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Chapter 1
Policy Practice
Rodney A. Ellis
How should the social work profession proceed in the political arena? Is there a way for individual social workers to engage in policy practice without condemning those with whom we might disagree? How might the profession counter the trend of social workers not running for political office?
Introduction
Policy practice is an interesting practice construct, certainly different from the more traditional microâmacro practice spheres. In this chapter policy practice is viewed as an important practice area and one that fits nicely with the social work profession. In an ideal world policies would solve the problems they were intended to addressâŚsocial workers are, by the nature of their profession and position, inherently involved in social policy. Yet social workers, for the most part, tend to stay away from the policy arena. For example, in the current 112th Congress, there is a total of 435 members of the House of Representatives. These individuals report a variety of professions: 170 are lawyers, 78 are educators, 175 are in business, 15 are physicians, 5 are ordained ministers, and 4 are peace corps volunteers, plus there are 7 accountants, 6 engineers, 15 farmers, 9 ranchers, and 7 social workers (Manning, 2011). According to the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), in 2008, the last year NASW collected such data, approximately 165 individuals held elected offices at the local or state levels of government across the United States. What we can conclude is that social workers simply are not holding elective offices.
Yes, social workers are employed in key staff positions in elected officials' offices; for example, the long-term legislative director for U.S. Congressperson Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) is a social worker. Even so, social workers holding staff positions in federal, state, or local offices are not prominent. Social workers also are not commonplace in governmental relations offices, for example, lobbying firms.
What makes this confusing is that social workers, as evidenced by discussions at various state and national meetings as well as on LISTSERVs, seem to be engaged in constant âpoliticalâ discussions. But for whatever reason, the discussions do not lead to the risks involved in pursuing a political career or direct engagement in political processes.
Without a doubt, social workers bring a unique, human perspective to policy discussions. Day in and day out, social workers work with people, groups, and communities around a variety of human issues in a way that is unique from other disciplines. The âpractice wisdomâ gleaned from such work allows social workers to put a human face on policy initiatives. We have seen the results of policies developed by and enacted by lawyers, farmers, and businesspeople. Little has changed as social issues remain fully embedded in our national human fabric. One can only wonder what would happen if there were 170 social workers in the U.S. House of Representatives rather than lawyers.
There are a variety of ways for social workers to engage in policy practice in ways other than holding an elective office. We all must understandâpolicy practice is not easy; it is slow, tedious, and certainly frustrating. Yet, to turn our professional collective backs on the political nature of our work is ignoring that which we know.
We also need to recognize that the social work political tent is bigâsocial workers reflect a variety of political parties and philosophies including Democrat, Republican, Tea Party, Libertarian, Green, liberal, conservative, and radical. For every social issue you identify, social workers hold a variety of positions, often in conflict with each other. In other words, the social work profession does not nor should reflect one political ideology.
There is nothing wrong if a social worker subscribes to one particular ideology; the issue is when this same person, who believes in self-determination and individualism, penalizes others, be they students or colleagues, because they may hold a different political philosophy or argue from a different perspective. Personal ideological insecurity simply will not realize a just society.
Policy Practice
Benjamin is a BSSW-level social worker who is employed as a case manager in a mental health treatment facility. He loves his work and has an excellent record of effective practice with his clients. He is concerned, however, with one aspect of his agency's operation. He has noticed that many clients have recently discontinued their treatment despite substantial improvement in their reported issues. Curious as to why this might be occurring, Benjamin made a few phone calls to clients who had recently dropped out of treatment. He was astounded to discover that four of the five people he called had stopped attending sessions because their state-provided supplemental income benefits had been cut. These former clients reported a simple choice: They could either not pay their rent or stop attending treatment sessions. They had taken care of immediate necessities rather than their important, but less urgent, mental health needs.
Benjamin is disturbed that so many were leaving treatment, but he is even more disturbed that it was unnecessary that most of them do so. His agency had funding alternatives that would have allowed all the persons he called to remain in treatment. They had not taken advantage of those alternatives simply because they had not been aware of them. The agency had no means of assuring that the information was made available to them. Having discovered this problem, Benjamin resolves to find a way to solve it. Further, he wishes to institutionalize the solution, so that it is certain to remain in place into the foreseeable future.
Alma is the executive director of the same agency at which Benjamin is a case manager. She is unaware that her agency's clients are withdrawing from services because of the income cutbacks. She is aware, however, that the cutbacks are occurring. Alma is a part of a local coalition of social service providers that is concerned about the conditions area residents have begun to face as a result of the cuts. A community needs assessment conducted after the changes revealed that the number of persons becoming homeless had increased, the rate of the referral of children into the child welfare system had nearly doubled, and community health experts were predicting a surge in emergency room treatment and hospitalizations. Further investigation showed that all these conditions could be traced, at least in part, to the loss of income many families had experienced. Several other effects have been reported in the community including increased demand at food banks and a rising crime rate. No formal research has been conducted that could identify a link between these conditions and the cuts. There is, however, strong evidence from reports of residents that such a link exists. Further evidence is provided by the fact that these changes occurred in the wake of the cuts and have a logical relationship to them.
