With a focus on advocacy for our profession, I want to point to two core documents that are important to delineate the role of the oncology social worker. Oncology social workers are an integral part of the oncology care system as the provider of service to address the biopsychosocial issues impacting patients with cancer and those who care for them.
In this era when many of us are supervised by professionals other than social workers and/or are working out of a case management department or care coordination department, it is critically important for us to retain our identity and embrace the significant contributions that social work and social work alone make to our health care settings.
In 2012, AOSW outlined the AOSW Standards of Practice in Oncology Social Work. Recently, NASW convened a panel resulting in the publication of NASW Standards for Social Work Practice in Health Care Settings. Please take a moment to review these two important documents.
