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Influence
1.1/Fall '97
FROM THE EDITOR
Welcome
to the initial edition of INFLUENCE. A group of 175 social workers, educators
and students are acting as catalysts for change by urging all social work
faculty and students to learn how to influence STATE policy and legislation.
When President Clinton signed the new "welfare reform" act in 1996, he
also promoted new and decisive roles that states would now have in determining
priorities, distributing resources, and deciding what's fair and just
for American citizens, especially poor and vulnerable individuals and
groups. This devolution is also present in most state service delivery
systems such as mental health, aging, juvenile justice, disabilities,
housing, etc.
The National Committee
believes that current social workers identify positively with Jane Addams
and all of the 20th century efforts to improve the lives of vulnerable
people. Our mutual, unchanged goal(s) is the same as always, and no
social worker would consciously disregard an opportunity to promote
a safer, saner, and self-fulfilling environment for a client. The Committee
strives to advise students, faculty, and other social workers about
one of the most effective means of helping people in need, i.e., getting
equitable, just, and humane policies passed and implemented in all 50
states. Federal, state and agency policies affect us and our clients
daily, but this is not a new discovery. Social workers, who have always
tried to change and influence things, can apply their skills in policy-
making regardless of their micro/macro specializations or work settings.
In your personal area of practice, you most likely can identify one
policy that needs attention from a social worker. Start with a small
step and see how much of a difference you make.
In our next edition
in early 1998, I want to identify the forces that are available today
that will drive or promote social workers' capacity to influence STATE
policy and legislation. In other words, what strengths and trends can
we use to promote a social work policy emphasis in our states? Likewise,
what forces exist that will prevent or obstruct social workers from
influencing state policies and legislation? Let's identify the positive
and negative forces and use the analysis to plan our future strategies.
Please fax, email, or write your analysis to me by December 1, 1997.
[rschneid@saturn.vcu.edu
or FAX: 804.828.6770.] I promise to share the analysis with you.
Finally, I encourage
you to: Review our website at http://www.statepolicy.org
Enter our national contest, STATE POLICY PLUS ONE; Find a policy that
needs improving and get involved with it; join the National Committee
by sending in the application and $25 fee. I look forward to hearing
from you.
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FEATURE INTERVIEWS
INFLUENCE'S
feature interview also serves as an introduction to the role of the National
Committee and to some of its key advisors. Responding to questions are:
Darlyne Bailey, Dean and Professor, Case Western Reserve University; Ruth
Brandwein, Professor, State University of New York at Stoney Brook; Betsy
Cook, Student, Virginia Commonwealth University; David Dempsey, Political
Affairs Associate, NASW; Nancy Hooyman, Dean and Professor, University
of Washington; Alice Johnson, President of ACOSA; Sheila Kamerman, Professor,
Columbia University; F.Ellen Netting, Professor, Virginia Commonwealth
University;and Michael Sherraden, Professor, Washington University in
St.Louis.
INF: What role(s)
do you see the National Committee for Educating Students to Influence
State Policy and Legislation playing in the next 2-3 years?
Brandwein:
Key roles this committee can play in social work education include acting
as a catalyst for curriculum changes, encouraging students to become
involved in state and national events through collaboration with professional
social service associations, and initiating the development of networks
of social work student organizations geared towards advocacy on campuses.
Sherraden:
The committee can demonstrate to social work educators that students
can undertake useful policy and legislative projects as part of their
educational experience. The committee can also demystify policy making
and deliver the message that influencing policy is just a matter of
having an idea about what should happen and doing the necessary hard
work. Policy work is a natural for social workers because it requires,
first, last, and in the middle, that preeminent social work skill
-- organizing.
Johnson:
One role that the National Committee can play is a networking role
among schools of social work faculty, staff, and students. The Advisory
Board plus the 175 liaisons from various programs across the country
are a good basis from which to start. In this information age, it's
important for policy faculty in various schools to know what faculty
in other schools are doing.
Dempsey:
I see this committee playing a key role in helping students, educators
and practitioners to better understand the institutional nature of
the American political/governmental system and the interaction taking
place there.
