William Goeren, MSW, OSW-C, LCSW-R

William Goeren, MSW, OSW-C, LCSW-R, is the director of clinical programs at CancerCare, a 73-year-old national organization that provides counseling and psychosocial support to anyone affected by cancer: the person with cancer, their caregivers, and the bereaved.

Mr. Goeren entered the field of social work, he says, “as a result of a passionate desire to participate in a larger energy, focus and force to address the social and political imbalances of the fractured, biased and neglectful system that promulgated at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic.” 

The desire to have an impact led him to pursue a degree at Columbia University, where he received a designation for his work and commitment to HIV/AIDS.

Mr. Goeren was the first social worker hired for Mt. Sinai Medical Center’s New York State-designated HIV Center. He went on to work for the Gay’s Health Crisis as the clinical supervisor for their 500-person volunteer buddy program. He was hired by Montefiore Family Medicine Department to be part of the first interdisciplinary HIV palliative care program, a SPNS-HRSA funded study of palliative care and HIV disease, collaborating with many health care disciplines to educate people about palliative care and help incorporate it into patient care and hospital policy. Most recently, he was director of mental health for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation in Los Angeles.

Mr. Goeren has presented at the 6th International HIV Conference and at the 1st National Social Workers in AIDS Conference.  He contributed the chapter “HIV, Palliative Care and Social Work” in the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Social Work, and co-authored with Kathryn Smolinski the chapter “Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Individuals Diagnosed with Cancer,” in the Handbook of Oncology Social Work. Mr. Goeren is on the board of directors for the National LGBT Cancer Network, for which he has also worked as a policy and clinical consultant.