NSW Branch

Branch Overview

The New South Wales Branch, with over 3,500 members, is managed by a voluntary Branch Management Committee elected by the Branch membership.

The Branch’s key role is to provide local support for AASW members through a range of activities that enable members to network, develop practice skills and organise around social justice issues. The Branch Management Committee provides the conduit for communications between members in NSW and the broader National Association.

The New South Wales Branch delivers value to members via several channels:

Advocating for social justice issues relevant to social workers and their service users
Collaborating with members to build a stronger voice for the profession in NSW
Focusing on issues and priorities identified by our members
Monitoring the news and potential impacts on the profession
Developing and promoting Continuing Professional Development opportunities
Supporting members to organise around common interests through Practice Groups.

The voluntary Branch Management Committee members have a wealth of knowledge and experience, working within varying sectors of the community, and offer support and representation for Social Worker members within the region.

Please contact the NSW Branch if you would like to get involved or bring any issues to the attention of the Branch Management Committee at aasw.nsw@aasw.asn.au.

New South Wales Branch

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Branch Spotlight

The NSW Branch would like to congratulate our 2020 AASW Life Member recipients on their well-deserved achievements:

Diana Carmody

Diana has been providing psychosocial, emotional and practical support to families of patients with life-threatening condition for more than 34 years. While Diana is an incredibly skilled social worker, she is best known for the compassion she has for each of her families. No issue a family faces is too great or too small for her to tackle and she is constantly searching for ways to change the system, so no family is disadvantaged.

Diana’s contribution to the AASW was as one of the lecturers of the highly successful Return to Work program run by the NSW Branch. This program assisted social workers on a career break and those newly arrived in Australia to understand the current practice context and provided them with current practice experience and placements.

Diana has been a strong and vocal advocate to many issues including improving hospital accommodation for families, making changed to carer allowance to families, and organ donation just to name a few.

Diana’s contribution to the social work profession and her ability to hear and understand what is happening for families has seen her recognised as a life member of the AASW.

Jack Whitney, NSW Branch President, presenting Diana with her Life Membership certificate.

Pamela Cohen

Pamela has contributed to a substantial body of work teaching and writing in social work since graduating in 1966. She has volunteered significant time to the AASW, including being a NSW Branch Ethics Committee member from 1999-2005.

Of note to the AASW, from 1997-2016 Pamela was the facilitator of the highly regarded Supervision of Staff for Social Workers Course, run by the NSW Branch of the AASW, where she has contributed to high supervisory standards across NSW. This continues to be a very well recognised training course being sponsored by NSW Health.

Pamela has had a strong commitment to developing and supporting new social workers. For many years she taught courses in group work in a variety of tertiary settings, including the University of NSW and all over Australia with the Australian Centre for Heart Health.

From 1995-2017, she was the co-founder of the Special Interest Group in Cardiac Services and Cardiac Rehabilitation.

In the field of the psychosocial aspects of cardiac disease, including using group work as a method of helping patients with adjustment and lifestyle issues, Pamela has been recognised as a state-wide, national and international expert. In 2004 she received the Distinguished Service Award for Cardiac Rehabilitation, including Life Membership, from the Australian Cardiovascular Health and Rehabilitation Association, the only social worker to have done so in the history of the Association.