Social Workers Affecting Social Policy

Furthering social justice and human rights is a fundamental principle underlying the social work profession. Engaging in social policy formulation processes is a major route through which social workers can realise this goal. This type of social work activity has been termed ‘policy practice’. The aim of this book is to shed light on policy practice in social work discourse, education and practice in eight liberal democracies. This is the first effort to undertake a cross-national study of social worker engagement in social policy formulation processes. The book offers insights into questions such as ‘what is the importance attributed to social worker involvement in policy change in the social work discourse and education in different countries?’ and ‘how do social workers influence social policy in various national settings?’ These issues are relevant to social worker practitioners, students, educators and researchers, as well as to social policy scholars, who are interested in the role of professionals in social policy formulation.

The goal of this innovative book is to shed light on the role of social workers in social policy formulation in different countries across the globe. The involvement of social workers in this type of activity has been termed 'policy practice' and it refers to activities carried out by social workers as an integral part of their professional work aimed at influencing the formation and adoption of new policies or the modification or preservation of existing ones, whether at the organizational local, national or international levels.

Critical analyses of policies that significantly affect African-American families and communities! African-American Social Workers and Social Policy is the first book of its kind to combine the voices of African-American social work professionals on social policy in one volume. You'll learn about the impact of health, child welfare, and aging, the implications of welfare reform, and the harsh statistics about race and imprisonment from respected practitioners in the field. Each chapter ends with recommendations for policy advocacy, giving you the tools you need to help reform the system. The issues addressed in African-American Social Workers and Social Policy include: how proposed Social Security reforms can help or hinder efforts to bridge the wealth gap the role of grandparents as caregivers the implications of child welfare policies, including the Multi-Ethnic Placement Act of 1994 the effects of race, class, and gender discrimination on African-American women's health the significance of the Human Genome Project how social workers can stand up to the biases of the criminal justice system African-American Social Workers and Social Policy also presents an eye-opening review of the history of mental health policies for African Americans and an action agenda focused on knowledge and empowerment as a solution to pervasive institutional racism. This book is a welcome forum for policy educators, advocates, and those committed to social justice. You will value African-American Social Workers and Social Policy for its clear identification of issues, thorough analysis of the social policy arena and its impact, and comprehensive description of new goals, directions, and possibilities. This book will help you better understand vital social policies that affect African Americans today.

Updated to reflect the changes in social welfare policy and the advances in technology, this revision continues to provide new ideas and strategies to help students become better advocates for their future clients. Focusing on advocacy as the central mission of social work practice, Affecting Change, Fourth Edition is a practical, step-by-step guide to developing political action skills and integrating them with traditional social work skills. The text stresses the growing need for social workers to affect social policy through political action. Praised for its conversational style and its ability to translate complex political terms into accessible language, this book does not intimidate students with the political process. Instead, lively and pithy vignettes from practicing professionals enhance the practicality and currency of this book, and provide students with a snapshot of what they might expect in the "real world."

The social work profession calls on its members to strive for social justice. It asks aspiring and practicing social workers to advocate for political change and take part in political action on behalf of marginalized people and groups. Yet this macro goal is often left on the back burner as the day-to-day struggles of working directly with clients take precedence. And while most social workers have firsthand knowledge of how public policy neglects or outright harms society’s most vulnerable, too few have training in the political processes that created these policies. This book is a concise, accessible guide to help social workers understand how politics and policy making really work—and what they can do to help their clients and their communities. Helping readers develop sustainable strategies at the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels, this book is a hands-on manual to contemporary American politics, showing social workers and social work students how to engage in effective activism. Stephen Pimpare, a political scientist with extensive experience as a social work practitioner and instructor, offers informed, practical grounding in the mechanics of policy making and the tools that activists and outsiders can use to take on an entrenched system. He distills key research and insights from political science and related disciplines into a practical resource for social work students, instructors, and practitioners looking to deepen their policy knowledge and capacity to achieve change.

Rather than being seen simply as social policy implementors, in recent decades there has been recognition of the unique insights that social workers can bring to policy formulation. This book offers a theoretical framework for understanding why social workers engage in policy, and the implications for research, education and practice.

Bringing together international case studies, this book offers theoretical and empirical insights into the interaction between social work and social policy. Moving beyond existing studies on policy practice, the book employs the policy cycle as a core analytical frame and focuses on the influence of social work(ers) in the problem definition, agenda setting, policy formulation and implementation of social policy. Twenty-three contributors offer examples of policy making from seven different countries and demonstrate how social work practitioners can become political actors, while also encouraging policy makers to become aware of the potential of social work for the social policy-making process.

This informative and incisively written edited collection brings together experts from around the world to discuss issues which the social work and social welfare sectors face every day and to ensure a closer link between evidence-based practice, policy objectives and social development goals. Furthermore, this book reveals how these may affect the conditions of people and demonstrate how the social work and social development community can contribute to sustainable development.

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An international comparison of labour markets, migrant professionals and immigration policies, and their interaction in relation to social work.