AOSW Connections

Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief
Amy Colver, MSSA, MA, LISW

Editor
Katherine Easton, MSW, LCSW, OSW-C

AOSW Communications Director
Brittany Hahn, LCSW

Managing Editor
Patricia Sullivan

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2025 Themes

February: Workplace & Culture
May: Therapeutic Techniques

August: Palliative Care

November: Caregivers 

Two Important Documents to Review

December 1, 2019
Advocacy & Health Policy
Committee Updates

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.

About the Author

Nina Miller, MSSW, OSW-C
Nina Miller, MSSW, OSW-C, served on the National Navigation Round Table Steering Committee and ‎the Comprehensive Cancer Control National Partners Leadership Team. She was engaged with the CDC ‎Distress Screening Research Project, the Amer...
Nina Miller, MSSW, OSW-C

Nina Miller, MSSW, OSW-C, served on the National Navigation Round Table Steering Committee and ‎the Comprehensive Cancer Control National Partners Leadership Team. She was engaged with the CDC ‎Distress Screening Research Project, the American Cancer Society Patient Reported Outcomes Research ‎Project Advisory Team, and George Washington Cancer Institute Survivorship Research Project ‎Advisory Group. She led the Advocacy Committee of the Commission on Cancer and the Advocacy & ‎Outreach Committee of the National Accreditation Program for Breast Centers. Nina’s clinical practice ‎spanned 15 years. She retired in 2019. She completed an Office of Cancer Communications fellowship ‎at NCI and managed NCI’s Cancer Information Service at the University of Wisconsin. At the American ‎Cancer Society, Nina was divisional Director, Patient Services. She has also served with the American ‎College of Surgeon’s Commission on Cancer.‎