Special Presentation

Ruth Messinger, MSW, former President of the Borough of Manhattan and Democratic Mayoral candidate in New York City in 1997, spoke at the Annual Meeting of ISP in New York City. Here are her challenging words:

Social Workers as Advocates in State and Local Government

I am pleased to be with you tonight and to support the efforts of ISP. I am here with a simple, but very important message: All social workers should be active in politics--as advocates, as players, trying to make a difference. A friend of mine who served as Texas's Commissioner of Agriculture put it to his constituents this way: "If you are not in politics, you are in trouble."

Why? Because decisions made in the political arena affect you professionally and personally. They determine whether you can admit or discharge patients; the level of coverage available to those you want to help; how our states and localities will address the problem of welfare reform; whether the families you treat will have access to good schools and neighborhood after-school programs; and whether social workers will be licensed. Decisions made in the political arena also determine what kinds of health insurance are available to you and your family; they determine the zoning in your neighborhood, the quality of your schools, and the state of the roads, bridges, and sewers on which you and your clients depend. These decisions must be our concerns.

The personal issues may affect each of you in different ways, but they do, in fact, define your quality of life. The professional issues are critical to us as social workers. How can we help people get their lives together when parts of the system work directly against that end? We must identify the problems in the system that need to be changed and work to promote those changes.

There is a logical progression from service to advocacy. If you work with children and youth services are being cut, or if tensions between police and kids are growing as a direct result of new police procedures or if a new law is being considered by your city council or state legislature, you need to act. Why? Because advocacy is one of our professional skills, and because working for change is one of our professional, ethical mandates.

Let me share with you a thoughtful observation: "There is nothing depressing about the discovery that even here in favored, prosperous, and happy America there are wrongs to be righted, exploitation to be stopped, disease to be overcome, weakness to be protected, and poverty to be abolished. What would be depressing is that such things should be and that the nation should not be consciously aware of them, and aware of the strength of our arms for the accomplishment of that work." This quote provides a framework for my remarks. It comes from an editorial on politics and social work written in 1912. This has been the mission of our profession for a long time.

When I urge you to get involved politically, to fight to change the way things are, to work for economic, social, and political justice in our jobs, in our communities, and with our clients, I am following in a distinguished tradition. The first social workers, active in the settlement house movement, were advocates who got involved in shaping social policy. They were leaders in fighting tenements and developing municipal housing codes. They pushed our government to make immunizations available to children. Several became staunch voices against war because they were convinced that the United States could not afford to fight overseas when its resources were needed to care for its own population.

In our own generation, the social work profession has developed a specialization in community organizing. Some schools of social work teach organizing and political advocacy, and provide internships in government offices. Our national professional association has a political action committee that interviews and endorses candidates for public office. These are important advances for social work as a profession. But involvement in matters of public policy and politics should not be limited to those social workers who majored in community organizing or chose to work in a political office. It must be the province of us all.

Why? Not only because our profession instructs us to work for fair treatment for all persons, but also because on too many fronts, government is not responding to the problems we see every day and is spending our tax dollars in ways that do not advance our interests. In this decade, the federal government has chosen and continues to choose to undo the so-called safety net, to eliminate programs, and to limit access to services. Why? Because many of the decisions which were made in Washington and seemed set in stone are being undone and referred to the states. Why? Because those states have little interest or expertise in these areas, see tax cuts as a panacea, and regularly short-change those in our society who are most in need. And because we, as social workers, have firsthand information about the effects of these changes--information our legislators need to make these decisions.

When discharge policies are determined in your state capital, who is advising the legislators? Insurance companies? Lobbyists representing special interests? Or social workers who struggle everyday to get people discharged from hospitals or to provide them with the home care they need or the help their families need? Quite simply, if we do not get involved, those with less information, different perspectives, and worse attitudes will. Never assume that an elected official knows half as much as you do about actual nursing home admission policies, or about families whose food stamps have been cut, or about conditions in the schools, hospitals or neighborhoods where you work. Don't expect your elected representatives to find out this information on their own. You must tell them.

How do we do this? Where do we start? We need to get involved with public policy in our professional organizations, at our agencies, in our communities, and in our schools. NASW should provide its federal, state, and local legislative agendas to all of its members and urge social workers to keep in close touch with their elected officials. Agencies should encourage staff members to lobby for specific bills that are under discussion in their city halls or state capitals. We should develop letter writing campaigns on legislative or budget issues that affect our work. We should testify at committee hearings, serve as witnesses, and share what we know. We also must use these skills in our personal lives, as advocates and organizers in our own communities. Social workers should serve on community boards and local school boards. We should be leaders in building local coalitions. These techniques are tried and true. They have been used by advocates and activists since time immemorial. They can be enriched further by our professional knowledge and by our problem-solving, diagnostic, and organizing skills.

Finally, there is electoral politics. The easiest step first: Social workers and social agencies should be actively involved in voter registration and should encourage clients to vote. This is not a partisan activity; it is encouraging clients to influence the system that affects them. On our own time, we social workers should get involved in political campaigns--as professional advisors, as volunteers, and as candidates. If we all do our part, we can make a great difference in influencing the policies that affect our communities, our clients, and our personal and professional lives.

"There is nothing depressing about the discovery that even here in favored, prosperous, and happy America there are wrongs to be righted, exploitation to be stopped, disease to be overcome, weakness to be protected, and poverty to be abolished. What would be depressing is that such things should be and that the nation should not be consciously aware of them, and aware of the strength of our arms for the accomplishment of that work." (SOURCE?, 1912)