History of the Collaborative

The North American Association of Christians in Social Work (NACSW) held their annual convention, which included a presentation by James Phelan and Christopher Doyle titled “Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE).”  A second workshop was included to represent a different perspective from Phelan / Doyle’s workshop.  It was entitled “Ethical Social Work Practice with LGBT Clients” and was presented by Helen Harris and Jon Singletary.  NACSW recruited Harris and Singletary to present the second workshop, and facilitated a conference call with all four presenters to develop ground rules for the presentation and discussion.  NACSW scheduled the two workshops back-to-back in the same breakout room to increase chances that individuals would attend both, and reserved the room for additional time in case individuals wanted to continue their discussions after the conclusion of both workshops.  The slides for both workshops are still available online.

Key members of the LGBTQ Caucus and NACSW began meeting via conference calls and/or video calls to talk about issues that came up in the two letters.  Meetings were held monthly at first, and were facilitated by a Caucus member (Adrienne Dessel at first, now Denise Levy) and the NACSW Executive Director (Rick Chamiec-Case).  Some key results of these calls included: 

(a) members of the Caucus presenting at NACSW conventions and publishing together, 

(b) members of the Caucus volunteering to be reviewers for LGBTQ-related workshop proposals submitted for NACSW conventions, and 

(c) getting to know each other and holding supportive intergroup dialogues about Christianity and LGBTQ topics.  

These conference / video calls are now held quarterly rather than monthly, and the group is looking to engage more with the Caucus and the Council on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity and Expression (CSOGIE) in addition to engagement with NACSW.

Members of the LGBTQ Caucus of Students & Faculty in Social Work (Adrienne Dessel, Jeanna Jacobsen, Denise Levy, David McCarty-Caplan, Terrence Lewis, and Laura Kaplan) finalized an FAQ document about the intersection of religion and LGBTQ topics in social work education and practice.  They worked with Shelley Craig about potentially publishing this as a CSOGIE resource, but then decided to develop it into two articles (later published in Spr 2017 and Spr 2018).

Members of the LGBTQ Caucus (Adrienne Dessel, Denise Levy, Terrence Lewis, David McCarty-Caplan, Jeanna Jacobsen, and Laura Kaplan) published a manuscript with the Journal of Social Work Education entitled Teaching Note: Challenges in the Classroom around LGBTQ Topics and Christianity in Social Work.

The group adopted the name Social Work Collaborative on Religion, Sexuality, and Gender. Our tagline is: Affirming All Persons at the Intersections of Queer Identities, Faith, and Social Work.  Our mission is to promote understanding and justice through discussions and consultations on the topics of Christianity and other faith traditions, spirituality, and Queer identities from a social work perspective.