Despite ASWB’s having adopted the theme of “Be Ready…Be Ready for Anything!” the year 2017 was full of surprises. ASWB persisted by focusing on Stability, Continuity, and Stewardship in operations and governance.

The concept of stewardship involves “careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one’s care,” including ASWB’s finances and physical assets and the more intangible elements of the human resources of our members, volunteers, staff, and other regulatory stakeholders.

Financially, ASWB had another successful year. On the strength of a $3.3 million net income from operations and  realized and unrealized investment gains, ASWB continued to build its reserves and strengthen its balance sheet. The line of credit used to purchase the land for ASWB’s new headquarters was paid off in full as planning and development continued. The organization invested in new technology and expanded the IT staff. The Office Operations department provided stewardship of ASWB human resources, finances, and assets, including oversight of the new corporate headquarters.

The Examination Development department staff were stewards of the validity and defensibility of the exams, as demonstrated by the practice analysis and release of new exam outlines at mid year. The new exams launched January 2, 2018—on schedule. In the Examination Services department, ASWB’s Candidate Services Center stewarded the administration of a record number of exams through efficient management of exam candidates and exam data, continuing the steady increase of exam registrations over the past five years.

As stewards to our membership, the Member Services department designed and implemented a solutions-focused approach to encourage member boards to take advantage of the services offered, resulting in members being able to focus their energies on serving their stakeholders and managing legislative issues. Member Services and the Communications and Marketing departments shepherded the Mobility strategy that members overwhelmingly voted to adopt at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Delegate Assembly.

The Volunteer Engagement and Outreach department provided stewardship by enhancing member engagement, introducing tools to track volunteers’ service, and managing logistics for the education conference, delegate assembly, and all committee meetings.

The Communications and Marketing department supported ASWB’s well-being by developing materials to support members’ outreach to stakeholders, publishing an information-rich newsletter, and launching marketing campaigns and social media platforms to increase visibility of the role of regulation as public protection.

The Education and Training department built collateral with schools of social work through the Path to Licensure Institute and served as stewards of regulatory research projects. ET launched a new collaboration with the Council on Social Work Education to develop a curricular guide for licensing and regulation. In conjunction with ASWB’s human resources consultant, the department internally supported staff by providing professional development training.

The IT department provided stewardship of IT resources, ensured security of ASWB data, and increased our technological capacity.

As good stewards, we all held in trust the well-being of our association, which we demonstrated through our collaborative service to ASWB.

Mary Jo Monahan, MSW, LCSW
ASWB Chief Executive Officer