We’re delighted to bring together our vibrant community of members and guests for a day of connection, conversation, and inspiration. This cherished annual gathering is a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with colleagues, make new professional connections, and enjoy lunch in good company.
Whether you’re catching up with familiar faces or expanding your professional circle, we’re thrilled to welcome you as we celebrate the collaboration, community, and continued learning that define PSCSW. We look forward to sharing a meaningful and engaging afternoon together.
Agenda:
11:00 AM - Arrival & Networking
11:30 AM - Lunch
12:00 PM - Clinical Excellence Awards
12:15 PM - Presentation
1:15 PM - Presentation Q&A
1:30 PM - Networking
2:00 PM - Event Wrap-Up
Presentation:
Building Community Through a Bio-Psycho-Social-Spiritual Lens
Learning Objectives:
1. An awareness of PSCSW history relevant to our current circumstances
2. Draw upon social work’s bio-psycho-social-spiritual model to reflect on ourselves as members and PSCSW as an organization
3. Consider how we PSCSW members can work toward building and sustaining a vibrant organizational future through community
Speaker:
Renée J. Cardone, MSW, LCSW - Social work and I collided when I pulled Virginia Satir’s People making from my roommate’s bookshelf. I was 28 or 29 years old. Prior to that time my work-life emerged from a very early interest in diversity, expressed in a commitment to learning the Spanish language and about Spanish and Latino cultures. I was a foreign exchange student in high school, majored in Spanish in college and earned a Master degree in Spanish Literature and Linguistics. Throughout my 20’s I kept searching for a vocational direction that felt consonant with my core. I taught Spanish, did community organizing, and community service and had a stint as a grant writer - jobs that were often located in or contiguous to the Latino community. Working in a public school, I initiated teaching an English class I called Ethnic Literature. Still, I kept bumping up against career options that just didn’t feel right for me.
Discovering Satir’s book opened me to a world of possibility; from there, it was a “straight shot.” I earned my MSW at Smith College School for Social Work having researched and written about psychosocial assessment of mainland Puerto Rican clients for my Master Thesis. (Although my 2nd-year practicum placement was located in a latino neighborhood, the experienced clinical social workers there - consistent with practice at the time - did not inquire about culturally relevant material in their psychosocial assessments of our clients.) I felt it was important to add cultural dimensions to our view of how people function and adapt.
Over 45 years of clinical practice, I have worked in a variety of settings that together reflect many of the settings where clinical social work contributes to “people making.” I served on our Pennsylvania state licensing board for eight years. My most recent educational accomplishment was earning a Certificate in Advanced Clinical Supervision from Smith College School for Social Work in 2024. I remain committed to life-long learning - in social work and otherwise. I have been working since 2017 as an independent contractor for a non-profit counseling center serving western Montgomery County. I continue my interest in diversity and am an avid reader of what I call “memoirs of migration,” people’s stories of leaving one locale and arriving at another, and of how negotiating that process transforms them.
Continuing Education Credits:
FOR PENNSYLVANIA SOCIAL WORKERS, MARRIAGE AND FAMILY THERAPISTS, AND PROFESSIONAL COUNSELORS: This program is approved for 1 clinical credit for professional workshops sponsored by the Pennsylvania Society for Clinical Social Work, a state affiliate of the Clinical Social Work Association listed in Section 47.36 of Title 49, Chapter 47 of the PA Code, State Board of Social Work Examiners. This program is also approved for 1 credits for professional workshops for marriage & family therapists (Section 48.36) and professional counselors (Section 49.36).
FOR NEW JERSEY SOCIAL WORKERS: This program is approved for 1 clinical credit. Attendance at programs or courses given at state and national social work association conferences, where the criteria for membership is an academic degree in social work, are a valid source of continuing education clinical credit (N.J.A.C. 13:44G-6.4(c)4).