Community Partnership Action Award

The CSWE Commission for Diversity and Social & Economic Justice is proud to announce the Community Partnership Action (CPA) Award to honor the contributions of schools and departments of social work and social work students (BSW, MSW, PhD/DSW) in advancing community partnership action. The CPA Award will be presented at the Carl A. Scott Memorial Lecture given annually at CSWE's Annual Program Meeting. Community is broadly defined as a self-organized network of people with a common agenda, cause, or interest and is not limited by physical locality.
 
Community partnership actions are central to the advancement of social and economic justice, which is intrinsic to social work education. Historically, dating back to the settlement houses, our profession is rooted in working with the community to solve social problems and issues. Community partnerships enhance social justice work by promoting meaningful reciprocal collaboration. These activities also develop connections between theory and practice in real-life contexts toward promoting social, economic, and environmental justice competencies.

Two awards will be given annually, one for each of the following categories.

1. Social Work Program Award: Recognizes a CSWE-accredited social work program that encourages its faculty, students, and staff members to engage in community-based social, economic, or environmental justice activities. Some examples might be particular classes, advocacy activities, field assignments or projects, interprofessional collaboration, and culturally based interventions.
2. Student Project Award: Recognizes a student (BSW, MSW, or PhD/DSW) who has engaged in a community partnership activity that successfully promoted social, economic, or environmental justice.

 

Selection Criteria

All submissions will be peer-reviewed by the CPA Award subcommittee of the Commission for Diversity and Social & Economic Justice using the following criteria:

• The extent to which the educational efforts or the community partnership action project effectively address social, economic, or environmental social justice issues
• The extent to which the educational efforts or the community partnership action project empowers the community or the community leaders
• The extent to which the educational efforts or community partnership action project are evaluated and disseminated

CSWE membership is an eligibility requirement for all commission and council awards. To check your membership status, or link your membership your social work program visit https://www.cswe.org/membership and click Link to Program/Join CSWE.

All nominations must be submitted through the online Submittable form by Thursday, April 4, 2024, at 11:59 PM (ET).  Emailed or incomplete nominations will not be accepted.
 

2023 Awardees

Jordan Davenport, Tuskegee University
Jordan received her BSW from Tuskegee University. She is originally from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. She currently attends the University of Michigan where she is pursuing a MSW with a pathway of Integrated Mental Health and Substance Abuse. She is a member of Phi Alpha Honors Society of Social Work, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. and a two-time President of the Tuskegee Social Work Alliance. As the President of the Social Work Alliance, she conducted an organizational assessment to discover the gaps within the association to implement new policy and procedures to include an official manual with standard operating procedures to structure the association for growth. Jordan expanded both the revenue and membership of the alliance to expand its reach. She developed the infrastructure of the organization and conducted a needs assessment of the campus and the surrounding rural area to determine community service needs to set the annual outreach agenda and develop partnerships.