Joining with Social Workers
KWRU Presents at National Association of Social Workers Conference

On March 23 Cheri Honkala, KWRU Executive Director, and Mary Bricker-Jenkins, KWRU member and Temple University professor, had a return engagement at the Annual Conference of the National Association of Social Worker’ Pennsylvania Chapter. Speaking in a session on "Welfare Reform," both emphasized the unity of social workers and people living in poverty as targets of welfare reform, and they urged unity of action to resist this and other actions designed to undermine the rights and standard of living of the majority of Americans.

Cheri painted a clear picture of the daily lives of the poor in Kensington, "scraping together a couple of quarters for a quart of milk while they watch the factories – and their jobs -- leave their neighborhoods forever." Mary also related poverty and technology-driven globalization, urging participants to use what they learned in their professional studies to understand their position and potential role in this historical moment. "We are good people working with bad theory, struggling to meet human needs through a social service system that increasingly puts another agenda first." Cheri spotlighted the real agenda by pointing out the fact that everybody on welfare is already working. "They won’t tell you, but it’s survival work." Cheri struck a responsive cord when she asked the audience to think about their own circumstances in the current economy: "It’s really not about ‘us’ and ‘them,’ is it?" She described some of the many ways that social workers are working as allies with KWRU to meet people’s needs and help build a movement to end poverty.

Cheri also invited the audience to continue exploring ways we can work together at the annual conference of the Social Welfare Action Alliance, which will be held June 28-July1 at Temple School of Social Administration. The event is co-hosted by the University of the Poor, the educational arm of the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign.

The session was followed by NASW annual awards luncheon. At this event last year, Cheri was named the "Public Citizen of the Year." That award this year went to a friend of KWRU, state representative Larry Curry.