Building Healthy, Strong Communities — May 2025

This session will offer principles for effective community collaboration building in lessons from real world examples. By engaging in conversation with three distinguished graduates of the University of Michigan School of Social Work: Amy Good, Carol Goss, and Charles Tommasulo, we will discuss their journeys in social work and the value they found collaborating with community partners over their careers. We will focus on ways they were able to leverage partnerships to create systems that impact change.

Just as "Kleenex" became synonymous with tissues regardless of brand, "ChatGPT" has quickly evolved into a generic term for all generative AI technologies. However, the AI landscape is far more diverse and nuanced. Since ChatGPT's release, hundreds of alternative models and thousands of specialized applications have emerged, creating a rich ecosystem with tremendous potential for social work practice. The generative AI ecosystem now includes specialized models designed for text generation and summarization, document analysis, multilingual communication, visual content creation, and voice interaction. Each category contains multiple tools with varying strengths, limitations, and appropriate use cases for social work contexts. This presentation showcases diverse AI tools can be thoughtfully applied to streamline administrative documentation while maintaining confidentiality, enhance resource identification for clients with complex needs, support evidence-based practice through improved literature analysis, facilitate more accessible communication with diverse client populations, and assist with ethical decision-making through structured reasoning. We'll provide practical demonstrations of selected tools that show particular promise for social work applications, with guidance on effective prompting strategies, determining when to rely on AI versus human judgment, identifying potential biases and limitations, and maintaining client confidentiality and ethical standards. By developing a nuanced understanding of the broader generative AI ecosystem beyond just "ChatGPT," social workers can strategically leverage these powerful tools while maintaining their professional judgment and ethical responsibilities.