All children require a safe and nurturing environment for optimal development. Child maltreatment is among the most serious societal problems, with severe behavioral, health, and economic costs. Preventing and responding to child maltreatment is therefore among the most critical services a society can provide. Child protection in the United States is handled by many agencies in a general sense, including law enforcement and health departments. The main agency tasked with protecting children is the Child Protective Services (CPS) system, which is charged with supporting the safety and well-being of children who may be at risk of child maltreatment. Child maltreatment is a common societal problem, with various national studies suggesting that up to a third of children may experience maltreatment before turning 18. CPS contacts about 4% of all children in the United States each year. Among children contacted, about one fifth are substantiated and a very small proportion of all children reported are placed in foster care. CPS serves poor persons at higher rates than wealthier persons, consistent with the higher need for protection faced by those under economic stress. Similarly, Black children are contacted by CPS at a rate almost twice that of White children, consistent with increased risks and stressors faced by that population, largely associated with historical and current racism, particularly as manifested in economic racial stratification. Child welfare practice innovations include, among other things, the increased use of “differential response” programs, in which situations presenting fewer safety risks are handled with less emphasis on investigation, and an increased awareness of the need for preventative services, including services aimed at supporting those under severe economic stress.
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Child Protection
Brett Drake and Melissa Jonson-Reid
Article
The Movement for Black Lives
Troy D. Harden and Aislinn Pulley
The phrase “Black Lives Matter” has become an identifiable phrase across the globe. Accelerated by social media in an online platform and social action, it is marked by a mass of not only Black folks, but a multiracial collective that has also manifested in direct action protests against police violence toward Black people. Initially a hashtag, #BlackLivesMatter, the phrase emerged into one of the most significant social movements in modern times. The Black Lives Matter Movement, along with the term Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), has centered on the historically ignored killings of Black men, women, and youth at the hands of state-sanctioned violence in public discourse, and offers an inclusive approach to organizing for social change.
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Reparations
V. Nikki Jones and Cathy G. McElderry
Reparations are a form of redress for harms or wrongdoings committed against individuals and their descendants in the interest of justice and individual and collective healing and restoration. Reparations entail material and non-material restitution. A framework for effective and equitable reparations includes comprehensive, targeted, and backward- and forward-looking measures that are corrective, restorative, and evidence-based. Various arguments in opposition and support of reparations exist. In the United States, most of the arguments against relate to liability, practicality, and lack of public support. Those who oppose reparations argue that current citizens are not financially liable for past injustices, reparations are unattainable due to statute of limitations (i.e., enslaved people are no longer living), and reparations remain politically divisive. In contrast, reparationists assert that taxpayers are responsible for the acts committed by the government. The U.S. government has a history of making reparations for harm, which is indicative of the practicality of this framework. Public division does not negate government accountability in the interest of justice. Advancing reparations aligns with the mission of social work to enhance human well-being and achieve the goals of justice, human rights, and dismantling systemic and structural inequities.
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Global Development Actors (Public, Private, Corporate)
Smitha Rao, Javier Reyes-Martinez, and Carlos Andrade-Guzmán
The global development landscape has witnessed a transformation with previously held development roles and priorities changing and increasingly overlapping with others. This is compounded by the intersection of emergent challenges, such as the climate crisis and economic downturn, that create additional inequities, making the landscape increasingly complex to navigate. The social work profession has actively engaged with international entities through service provision, education, and advocacy. Social workers have historically recommended actions or changes on behalf of individuals, communities, and groups, guided by principles of social justice, dignity, and worth of each person, as well as the importance of human relationships, integrity, and competence while interfacing with development efforts in multiple other ways. Development as a topic on a global scale emerged in response to evolving conceptualizations beyond the idea of development as growth alone. For instance, originating from development economics and initially focused on modernizing new nation-states at the end of colonialism, social development aimed to achieve economic growth as the primary means of development. Practice and scholarship on development have also moved from an “international development” framework to a “global development” framing to highlight the interdependence among various societal actors rather than a linear pathway. Finally, sustainable development and its derivative, sustainability, have become central components of the current developmental discourse due to their commitment to addressing the present needs without jeopardizing future generations’ capacity to fulfill their own. To understand this complex landscape better, it is important to identify the various actors in global development and the differential goals, strengths, and constraints they bring to the table. The public sector is the traditional source of funding and action for global development projects worldwide, with governments at all levels playing a central role in resource provision, policy setting, and program implementation. The private sector, encompassing nongovernmental organizations, civil society and community-based organizations, philanthropic foundations and entities, and social entrepreneurs focused on social initiatives, has increasingly become involved in global development. Relatedly, the corporate sector, too, has emerged as a key player with a different structure and access to infrastructural and other resources. With individual strengths and constraints, these global development actors play specific roles and often collaborate to address social and developmental causes. At the same time, important complexities and shortcomings across these sectors need to be taken into cognizance to ensure continued efforts toward global development. The global development landscape offers numerous prospects for social workers to apply their knowledge and professional expertise. An understanding of this landscape equips social workers in developing a holistic approach to cross-sectoral development initiatives.
