By KrisAnn Talarico, LCSW, OSW-C

This, our third Issue of 2023, marks my last issue as AOSW Connections Editor-in-Chief. This is the 10th year I have been at the helm of our AOSW newsletter, a position that offers a very unique vantage point in witnessing how our association has evolved this past decade. I’m very proud of the space that this newsletter holds in our organization as an avenue for each AOSW social worker passionate about psychosocial oncology to share their ideas and wisdom. It is a platform that facilitates and encourages learning from each other as we better ourselves and our profession.

When I started as editor in 2013, our newsletter was called the AOSW News and it was in print form! (Take a peek at it here.) It seems like ages ago, both in the timeline of my memory but also in the technology. Through the years the newsletter evolved into the online AOSW Navigator, which was first available to AOSW members only, and then later became a public blog that allowed our authors more opportunity for their great words to be shared beyond AOSW and further into our communities. The newsletter took a brief hiatus during the AOSW website redesign and the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and re-emerged last year as AOSW Connections.

If you look back through the archives or our newsletter, you’ll find exceptional articles that are not only thought-provoking, but that leave an imprint. In December 2015, then AOSW President Dr. Penny Damaskos PhD, LCSW, OSW-C, FAOSW, wrote her final President’s Message (Issue 6) with a very memorable call to action. In her words, “…Working in a crisis-oriented field can obscure the ways the world can interact with our clinical world. I notice this for myself sometimes when I look at or read the news and think, ‘I gave at the office,’ and turn the page, so to speak, on the issues of the day. I think I am unplugging but I am really disconnecting.” Her words continue to ring true today, as does her call to action, “During this time of reflection and reunion, I encourage you to reach out beyond your immediate worlds into the chaotic, messy one that is swirling around us, and not just take in the images of despair but take action against them.”

Also in that December 2015 issue was a captivating article called, “Bereavement and the Boat We Row,” by Katie Hennessy, LCSW, OSW-C. It illustrates one very special 12-year ritual that was used by a cancer center clinical team to honor and acknowledge patients who have died. As Katie writes, this brief ritual is a way to honor the preciousness of life, and the preciousness of the work they do together.

More recently in November 2022, former AOSW Communications Director Maureen Rigney wrote, “A Non-research Social Worker Finds Joy at a Research Conference.” While at the 23rd annual meeting of the International Psychosocial Oncology Society (IPOS), she shared the impact of a session she attended on implementation science. Per Rigney, “A particularly striking point, from an article by Balas in the Yearbook of Medical Informatics is that it takes, on average, 17 years for evidence-based practices to move only 14% of innovations into practice!”

And most recent of all is Kerry Irish’s very poignant March article, “’Dear Deborah’: Gratitude letters are a beneficial intervention for cancer patients…  and a great practice for Oncology Social Workers.” Thanks to Kerry’s candid and authentic article, we are invited to step into a practice that not only is a meaningful gift to the people with whom we work, but also a practice that can be inspiring and sustaining for us as social workers.

As you can see, a look back through the AOSW newsletter articles over this past decade reveals such richness! The newsletter has been an important source of psychosocial oncology information, practical tools and practices to support patients, to support our clinical teams, and to support ourselves in doing this work. Not to mention inspiration and ideas – all from our AOSW member colleagues.

The AOSW newsletter has always been an entirely volunteer effort, thanks to the planning, editing and authoring contributions of our AOSW members (many of YOU!). For reference, we’ve published 55-75 articles per year through our newsletter. We came together during Hurricane Harvey in 2017 to host a list of resources for our colleagues in Texas. And, since October 2021 we’ve been highlighting articles and wisdom learned about the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic not only on our patients and families, but also on each of our teams and practice settings. This newsletter has been and is a dynamic connection point for each of us to our organization. It is a way to try on writing skills or to get more involved in AOSW. And it is especially a way to bridge not only the miles, but also the clinical, academic, non-profit, community, and medical settings that we span. It’s been a joy to be part of, and I look forward to more inspiration to come from new Editor-in-Chief Amy Colver and Editor Melody Griffith.