History of the Social Welfare Action Alliance

Audio Recording – 53 Minutes

Presentation and discussion with Fred Newdom at a gathering of the National Steering Committee, February 2020, Rochester, NY

This audio recording is an overview by Fred Newton that includes highlights of Bertha Capen Reynolds’ life, and why she was considered so radical. Today the Bertha Capen Reynolds Society, begun in 1985, promotes recognition of the need to focus on the roots of social work: social justice action and advocacy for all those still oppressed in today’s neoliberal capitalist economy.

A section of the recording also addresses issues around the professionalization of social welfare work and gatekeeping in social work as antithetical to the movement for social justice.

FRED NEWDOM, ACSW, was Chair of the Social Welfare Policy sequence and Coordinator of Community Practice at the Smith College School for Social Work. He is co-author of Clinical Work and Social Action: An Integrative Approach, an exploration of the artificial division between these two aspects of effective clinical work. His work at Smith also included advising students in their thesis projects in the areas of anti-racism, social justice and social policy. His additional work included serving as a lobbyist on behalf of New York’s WIC Program, advocacy training with the Independent Living movement, and consulting with social justice organizations such as The NY AIDS Coalition, the NYS Black Gay Network and the NY Community Action Association.

Newdom was a founding member and long-time chair of the Social Welfare Action Alliance (formerly the Bertha Reynolds Society), a national organization of progressive workers in social welfare. Fred also served in a number of staff and volunteer leadership roles with the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), nationally and in New York. He was honored with the Distinguished Public Service Award by the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, SUNY/Albany and special recognition awards by the Kensington Welfare Rights Union and the Smith College School for Social Work Alumni Association. In addition, Fred has done settlement house work, other university teaching, and worked in children’s services. Newdom served as Executive Director of the New York State chapter of NASW for ten years.