Spiritual Capital and Social Responsibility: A Continuing Education Series for Social Workers
Wednesday, January 7, 2026 | 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM (EST)
Workshop Description
This interdisciplinary course introduces a new framework called Spiritual Capital, designed to deepen ethical awareness, enhance leadership capacity, and support culturally responsive social work practice. Drawing from sociology, psychology, moral philosophy, and lived experience, each session explores a critical dimension of human development often overlooked in traditional training: motivation, emotional awareness, trust-building, spiritual deprivation, and public responsibility. Participants will learn how to identify underlying motivational blocks in clients, understand the ethical role of emotions, apply a trust framework across individual and institutional levels, recognize signs of spiritual poverty, and engage with systemic injustice through the lens of ethical duty. By integrating theory with practice, this course equips social workers with tools to lead with insight, compassion, and a commitment to structural change. The framework is especially relevant for practitioners working with marginalized populations, cross-cultural communities, or clients experiencing moral injury, burnout, or existential distress.
Note: This program will run from 9:00AM–4:00PM with a lunch break from 12:00–1:00PM and is approved for 7.0 Continuing Education Credits (CEs).
Learning Objectives
After completing this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Identify and analyze the role of internal motivation in shaping personal development and professional choices, and apply reflective tools to support clients in uncovering suppressed aspirations and meaning-making.
- Assess the connection between emotional literacy and ethical decision-making, and practice strategies for integrating emotional awareness into leadership and client support.
- Distinguish between horizontal and vertical models of trust, evaluate how trust is built or broken within institutions and communities, and apply the model to support trauma-informed organizational culture.
- Recognize signs of spiritual poverty across cultural contexts, and implement approaches to foster resilience, meaning, and a deeper sense of self and belonging in client work.
- Critically examine the ethical dimensions of public responsibility in social work and public health, and develop actionable frameworks to connect individual practice with systems-level advocacy.
Continuing Education Credits: 7.0
This workshop is approved for licensed social workers, licensed mental health counselors, licensed marriage and family therapists, and licensed psychologists.
Note: This program will run from 9:00AM–4:00PM with a lunch break from 12:00–1:00PM and is approved for 7.0 Continuing Education Credits (CEs).
Fees
- NASW-NY Member — $105.00
- Other Chapter Members (e.g., NASW-NJ, etc.) — $175.00
- Non-Member — $210.00
- NASW-NY Student and Transitional Member (Non-CE Eligible) — $0.00
Presenter: Meixin Sun
Meixin Sun is a cross-cultural social work educator, author, and founder of the “Spiritual Capital Theory,” a multidisciplinary framework that integrates emotional intelligence, ethics, and resilience across diverse communities. She holds a Master of Social Work with a focus on Management and Policy from Rutgers University and has served in frontline, research, and leadership roles across the U.S., China, and Australia. Her work centers on empowering marginalized populations—particularly women, immigrants, and trauma survivors—through culturally grounded communication, emotional healing, and systems change. Meixin has presented at international conferences including the Chinese Association of Professionals and Scholars (CAPS) and has been selected to present at SOPHE and ASA. She is currently a lead trainer for the NASW Virginia Chapter on Spiritual Capital and Ethical Leadership. Meixin is the author of Spiritual Capital Theory: A New Perspective from Human-Centeredness to Global Transformation, along with multiple books on personal agency and cross-cultural leadership. Her unique ability to translate lived adversity into empowering frameworks makes her a compelling voice in both academic and applied social work settings.
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