The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Arizona Chapter of Social Work has selected
Susan Casias, LCSW, Social Services Director,
Whiteriver Service Unit,
Whiteriver, AZ as the 2005 Social Worker of the year
Ms. Casias has worked several years on suicide prevention on several levels.
Suicide prevention activities include training, planning, grant writing, program
development and consultation.
Training is focused on individual learning and designing in-service presentations
for communities. She is currently designing a 2-4 day training session for a
Northwest Indian Community on team development, community education and identification
of data for grants.
Planning activities include identifying needs to educate as many of the “high-risk” community
members as possible in the least amount of time. The result was the development
of several conferences that focused on students in the sixth thru 8th grades
in schools located in the Whiteriver community (including Cibecue). Ms. Casias
reports she is busy obtaining funds, identifying speakers and negotiating fees
for services.
Ms. Casias reports that grant writing resulted in her community receiving funds
to continue education/training efforts and most importantly in developing a surveillance
tool for program development. Currently they have four individuals who received
training from Ms. Casias program and then they have taken the surveillance tool
into the community to pre-identify community members to obtain information on
their “high risk behavior”. Ms. Casias states, “We are learning
a lot in the short time since our interviewers have been out in the community.
It is exciting and “scary” at the same time because there is a definite
need for more Social Workers.”
Ms. Casias is an active member of the IHS Suicide Prevention Committee as well
as the Arizona Native American Suicide Prevention Coalition, active in the local
Kinishba Council to Prevent Child Abuse and Suicide Prevention coalition. She
co-chairs the Child Protection Team, which has resulted in establishing good
working relationships between local tribal Law Enforcement offices and Child
Protection Service Workers who provide services in her community.
Ms. Casias has been in Whiteriver, AZ since 1986, a member of NASW and has her
ACSW.
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