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Our initial plan was to organize and implement the NASW Statewide Student Conference scheduled for April 2000 in Los Angeles, California. After careful consideration, we decided that there was a greater need to have a local conference in this area. We spoke with the NASW-CA Chapter Director and he encouraged us to pursue the idea of a local conference. He offered his support and provided useful information for planning the conference.
Statement of Need
We recognized that the social workers in our county seldom have the opportunity to attend a low-cost conference at a convenient location where they could earn C.E.U.'s, which are necessary to maintain professional licensing. As students, we felt it was important to include a student component to the conference. Our experience in our internships led us to recognize the growing need to address cultural competency in human service agencies. In our literature review, we found that conferences provide an excellent opportunity for professionals to gain exposure to new trends and information related to their field of work. Conferences also provide a setting for networking with other professionals, within their field and among other disciplines. Factors that influence attendance to a conference may include Location, cost, topic, date and time, and availability of C.E.U.'s. We conducted a survey of locate students and found many topics of interest to include in the conference. The most popular topics found in the survey were job opportunities, resumes and interviewing, working with diverse populations and information regarding local agencies.
Description of the Intervention
We approached the NASW local chapter to solicit their support in planning a local conference. They chose to co-sponsor this event with us, and offered three members to join our planning committee. We began meeting weekly in January to develop our goals and tasks. Our first goal was to lay the groundwork. The initial tasks involved finding a location, exploring the costs, acquiring funding and obtaining information regarding Continuing Education Units. We decided that our theme for the conference would be on MULTICULTURAL issues, and then began exploring the availability of speaker with expertise in this field to address issues impacting Social Work today. We invited Guadalupe Lara, MSW who is in management at Detroit Medical Center and a nationally known speaker. She accepted our invitation to come and speak here in Chico. We found out that there were organizations on campus that would fund student projects, so the task became putting together the proposal to receive the funding. The committee sought funding from the A.S. Council and the Cal Program. This application process was very detailed, which required that the committee research all of the possible costs of putting on the conference. We came up with an estimated figure of $2600 for the speaker, $1500 for the facility, $330 for postage, and $300 for office supplies. This funding proposal could not include food, but we did figure $11.50 per person for a continental breakfast and lunch. After looking at the cost of food, we decided to charge a registration fee of $25 for professionals and $15 for students. Professionals were charged more because we offered C.E.U.'s. We also offered 25 scholarships to students, hoping that this would increase and attract the number of students participating. We went in front of the A.S. Council and the Cal Program Funding committee to present our proposal and we were approved!! In the mean time, we focused on planning the afternoon part of the conference and decided to include a recruitment faire. We received responses from two agencies that actually wanted send a representative to the conference. There were five other agencies that were willing to gather information to leave at the conference we were disappointed. The agenda included the keynote speaker and workshop in the morning followed by a catered lunch. The afternoon session focused on student issues, which included a professional panel of local agencies and an interviewing skill workshop. We started by distributing "save the date" fliers to agencies in our community and to the university, through the mail. After developing our agenda for the day, we put together the brochure/registration form, which followed the flier in the mail. We also designed a web page that was displayed on the NASW-CA Chapter home page. Another strategy we used was to fax public service announcements to local radio stations and mailed press releases to local newspapers.
Evaluation of the Intervention
We feel that the conference was a success considering we had only three months to plan. Due to the low turnout of thirty-five professionals and ten students, we were disappointed. We talked extensively in our classes to our fellow students, hoping that they would support our community project, but only two students from our class attended. We did get support from the junior class, which we appreciated. The evaluations that were filled out from the attendees expressed their enjoyment and satisfaction of the program.
Reflections on the Project
There are a few recommendations that we would suggest for future conferences. We now believe that a one-day conference is best held during the week and preferably a Friday. It is more desirable for professionals to end their workweek with a conference that possibly paid for by their agency. The student response was limited because they found it difficult to give up a Saturday to attend an all day conference. We would also suggest starting the conference later in the morning. The most desirable time would be nine in the morning, especially on a Saturday. Our third suggestion would be to allowing adequate time to plan and promote the conference.
References
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