From the Pen of the Executive Director: September 2025

Joel L. Rubin, MSW, LSW, ACSW, CAE

NASW-Illinois Chapter Executive Director

NASW-Illinois Chapter Executive Director, Joel L. Rubin, LSW, ACSW, CAE

As I write this column, the summer of 2025 is winding down, and I hope many of you have had an opportunity to take some time to recharge in light of the many challenges we continue to face as social workers statewide and nationally.

One of the many challenges continues to be our nation’s policy towards the unhoused. Many of you saw the NASW national statement opposing the Trump Executive Order to Forcibly Remove Unhoused People from Public Spaces.  

The issue of the unhoused goes well beyond this and precedes the current administration. If you haven’t an opportunity to read Brian Goldstone’s important new book, There is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America, put it on your list. https://www.briangoldstone.net/

Focused on five Atlanta families, Goldstone presents a sobering look at the working homeless and the narrow definitions of “homelessness,” who is left out of this definition and the growing “unaffordability” for almost half of U.S renters and how homelessness has become a big business. Goldstone notes the great work of the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless in trying to broaden this definition using different data and methods (Epilogue pp. 356-357). Social work school policy instructors should add this book to their required readings; practitioners and those who care about this issue should also read this new book.

Earlier in the month,, on August 1, 2025, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed our priority bill this past session, HB1806 NASW-IL Advocacy At Work: Gov. Signs HB 1806 Creating Nation's Strongest Safeguard Against AI Chatbots in Mental Health. Many thanks for the efforts of Kyle Hillman, the chapter’s Legislative Affairs Director and all those who contacted their elected officials to get this bill passed. The discussion of this achievement is taking place nationally and globally.

Our challenges abound, but one event this past summer provided an important, hopeful glimpse. On July 18, 2025, I had the honor to participate in a panel, together with NASW-IL Advisory Board Members Jasmine Chandy, MSW, LCSW (Chicago District Chair) and Latesha Newson, MSW, LCSW (immediate past president), and Ana Nunez, PsyD, from the Office of the Cook County Public Guardian at the Boys and Girls Club of America national conference in Chicago. The panel, "Mindful Futures: Careers that Make a Difference," was organized solely by youth who are involved with the Boys and Girls Club of America across the country. The over 150 youth aged 14–18 who attended the workshop were engaged and asked incredibly focused questions about the pathways to pursuing a meaningful and rewarding career in our field.

A couple of additional updates…

• Best wishes to the many students starting and continuing in their social work programs statewide during the 2025–2026 academic year. We have started a major outreach effort to the schools of social work across the state for engagement with the chapter.

• A reminder regarding discounted rates for 2025 NASW Chapters Virtual Conference:

  Mental Health Compassion + Action taking place November 5 & 6, 2025. Please take advantage of the early registration rates by September 28^th. https://www.naswil.org/post/registration-open-2025-nasw-chapters-virtual-conference 

• You can also take advantage of the many CEU offerings in advance of licensure renewal on November 30, 2025 by visiting our events page at https://www.naswil.org/events.

Take care!