The educational imperative to study social welfare policy has remained a constant throughout the history of social work education. Although specific policies and social issues may change over time, the need to advocate for and create humane, justice-based social policy remains paramount. The study of welfare policy contributes to the effectiveness of practitioners who are knowledgeable and skilled in analysis, advocacy, and the crafting of justice-based social welfare policies. In addition to traditional policy content areas, students should develop knowledge and skills in critical thinking, understand a range of justice theories, and recognize the direct interaction between globalization and national and local policy matters.
981-1,000 of 1,146 Results
Article
Social Work Education: Social Welfare Policy
Ira C. Colby
Article
Social Work Education and Regulation in Australia
Karen Healy
This article provides an overview and analysis of social work education and professional standards in Australia. The professional education and practice standards are set and monitored by a single, professional body, the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW). In Australia, there is no legislation protecting the title of social worker, and there is limited government involvement in regulating educational standards and professional practice. In this article, I outline the characteristics of the educational and professional standards for social workers set by the AASW. I will explain the Australian regulatory environment for health and human service professions and discuss how this contributes to conditions in which the AASW plays a central role in the regulation of social work education and practice standards in Australia. I will outline the opportunities and challenges posed by the highly deregulated environment and the consequent central role of the AASW in standard setting and monitoring. The article concludes with a discussion of the strategies currently being pursued via the AASW to achieve government authorized regulation of social workers.
Article
Social Work Education for Macro Practice
Michael P. Dentato
The profession of social work is based in a rich history of macro practice and the promotion of social justice for all diverse communities. Over the years, while the field of social work education has shifted its focus between macro and micro frameworks, there is a continued resurgence of efforts promoting the integration of mezzo- and macro-practice content within social work curricula and field placement experiences across degree programs. In that regard, social work students must be adequately trained in macro-practice theory, interventions, assessment, and evaluation, as well as they must understand its unique intersection with mezzo and micro frameworks. Additionally, to effectively serve diverse populations, macro social work students must raise consciousness, increase self-awareness, and continually practice through the lens of cultural humility. Ultimately, the effective preparation and readiness of social work students for direct macro practice in fields such as program management, leadership, fundraising, advocacy, community organizing, and policy practice remains essential and understudied.
Article
Social Work Ethnography
Wendy L. Haight
Ethnography is an approach to the study of culture with an extensive history in the social sciences and professions. Within social work, there has been a long-standing interest in ethnography. It affords social workers a powerful and unique vehicle for obtaining an in-depth, contextualized understanding of clients’ perspectives and experiences necessary for effective, culturally sensitive social work practice and advocacy. It provides an opportunity to understand how very different cultural communities perceive and respond to the common human challenges confronted by social workers and their clients every day.
Article
Social Work in Cuba
David L. Strug
This entry discusses the development of social work in Cuba since the revolution of 1959. It describes a community-oriented social work initiative created by the government in 2000 to identify vulnerable populations and to address their needs for support services. It also discusses a social work educational initiative begun at the University Havana in 1997. Together these two initiatives transformed social work in Cuba. This entry also notes that Cuba implemented major economic reforms in 2008 and it discusses the relationship of these reforms to the closure in 2011 of the two social work initiatives noted above. How social work will develop in Cuba in the future is unclear. Information for this entry comes from research the writer has conducted on the development of social work in Cuba over the past decade and from a review of the relevant literature.
Article
Social Work in Moldova
Vadim Moldovan, Eugeniu Rotari, Vadim Tarna, and Alina Zagorodniuc
The Republic of Moldova is a small post-Soviet country that has been “transitioning” from a socialist to capitalist economy since the 1990s. Once a prosperous region of the Soviet Union, it is now among the poorest countries in Europe, facing many social problems that call for a strong social work profession. However, social work is new to the country and the profession is challenged by low societal status, meager resources, and lack of cohesion. Social work in Moldova is struggling to meet these challenges with the help from the West and the emergence of an indigenous model of professionalization. Child welfare, elder care, mental health, as well as the history of social work in Moldova, current state of social work education with its obstacles to and opportunities for progress will be discussed.