Hooyman:
This committee can work as a catalyst for social work faculty and
deans/directors to increase the practicum opportunities and course
content related to influencing state level policy. As far as curriculum
is concerned, I think we all benefit a great deal learning from each
other what has worked and what has not! INFLUENCE is a means to disseminate
information nationally about effective examples for educating students.
Bailey:
It would be helpful if schools of social work shared innovative ways
to teach students about policy and its connection to problems and
programs.
Cook:
This committee will emphasize the importance of policy making by encouraging
further integration of micro and macro practice. Complementing each
other, the two can prove more powerful and effective when an equitable
balance between them is achieved.
INF: How can the
profession of social work influence both federal policy and state policy?
Sherraden:
The profession has done a much better job in recent years in influencing
federal policy. However, the policy work is sometimes a bit parochial.
The social work profession puts most of its policy effort into protecting
expenditures that support social work practice. It would be good if
more social workers, as individuals, in groups, and as part of the profession,
seize policy opportunities and turn innovative proposals into actual
legislation at all levels.
Brandwein:
More advocates need to join NASW and work to make it more visible
statewide and nationally. It is important for advocacy networks to
meet regularly with key legislators on justice/human service issues.
Johnson:
The profession can influence both federal and state policy by getting
organized. Each state has its own distinct cultural, socio-economic,
and geographic variations of social service delivery. It is necessary
to teach students how to influence policy [instead of teaching them
what policy is] because "policy" more and more depends on what state
and local governments decide to do.
Dempsey:
A major way to influence federal and state policy is to work harder
at the election and appointment of sympathetic public officials at
all levels of government. That would give the profession critical
representation in both the decision-making and implementation processes
throughout the American system.The social work profession is strategically
well- positioned to be very successful in the electoral arena because
our membership is ethnically diverse and female dominated at a time
when both groups are moving more and more into elective and appointive
public offices. NASW has already identified 5 social workers in the
U.S. Congress, 70 social worker state legislators, and about 70 more
elected social workers at the city/county level. This is a beginning
cadre but we have the capacity to develop and elect many more.
Netting:
Social workers can be more in fluential at all levels of government
if we link with NASW and other professional associations better than
we have done in the past. One way to do this is to create effective
ways of mobilizing electronically so that it is easy to muster critical
masses as needed.
Kamerman:
Being informed and disseminating information while choosing targets
where social work has real expertise are keys to influencing policy
at both the state and federal levels.
Hooyman:
Working with our Legislative Action Committee (NASW), I recently hosted
a reception at our home for all state legislators who are social workers.
We invited representatives from all the various social work organizations
and practice sectors in the State. This was a chance to thank these
legislators and also remind them that as social workers, they play
an important role both in the Legislature and in mentoring/modeling
for students. This was an extremely successful way to increase the
visibility of social work, begin talking prior to the next session,
and to increase linkages among a wide range of practitioners.
Bailey:
Nothing brings home the effects of policy legislation like the re-telling
of personal accounts. Professional social workers have the real-life
stories, client histories, data, ideas and advocacy efforts to bring
to policy discussions and debates. It is also important for professional
social work organizations to make it clear that advocating for policy
changes is a major responsibility of the professional social worker.
This role should be stressed in the curriculum of social work programs
and in the tenets of professional organizations.
Cook:
As social workers realize the importance of policy making, they are
more apt to network and join associations geared toward addressing
the concerns faced by oppressed populations in our society. The more
we work together toward common goals, the more influential we will
become as a profession. Changes in state and federal policy are more
easy to come by in numbers. The larger our bases of support, the more
difficult it becomes for policy makers to ignore our pleas for change.
INF: What educational
strategies would convince more social workers that professional practice
is inseparable from state policy-making?
Sherraden:
When I teach any social policy class, students are required to undertake
an applied project that is connected directly to real issues (in agencies
or organizations in the community) and makes a genuine contribution.
Education in social policy should demonstrate to students that policy
is living and changing and can be influenced -- indeed, it can be created.
Students are enormously empowered by this discovery.
Johnson:
I think the policy/practice literature that has been developing during
the late 1980s and 1990s is invaluable. Key authors have outlined
policy practice as a part of every social worker's job. A bibliography
of key articles will help others learn how to teach policy/practice.
