Episode 103: Today's episode is about the Grand Challenge Initiative for Social Work. I asked Dr. Richard P. Barth if there was a plan to bring practitioners, educators and policy makers on board with the Grand Challenge initiatives - he said they were already on board. I asked him to walk us through a Grand Challenge topic – he picked the challenge "Ensure Healthy Development for All Youth." I asked him if he hopes the Grand Challenge Initiative will make more funding available to the profession – he said that he hopes for more resources, not just funding. I asked him if he thought doctoral students should hitch their wagons to the Grand Challenges. He was very diplomatic, but basically said "yes." I asked him about the challenges coordinating between the major social work organizations, NASW which represents practitioners, CSWE which represents educators, and SSWR which represents researchers. He said he’s never seen organizations working together so closely as they have with the Grand Challenges. I asked him if there were topics that people would be surprised to find out were not Grand Challenge topics. He said, there were several and then explained why. As an author of a Grand Challenge paper, I know that we were asked to conceptualize what could be accomplished in the next 10 years. So I asked Dr. Barth what he hoped he would be able to say at the 10 year anniversary event of the Grand Challenges.

You can connect with other social workers at the Social Work Podcast Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/swpodcast, or follow the Twitter feed http://www.twitter.com/socworkpodcast. You can listen to the Social Work Podcast from socialworkpodcast.com, by downloading the episodes through iTunes or any number of other apps, or you can stream the 10 most recent episodes right from your mobile device using the Stitcher Radio mobile app http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/social-work-podcast/the-social-work-podcast.