Article
Social Work Macro History
Eva M. Moya, David Stoesz, Mark Lusk, and Silvia M. Chávez-Baray
A broad overview of the professionalization of social work in the United States is presented while illustrating how developments in social work stimulated the emergence of macro social work as a field of practice. The history of macro practice’s dedication to social justice, human rights, and the eradication of poverty through macro-level strategies is reviewed. Influential forces, practice challenges, and initiatives responsible for the establishment and continued movement within the field are highlighted. How macro practice fits within the Specialized Practice Curricular Guide for Macro Social Work Practice (2018) and the Grand Challenges for Social Work (2015) is reviewed, along with future endeavors in macro social work.
Article
Social Work Malpractice, Liability, and Risk Management
Frederic G. Reamer
Social workers have become increasingly aware of malpractice and liability risks. Disgruntled clients, former clients, and others may file formal ethics complaints and lawsuits against practitioners. Complaints often allege that social workers departed from widely embraced ethical and social work practice standards. This article provides an overview of the concept of risk management and common risks in social work practice pertaining to clients’ rights, confidentiality and privacy, informed consent, conflicts of interest, boundaries and dual relationships, digital and electronic technology, documentation, and termination of services, among others. The author describes procedures used to process ethics complaints, licensing-board complaints, and lawsuits. In addition, the author outlines practical strategies, including an ethics audit, designed to protect clients, third parties, and social workers.
Article
Social Work Practice: History and Evolution
John G. McNutt
Social work is a profession that began its life as a call to help the poor, the destitute, and the disenfranchised of a rapidly changing social order. It continues today still pursuing that quest, perhaps with some occasional deviations of direction from the original spirit.
Social work practice is the primary means of achieving the profession’s ends. It is impossible to overstate the centrality or the importance of social work practice to the profession of social work. Much of what is important about the history of the profession is the history of social work practice.
The profession must consider both social work practice per se (the knowledge base, practice theories, and techniques) and the context for social work practice. The context of practice includes the agency setting, the policy framework, and the large social system in which practice takes place.
Social work practice is created within a political, social, cultural, and economic matrix that shapes the assumptions of practice, the problems that practice must deal with, and the preferred outcomes of practice. Over time, the base forces that create practice and create the context for practice, change. Since the social order changes over time, practice created at one point in time may no longer be appropriate in the future. It is also true that social work, and social work practice, can differ from society to society.
Article
Social Work Practice: Theoretical Base
Jerry Floersch and Jeffrey Longhofer
A broad examination of the role of theory in social work practice requires answers three related questions: What is theory? What is practice? What is the role of theory in practice? In answering the first question, it is useful to examine the etymology of the word theory, identify its various meanings, and specify which meanings are relevant to a discussion of the role of theory in practice. Additionally, it is useful to understand the philosophical assumptions that inevitably influence the process of theory building and application.
Article
Social Work Practice with Deaf and Hard of Hearing People
Martha A. Sheridan, Judith L. Mounty, and Barbara J. White
Effective social work practice with deaf and hard of hearing people requires a unique multifaceted application of knowledge, values, skills, and ethical considerations. Salient topics include language, communication, educational experiences, culture, and access to information and community resources. Required competencies include knowledge of diversity within the population, the implications of various psychosocial and developmental environments, deaf communities, cultural values and norms, and sign language fluency. In this article, related theory, research, practice competencies, and intervention approaches are discussed. An integrative strengths-based transactional paradigm is recommended.
Article
Social Work Profession
June Gary Hopps and Tony B. Lowe
The social work profession addressed a panoply of social problems that grew larger in an ever-expanding geopolitical environment, where social equity or justice was often a remedial value. Social welfare institutions and programs, initially private and later both public and private, filled the societal void, bringing social care to the disadvantaged. Lay caregivers formed the foundation for a nascent, but now over 100-year-old, profession. Growth was sustained for over 50 years from the 1930s to 1980s, when progressive thought was challenged with conservative ideology. The challenge for contemporary social welfare and a maturing social work profession is how to navigate a changing milieu highlighted by complex human conditions in the face of real and contrived shortages, increasing class stratification, political polarization, and heightened judicial scrutiny.