Three areas of the literature in need of further development include:
techniques and methods of influencing policy; effective means of teaching
policy/practice; and case studies illustrating the process of influencing
policy.
Dempsey:
I think social work educators need to give more emphasis to the institutional
interactions and transactions available to practitioners to affect
both policy and practice. More difficult, but equally necessary, will
be the need to develop new kinds of field placements with groups like
unions, political parties, issue and electoral coalitions, elected
and appointive officials, political action committees and appropriate
public sector bureaucracies.
Netting:
One way to emphasize the inseparable nature of professional practice
and policy making is to focus on issues that are critical to the economics
of practice. In this way, social workers are motivated to see how
state policy making impacts their pocketbooks.
Hooyman:
Practicum assignments whereby students are engaged in data gathering
efforts can be used to influence policy. For example, we are requiring
all our students in summer practicum to document examples of the impacts
of welfare reform on their clients. These vignettes are being collected
by ANSWER and can be used with legislators to illustrate the impacts
of this major policy change. In the process, students learn that there
is an interconnection between their daily practice and the larger
policy arena.
Bailey:
Instruction should include the triad of problem, policy, and practice.
Students should get experience in designing, implementing, and evaluating
efforts to affect state social policies. Students need to have the
skills and knowledge to advocate for policy changes. New technologies,
such as the World Wide Web and e-mail, can be used to increase students'
contacts with legislators and other policy-makers.
Cook:
Many students come into BSW and MSW programs with little idea of what
policy- making actually entails and/or no concept of working towards
change in the larger community. Clinical social work is becoming a
popular alternative to traditional education in psychology. Schools
of social work have the responsibility of clarifying the significance
of policy-making in the field of social work.
INF: What should
social workers be doing right now to influence the implementation of welfare
reform at the state(s) level?
Brandwein:
Social workers should continue to push for state level legislative changes
to humanize and soften harsh aspects of the program. It is essential
that we work harder at developing collaborative teams with other professions,
organizations and religious groups to assure implementation which will
be the least harmful.
Sherraden:
Social workers should be directly involved in state level policy making
in welfare reform, as well as implementation of the state policy after
it is enacted. There is no shortage of important work to do. The main
thing that social workers have to realize is that, for all its imperfections
and pitfalls, policy making in America is essentially a democratic
process. It is open to influence by those who take the trouble to
become involved.
Netting:
Being informed, reading everything available, and synthesizing that
material to assist students and faculty in understanding the changes
taking place are essential ways of monitoring the implementation of
welfare reform. Social workers need to set up opportunities for conversing
with others in the profession about what is happening in this area.
Kamerman:
- Be informed
and work at staying informed
- Form coalitions
of other effective advocacy groups
- Select targets
and set priorities
- Pick areas
where social work has real expertise
- Get involved
with monitoring efforts, research, etc.
Hooyman:
- Document the
impacts of welfare reform on clients' lives
- Help to shape
employment training programs and any other supports related to the
work force emphasis.
- Work with
the local media to illustrate the effects of welfare reform; write
editorials.
- Train [social
services] staff on how to make the shift from an income maintenance
approach to an employment/training approach.
Bailey:
Students and other professional social workers should be well-versed
in the actual plans and policy changes being affected. Each should
know who the decision-makers are at the state and federal level. Social
workers should be able to speak to the impact of such changes--in
statistical as well as human terms. Social workers should be testifying
before appropriate committees and exercising their individual rights
to petition the government and speak to the public through various
media.
On the practice
level, social workers should be cognizant of the impact of policy
changes on the families and individuals with whom they work. They
must then strive to empower their clients to advocate for themselves,
to communicate their wishes and needs in order to influence directly
the system.
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PROGRESS REPORTS
The National
Committee has four task groups working on projects during the 1997-98
academic year. Anyone interested in assisting the committee in these tasks
is encouraged to contact the convenor or national chairperson as noted.
NATIONAL CONTEST:
1997-98 "STATE POLICY PLUS ONE"
Convenor:
Dr. Janet Dickinson. Phone: 704.262.6399. or email: dickinsonjc@appstate.edu
This task group
has developed the official contest rules and procedures for the national
contest sponsored by the committee. These rules are published on the
website, in the newsletter, INFLUENCE, and on a flyer that has been
distributed to all social work educational programs in the USA.
