Social Work Summit 2002 End of Life Care

The 2002 Social Work Leadership Summit on End-of-Life and Palliative Care, held at Duke University, was an agenda-setting meeting. The participants identified and prioritized a set of specific actions for the social work profession to pursue in the coming years.

The major priority areas included:

  • Develop a Consensus Statement: Create a formal consensus statement (which became the published “Social Work Competencies…”) for the social work role in palliative and end-of-life care for broad dissemination.

  • Create a Coalition of Experts: Establish a unified group of experts, institutions, and organizations to actively promote advocacy, education, research, and networking.

  • Integrate Research and Practice: Produce a concise document that synthesizes the practice-based and research literature on psychosocial factors and the unique role of social work across the lifespan and in an interdisciplinary context.

  • Guide Professional Standards: Identify the competencies needed to guide and develop formal standards for potential inclusion in licensing and certification exams.

  • Establish an Information Clearinghouse: Create a resource center to increase public and professional awareness and conduct an educational campaign regarding psychosocial dimensions and the social work role.

  • Develop Curricula Content: Develop specific social work content to be infused into existing educational curricula (BSW and MSW programs).

  • Advance Advocacy and Funding: Review federal and state legislation to identify funding opportunities for research, training, and education, and develop an action plan for advocacy.

  • Directly Approach Funders: Directly seek public and private sources of funding for social work research grants/awards.

  • Establish Research Partnerships: Create academic and clinical partnerships to develop collaborative research on the efficacy of social work interventions to identify “best practices.”

  • Develop Post-Graduate Models: Identify, create, implement, and disseminate models for post-graduate education and training.