Article
Social Work Profession: History
Paul H. Stuart
The social work profession originated in volunteer efforts to address the social question, the paradox of increasing poverty in an increasingly productive and prosperous economy, in Europe and North America during the late 19th century. By 1900, working for social betterment had become an occupation, and social work achieved professional status by 1930. By 1920, social workers could be found in hospitals and public schools, as well as in child welfare agencies, family agencies, and settlement hoses. During the next decade, social workers focused on the problems of children and families. As a result of efforts to conceptualize social work method, expand social work education programs, and develop a stable funding base for voluntary social service programs, social work achieved professional status by the 1930s. The Great Depression and World War II refocused professional concerns, as the crises of depression and war demanded the attention of social workers. After the war, mental health concerns became important as programs for veterans and the general public emphasized the provision of inpatient and outpatient mental health services. In the 1960s, social workers again confronted the problem of poverty. Since then, the number of social workers has grown even as the profession's influence on social welfare policy has waned.
Article
Social Work Profession: Workforce
Tracy Whitaker
A profession’s ability to identify, predict, and sustain its workforce capacity depends largely upon its understanding of labor-market trends and emerging service-delivery systems. Concerns about the adequacy of the future supply of the social work workforce are being driven by a number of factors, including trends in social work education and demographic shifts in the country. The stability and continuity of a social work workforce depends on the profession’s ability to attract new workers, agencies’ abilities to retain their staffs, and the larger society’s investment in this pool of workers and the clients they serve.
Article
Social Work Professional Organizations and Associations
Halaevalu F. O. Vakalahi, Michael M. Sinclair, Bradford W. Sheafor, and Puafisi Tupola
Professions are developed and maintained through various professional organizations and associations. As social work has evolved in terms of context and content, the professional membership and professional education organizations have periodically unified, separated, and later reunified in the attempt to maintain an identity as a single profession, yet respond to the needs and interests of different practice specialties, educational levels, special interest groups within social work, and diverse cultures and communities. There are approximately 40 known social work organizations and associations across the country, which recognizes the continuous important contributions of emerging groups and entities that represent the diversity that exists in the profession and the diverse critical issues that warrant a timely response. Some of these organizations and associations experience sustained growth and national presence, while others remain on the local level or are no longer active. A few examples of these major social work organizations and associations are described herein.
Article
Solo Athumani Solo
Helmut Spitzer
Solo Athumani Solo (1959–2004) was an influential social work practitioner and educator in Tanzania. His professional life was dedicated to the advocacy of children’s rights and the empowerment of marginalized and vulnerable population groups.
Article
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy in Schools
Cynthia Franklin and Constanta Belciug
One of the most promising areas of intervention for Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT) is with children, adolescents, and teachers in school settings. SFBT was applied in schools during the beginning of the 1990s and since that time the use of SFBT in schools has grown across disciplines with reports of SFBT interventions and programs implemented in schools in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, South Africa, and in the provinces of Mainland China and Taiwan. The brief and flexible nature of SFBT, and its applicability to work with diverse problems, make SFBT a practical intervention approach for social workers to use in schools. SFBT has been used in schools with student behavioral and emotional issues, academic problems, social skills, and dropout prevention. SFBT addresses the pressing needs of public school students that struggle with poverty, substance use, bullying, and teen pregnancy. It can be applied in group sessions, as well as individual ones, and in teacher consultations. There is also increasing empirical support that validates its use with students and teachers. SFBT has been applied to improve academic achievement, truancy, classroom disruptions, and substance use. The history and development of SFBT in schools, basic tenets of SFBT, the techniques that are used to help people change, and the current research are covered along with the implications for the practice of social work.
Article
Solution-Focused Brief Therapy
Mo Yee Lee
Building on a strengths perspective and using a time-limited approach, solution-focused brief therapy is a treatment model in social work practice that holds a person accountable for solutions rather than responsible for problems. Solution-focused brief therapy deliberately utilizes the language and symbols of “solution and strengths” in treatment and postulates that positive and long-lasting change can occur in a relatively brief period of time by focusing on the solution-building process instead of focusing on problems. Based on the perspective that clients are the experts on their own reality, solution-focused therapists use a collaborative process to co-construct meaning and work toward the client’s preferred future. This practice model has been successfully applied to a wide range of social work practice areas and diverse cultural contexts around the world and offers an approach consistent with social work values, cultural humility, and strengths- and empowerment-based practice.
Article
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr
Edna Comer
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) is best known as a Soviet dissident and novelist and for being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Article
Specht, Harry
Neil Gilbert
Harry Specht (1929–1995) was a social work educator who began his professional career in New York’s settlement houses. In 1977, he was appointed dean of the School of Social Welfare, University of California at Berkeley.
