Dear OSSWA Members, 

Welcome back to the 2021-22 school year!  If you have already started school, I hope you are off to a great start.  If you have not yet begun, I wish you the best of luck in this new year.  It has been a challenging year and a half professionally, personally and as an organization, but we also have many things to be thankful for and celebrate!

Although Zoom and other online platforms may have been taxing to navigate and learn at first, it has opened up new opportunities for us.  During the shutdown, we were able to offer connection and self-care zooms as a way to check in with our members.  It has also given us the ability to continue offering professional development opportunities in these unprecedented times.  Our annual conference was one such event.  We had approximately fifty participants in attendance to discuss "Trauma, Grief, Fear & Racism: The Road to Healing by Leading Courageous Conversations in Schools,"  which leads me to our next positive.

I was recently listening to a podcast that stated we are truly in the midst of two pandemics- the COVID-19 pandemic and the racism pandemic.  There have been so many disturbing, frustrating and outright heart-breaking events around the subject of race.  However, I am trying to see the ray of hope that it has truly opened our eyes and forced us to have courageous and meaningful conversations around racism and diversity.  I am hoping, as an organization, that we can continue these conversations to make a positive change in ourselves, our schools, our communities and in our world.

Lastly, the pandemic has FINALLY opened the eyes of our school officials, boards of education, and legislators. There is increased awareness of mental health and trauma issues with our students and these groups of people have begun to recognize just how valuable School Social Workers are!!!  NOW is the time to really be advocating for our profession and pushing our school systems to hire more individuals trained specifically in School Social Work to help meet the needs of our staff, students and families.

We are so thankful and grateful for each one of you.  We would like to extend the invitation for you to join our Board meetings and become more involved with OSSWA.  We will be offering CEU's at each meeting for a book study we will be completing on Better Together: Six Essential Conversations for Cultivating Adult SEL and Relational Trust in Your School.  Please see link below to register.  Again, I hope you have a fantastic school year and look forward to connecting with you through OSSWA!

Sincerely,

Jill Miller- OSSWA President

osswadrive@gmail.com

Click here to register for board meetings and book study CEUs!