The End of a Decade: Challenges for a Changing World

It is the eve of the year 2000, the beginning of a brand new decade and the new millennium. Hope is in the air. Change is palpable. The nation's biggest concern seems to be Y2K and what will happen to the country's computer systems. We worry about the outcome. We form task forces, committees, and subcommittees. We reset our computers. We celebrate the new millennium. Our computers hum along with "Auld Lang Syne," and we greet the dawn of a new era. With the new decade come life-altering technological advances. Cell phones, laptops, Blackberrys, Palm Pilots, MP3s, iPods, iPhones, and GPS devices become part of our daily lives. Social workers Google, tweet, and blog. We construct Wiki and Facebook and MySpace pages. We move from kilobytes to megabytes to gigabytes. We no longer go to the library but search EBSCO, ERIC, MEDLINE, and LexisNexis. We have meetings by teleconference, e-meeting, Skype, and Webinar. We buy many items for our homes online. We have more passwords than we can possibly remember, which are all linked to user IDs that are equally difficult to recall. We are constantly alerted to potential viruses, worms, and Trojan horses. And we e-mail and text family members, friends, and colleagues days, nights, and weekends using new shorthand that we ask teenage experts to decipher. In just one decade, all our electronics have become smaller and faster, with huge quantities of memory guaranteed to hold vast amounts of information that we must have at our fingertips at all times. And we all know that the threat of "spare" does not refer to the canned variety. The power of technological change is matched only by the magnitude of the crises that confront us during this breathtaking decade. September 11, 2001: Two hijacked planes crash into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, killing and injuring thousands of people. A third plane smashes into the Pentagon, and a fourth plummets to the ground in Pennsylvania. Hundreds of innocent people lose their lives. Social workers are there, providing emergency services, helping victims and family members, and working side by side with the other professionals on the scene and afterward. October 7, 2001: The United States invades Afghanistan. March 20, 2002: The United States invades Iraq. Over 250,000 troops are deployed to these two countries to engage in battle. Thousands of casualties return home with serious physical, medical, and emotional issues. Social workers are there, in our agencies and hospitals providing counseling, advocacy, brokerage, and referrals to veterans and their families. August 29, 2005: Hurricane Katrina destroys New Orleans and other cities and towns on the Gulf Coast, killing hundreds of people and leaving thousands homeless. Social workers are there, volunteering enormous amounts of time, providing physical and emotional assistance to evacuees. September 24, 2005: Hurricane Rita brushes the coast of Florida, entering the Gulf of Mexico, necessitating massive evacuations and destroying more communities in Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas. Social workers are there, linking displaced children, families, and individuals with needed resources. October 23, 2005: Hurricane Wilma sweeps across Florida from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic, resulting in massive flooding and property destruction. Social workers are there, providing disaster relief to hundreds of victims caught in this furious storm. April 16, 2007: A Virginia Tech student who exhibits symptoms of mental illness opens fire on fellow students in dormitories and classrooms across campus. Social workers are there, providing crisis intervention and counseling to faculty, students, and families traumatized by this sudden, horrifying event. The global economy weakens; banks fail; companies declare bankruptcy; people lose their homes, jobs, and retirement savings. It is the worst economic situation since the Great Depression. …