Next steps are
to select individuals to serve on the committee to judge the entries
after January 10, 1998. Regional groups may be used to make the first
selections with the task group deciding the final 6 winners.
During the year,
all suggestions about the clarity of the contest and its rules and
procedures will be evaluated and noted for future years. The committee
intends to sponsor this event annually. Perhaps in the next year,
we can identify other groups to co-sponsor the contest.
NATIONAL SURVEY
OF BSW/MSW PROGRAMS
Convenor:
Dr. James Kunz. Phone: 212.854.5451. Email: jk533@columbia.edu
The task group
is organizing for a fall survey of the social work programs in order
to assess the level of emphasis that faculty give to state level policies
in courses and the curriculum. Liaisons from each program will be
asked to assist in completing this survey. The data will serve as
benchmarks for future assessment. A preliminary report is desired
by APM in March in Orlando.
SAMPLE FACULTY
ASSIGNMENTS
Convenor:
Dr. Kathy Byers. Phone: 812.855.4427. Email: kvbyers@ucs.indiana.edu
This task group
has attempted to identify projects involving student participation
in state policy through the BPD network. It is continuing its efforts
to search for individual or group projects that can be explained and
posted on the website. It hopes to have an annotated listing available
after the contest. If anyone wishes to submit their project to the
subcommittee, please contact Dr. Byers. All students are urged to
enter the national contest by January 10, 1998.
For further information,
please contact the convenors or the national chairperson, Dr. Robert
Schneider, 804.828-0452 or email: rschneid@saturn.vcu.edu
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WEBSITE
The National
Committee has launched a WEBSITE designed to assist students and faculty
to participate actively in state policy and legislative initiatives. Sample
student projects are being collected as well as faculty assignments. National
contest rules and deadlines are also posted. Multiple linkages to state
policy resources are available. Let us know what you think of the site
located at: http://www.statepolicy.org
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CALENDAR: 1997-98
Fall, 1997-January
10, 1998. National contest, "STATE POLICY PLUS ONE," for all BSW, MSW,
and Ph.D. students and faculty, $100 cash awards, one-day pass to Disney
com- plex, and engraved plaques to 6 winners. See flyer, newsletter, or
website for all rules and deadlines for sub- mission (http://www.statepolicy.org)
October 6, 1997,
Monday, 3:00-4:30 pm. "Taking Charge of Devolution." Session at the
Annual Meeting of The Na- tional Association of Social Workers (NASW)
in Baltimore.
November 1, 1997,
Saturday, 1:30-4:30 pm. "National Committee for Educating Students to
Influence State Pol- icy and Legislation--Informational Session #455."
Grand Ballroom D. Session at the Annual Meeting of the Associa- tion
of Baccalaureate Program Directors in Philadelphia.
November 1, 1997,
Saturday, 3:15-4:30 pm. "Special Meeting for Liaisons and Members of
the National Com- mittee for Educating Students to Influence State Policy
and Legislation." Adams A. Session at Annual Program Meeting of the
Association of Baccalaureate Program Di- rectors in Philadelphia.
March 4-5, 1998,
Wednesday evening at 6:00-9:00 pm and Thursday morning at 8:00 am-12:00
pm. Evening din- ner/meeting and breakfast session for Board of Advisors
at the Annual Program Meeting of the Council on Social Work Education
in Orlando.
March 5-8, 1998,
TBA. "Shaping State Policy: What Are We Doing?" Session at the APM of
CSWE in Orlando. Speakers: Josephine Nieves, Executive Director of NASW;
Secretary of Family and Children Services, State of Florida; Robert
L. Schneider, National Chairperson of National Committee for Educating
Students to Influence State Policy and Legisla- tion; Nancy Hooyman,
Chairperson of ANSWER. Awards pre- sented to winners of national contest:
"STATE POLICY PLUS ONE."
March 5-8, 1998,
TBA. Annual Meeting of the National Committee for Educating Students
to Influence State Pol- icy and Legislation during the APM of CSWE in
Orlando. Session open to all members, liaisons, Board of Advisors and
interested others. Progress reports, future planning and activities,
funding, feedback from participants, or- ganizational issues, leadership,
etc.
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