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Climate Change and Macro Social Work
Kelly Smith
The compounding and escalating effects of environmental degradation, which include climate change, threaten the human-earth system with severe implications for the future of macro social work. Systems of power and oppression, including racial, economic, and gendered inequities, are exacerbated by environmental changes with significant impacts on human rights, public health, and various measures of well-being. While climate change is often not the root cause of inequality, it compounds existing inequities, making it substantially more difficult for marginalized populations to rebound from escalations of the myriad acute and chronic consequences due to climate change and environmental collapse. Experiences of environmental change consistently highlight the expanding resource and resiliency gaps among vulnerable populations, leading to disproportionate repercussions felt initially and, to an arduous degree, by marginalized groups. Simultaneously, these circumstances create opportunities for social workers to intervene and advance the causes of social justice. Macro-level interventions and climate solutions can emerge from social work development and support of policies and interventions that overcome short-term thinking to produce beneficial outcomes for populations and the environment by building capacity in the human-earth system and economic policy systems. Social work is ideally situated to confront climate change by balancing immediate needs with long-term ecological sustainability and relying on its historical understanding of systems to improve policy development and practical climate change mitigation approaches.
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Managerial Supervision
John E. Tropman
Supervision is an important life skill with many applications, all of which involve the provision of helpful guidance to others. Guidance may come in the form of encouraging self-realization or the explanation of specific procedures. Generally, supervisory encounters involve one or two issues or their combination: counseling problems and coaching problems, broadly conceived. Counseling problems involve issues of attitude, more or less. Coaching problems involve issues of information.
A supervisory framework includes the identification of stairs of supervisee competence: novice, beginner, competent, proficient, expert, master, and maestro (a master who can motivate others and blend the individual skills into a larger collective product) (Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986). Each stair, or stage, has its own "flow chart," where the complexity of tasks is matched by the level of competence. When the supervisee gets to 8/9 or 9/9, it is time to move to the next level. Supervisors need to know the six supervisory competencies: professional supervision (clinical/educational), managerial, supportive, career development, reflective supervision, and coaching.
Being well supervised helps the supervisee be a better supervisor. There are several guidelines to follow to be a good supervisor: Consider what makes a supervisor “great” or a supervisor “awful” and apply what is learned to one’s supervisory practice. Organize each upcoming supervisory meeting and plan an agenda for it. It is helpful to be aware of “wicked problems” (which are multisided and complex, and often without simple resolution). Know the difference between professional work and emotion work, and between formal and informal managerial supervision. Finally, consider 19 common supervisory questions and suggestions.
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Meeting Management and Decision-Making
John E. Tropman
Many CEOs and other top-level managers spend over half of their time in meetings. There are several ways to address meetings that can make them more productive and useful. “Meeting Masters” create such useful groups and sustain enthusiasm in them over considerable periods of time. “Decision Maestros” then build high-quality decisions from these productive meetings. Codifying this successful work requires a new vocabulary (decision elements, rounds of discussion, decision crystallization). This language is then applied to selected moments in the meeting process. The ideas and techniques presented here are intended to assist nonprofit managers to move toward improved meetings and better decision-making.
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International Community Practice
Cindy Sousa and Tamarah Moss
As social work continues the ongoing work of developing frameworks for community practice, globalization and the increase in multicultural societies make urgent the need to consult international models. Community practice must center attention on building and sustaining relationships; determining who defines need and who controls the practices within the social work cycle of engagement, assessment, intervention, and evaluation; and maintaining community-centered practices that grapple with power dynamics in terms of status, resources, and culture. A learning approach is needed within international social work collaborations, characterized by an ethics of respect for sovereignty, cultural integrity, and the ways historical, political, cultural, and sociocultural contexts inform practice. Solidarity, authentic collaboration, and a respect for individual and collective autonomy and grassroots power are key features of community practice in international settings. The goal of the comparative perspective is for social workers to be better able to apply an international perspective to the building of theory and practice modalities within community practice.
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Queer Communities, LGBTQIA2S+ Populations, and Macro Practice
Michael P. Dentato
Related to understanding queer identities, an ongoing need exists for the expansion of competency among social workers across micro and macro practice frameworks. Practitioners must be aware of their own positionality and use of cultural humility associated with practice and advocacy for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual, and two-spirit+ (LGBTQIA2S+) communities, which include those identifying as demisexual, omnisexual, and pansexual, among others. Relatedly, social workers must be attentive to evolving terminology and contexts through which the term queer has been defined over the years, as well as relevant challenges with connectedness to (or separation from) the larger LGBTQIA2S+ community. Age cohort associations and the role of intersectionality also have relevance and underscore the multidimensional discourse necessary to develop effective competency and the ability to engage in affirming macro practice with queer communities. Social work practitioners must understand the implications for best practices associated with establishing and maintaining an affirming alliance with queer clients via policy practice efforts, advocacy efforts, community organizing, service provision, or therapeutic context. In addition, there remains a continued need for ongoing research associated with understanding the unique needs of queer identities and the queer community at large.
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The Special Commission to Advance Macro Practice
Darlyne Bailey, Terry Mizrahi, and Jenay Smith
The original goal of the Special Commission to Advance Macro Practice in Social Work was to increase macro social work courses and enrollments in master of social work programs to 20% nationally by 2020. Some saw this as more of a vision, with the numbers in 2013 closer to 8%. Nonetheless, through partnerships with other organizations, forming collaborations and networks, and joining advocacy coalitions, the Special Commission continues to move forward to achieve this goal. The essence of the Special Commission’s purpose remains the same: to monitor and reinforce the viability of macro social work education in professional schools and programs to ensure the most effective social work practice for all served.
This article provides the story of the Special Commission from inception through early 2022. It begins with the history (i.e., mission, leadership, structure, staffing, systems, and strategy), highlights accomplishments to date, and concludes with the envisioned future directions of the Special Commission along with anticipated challenges and opportunities. A case example in the appendix describes the process by which the Special Commission engaged its allies and supporters to complete major projects.
