletter to social workers and their work. Encourage staff photographs and highlight their accomplishments.
• Purchase National Social Work Month buttons or design them yourself. Imagine seeing the physicians in a hospital sporting "I Love Social Workers" buttons all month!

Education

There are some unique and interesting ways you can celebrate Social Work Month with an educational focus:

• Set up a "professional resource fair" and invite vendors and agency representatives to come and provide poster sessions and hand-outs covering their products and services. If you work in a hospital, for example, you might invite some of the local DME, transportation and assisted living companies. In addition, consider a vendor from the local bookstore. Often vendors are so thrilled to participate they will offer a doorprize or two. (Hint: check your agency policy on gifts).
• Invite an inspirational speaker to make a presentation to your staff and others whom they might want to include.
• Purchase some new books for your departmental resource library and notify the staff that the titles have been added in honor of National Professional Social Work Month.

Outreach

Want to reach out to your community, share a program or promote the skill of your staff? Here are some good outreach ideas:

• Proclamation. Arrange for a proclamation to be written by your Governor's or Representative's Office. It is easy if you give the staffers enough time and information. Ask for their format way ahead of time. Include the proclamation in a news article or present it at a community meeting.
• Community Presentation. Invite local community leaders to a Social Work Month presentation. Whether it be a new program or a review of your services, this month is an excuse to promote your services.
• Community Resource Fair. Organize a fair of consumer-oriented resources. Ensure that your programs are represented, literature available to hand out and social workers staffing the tables. Ensure a good turn-out by writing letters to community groups and promoting the event in the local newspaper.Serve refreshments!
• Informational Publication. Develop an informational hand-out. (Hint: Perhaps you can obtain a small grant to cover the printing.) Your hand-out could include the services social workers provide, where to call for assistance, and the community agencies available. Mailings could target community members and groups.

Image Enhancement

National Professional Social Work Month, just by virtue of the title alone ensures that our professionalism is promoted. Social workers seem to be a mis-understood group of professionals. The media's portrayal of our work doesn't help. But we don't do enough to promote our work, either!  Some ideas promoting our professionalism are:

• Speakers Bureau. Set up a Social Work Month speaker's bureau. Let local schools, community groups and churches know of your availability. Select a range of topics that represent our profession well.
• Career Fair. Organize a career fair and invite students. Ensure that the Social Work booth has information on the education and training needed to become a social worker. (Aside: When staffing a booth at a local high school career fair, students were amazed that social workers needed to attend college. One even said, "I thought your work was done by volunteers!")
• Media.  The local print and television media can "be your friend." Engage a local reporter in an interesting story showcasing the talents of your staff.

Excuse Busters

Haven't we heard them all? The excuses for not doing anything about our professional month are many. However, an optimist can find an "excuse-buster" for each excuse!

• Excuse #1: We don't have time.
  Excuse-buster: It seems as though there is considerable time spent grumbling about the lack of recognition social workers get and about the lack of knowledge people have about what social workers do. How about putting some of this negative energy into positive action?
• Excuse #2: We don't have enough staff.
  Excuse-buster: If the idea is wonderful enough, people will adjust their workloads to help. What are you doing now that can be put aside? How about canceling a staff meeting? Consider using volunteers. One social worker I know organized a community resource fair and enlisted her husband to make and serve popcorn!
• Excuse #3: What's the use?
  Excuse-buster: If the celebration is well planned and targeted and if you use some of the proven ideas here or new exciting ideas from your staff, you can and will make an impact.