Enhancing leadership skills through an international exchange: the Mount Sinai experience

The development of an international social work educational exchange between Mount Sinai Medical Center and key social workers in health care organizations in Israel and Australia supported the notion that western social workers from different parts of the world, facing comparable social-health problems, can learn from each other, but only if ideas and "methodologies are selectively adapted" (Midgley, 1990, p. 297) to allow for regional and cultural differences. When objectives are comparable, content and experiences can be shared, and knowledge and practice can be adapted to meet social-health needs of given populations, within the context of respective government policies and expectations.