NASW and Selective Services Help Young Men With Resources

NASW and Selective Service are partnering to make sure young men know how to keep all available doors open for successful futures.

Social workers strive to help young men live up to their full potentials. Because of the critical relationships you develop with these young men, you have a unique opportunity to inform them and their support networks about the important steps they should take to ensure they can access every potential opportunity.

Registration with Selective Service is the law for virtually all men living in the United States who are between the ages of 18 and 25, regardless of immigration status. Men who fail to register can be permanently barred from such opportunities as:

Student loans;

• Participation in job training programs; and/or
• Employment with the federal government, many state and municiple government agencies, and an increasing number of private-sector employers.
• Failure to register can also significantly complicate the process for immigrant men who wish to become citizens.

Selective Service knows that social workers are often in a unique position to counsel young men during their adolescent and young adult years. However, Selective Service has met with scores of professionals on the local level who were simply not aware of the consequences for these young men if they did not register.

Partnering Together for Online Resources

National NASW staff members worked with Selective Service to develop online resources. As a result of consulting with NASW members in different fields of social work, we developed a two-part toolkit:

Client and External Outreach Tools

These will allow NASW members to let young men know about Selective Service registration at the best time for them or their influencers. Items will help to easily integrate the information into outreach and intake work.

Peer-to-Peer Outreach Tools

As important as it is to deliver the Selective Service message directly to those legally required to register, it is equally important to inform as many of your peers as possible so everyone is fully aware of the significant impact registration has on young men’s futures

http://socialworkers.org/practice/special_reports/selective_service/default.asp