The coalition of agencies has been formed to study and to address the problem. Its mission is to develop and implement a plan to get the cuts reversed, and to assure a steady supply of supplemental income to the residents of its community and state. So far the coalition has met twice, collected available data about the cuts and their effects, and drafted a mission statement to guide future activities. The statement is short, simple, and to the point: âThe mission of the Supplemental Income Reinstatement Coalition is to restore the level of each program recipient's supplemental income to pre-cut levels.â
Both Benjamin and Alma face issues created by current social welfare policy. The problems have a common cause, the supplemental income cuts, but the manifestations of the issue and the levels at which they hope to address the issue are very different. Benjamin faces a problem at the agency level. It is a policy issue, more specifically, one caused by the absence of any effective policy to assure that an undesirable condition does not arise. He will probably find it relatively easy to identify a solution, gain access to decision makers, and persuade those decision makers to take steps to address the problem. Alma, on the other hand, faces a problem generated at a higher level, and that affects many people in a variety of ways. Although ultimately the cause of the problems they want to address is the same, the scope and goals of their efforts will differ in significant ways.
Benjamin and Alma have chosen to engage in an important social work activity: policy practice. Janssen (1999) defined policy practice as âefforts to change policies in legislative, agency, and community settings, whether by establishing new policies, improving existing ones, or defeating the policy initiatives of other people.â Many social workers express little interest in policy, but their careers are intrinsically involved with social welfare policy. In fact, policy furnishes their careers. Problems are recognized by policy makers, policies written, social programs developed, and jobs created. Many are filled by social workers.
In an ideal world policies would solve the problems they were intended to address. In reality this is sometimes not the case. Take, for example, Benjamin's discovery. Policies related to mental health treatment are working well. Policies to provide alternative funding for services also exist. There is, however, a problem in agency policy. No policy has been written to assure that clients are aware of the financial supports. In this case, policies such as those providing for mental health treatment fail because of the absence of other supportive policy.
Alma's group is hoping to address policy failure at a higher and broader level. The group has only recently begun to study the issue, but it appears that this body of policy worked well at one point. Changes in the social climate or political landscape have reduced its effectiveness.
The absence of policy and changes in the social or political situation are two of the many conditions that can cause or contribute to policy failure. Among the many others are poorly conceived policies, policies that fail to consider unintended consequences, policies that fail to consider the potential for disruption at other levels, and policies that are well-conceived but are not ultimately fundable (Ellis, 2003; Janssen, 1999). Furthermore, some older social problems, such as poverty, have never been adequately addressed on a national scale, much less globally. Despite the ongoing problems faced by U.S. citizens, those problems often pale when compared to those of persons in other countries. New social problems also arise, prompted by events both national and international. The tragic events of 9/11 point to a clear need for new and innovative policies not only to prevent future terrorist tragedies, but also to provide support and assistance to their victims should the preventive policies fail. Issues related to migration and immigration, refugeeism, and human rights also cry out for solutions crafted by the hands of social workers. The new responses must be âout-of-the boxâ in that they must look at problems globally rather than regionally or nationally. In the modern world little happens in a national vacuum. Events in other countries and processes that cross international borders cause and exacerbate conditions within our own country. These increased pressures underscore the need for innovative solutions such as international exchange of ideas, information, and problem-solving experts. Technological developments offer methods of communication, information transfer, and exchange of ideas that might otherwise be prohibitively costly or simply impossible. Social workers are among those at the table in some of the groups planning policy-directed interventions for these international issues. More social workers and more groups are needed as global change accelerates.
It is clear from this introductory discussion that social workers are, by the nature of their profession and position, inherently involved in social policy. In addition, they may engage in policy practice at many levels, from working to add a few lines to a âPolicy and Procedures Manualâ to altering the laws that guide how nations interact. It is also important to recognize the unique contribution that social workers often make to policy planning. First, social workers are often in a position to be among the first to recognize social problems. Those whose lives are directly affected by the problems are typically the first to recognize their presence. However, because of the direct communication with client groups social workers such as Benjamin have with persons in the community, these direct service workers may often become aware of problems before any other group. A second reason a social work presence is important to the planning process is that it provides the opportunity to influence problem definition. Problem definition refers to the way in which policy makers interpret and explain a problem. Interpretation and explanation, in turn, influence the way a solution is formed. Consider, for example, problems experienced by persons in poverty. If, as many conservatives believe, it is possible for the impoverished to simply âpull themselves up by their boot straps,â policies should be written that provide for the most cursory of interventions. The vast majority of the responsibility for change would lie with poor people and their allegorical boot straps. Social workers recognize that although a portion of the responsibility for change lies in the individual, impoverished persons face a daunting gauntlet of barriers to change. They also know how to craft and implement solutions to many of those barriers. It seems unlikely that solutions to poverty on any scale, individual or global, are likely to occur without social work participation.
Yet another important reason for social workers to engage in policy practice is the clearly defined set of ethics and values they bring to the table. Policy-related discussions often bog down because the values of the participants are not clearly expressed. This is often seen when discussions degenerate to a point that one or both sides has stalled with no more logical arguments, simply saying something like, âWe must do it this way.â What has often happened is that all effective arguments have been offered and countered, leaving participants with nothing more than their values as an argument. They may be unable to articulate those values because they have never sufficiently defined them. It may also be that they recognize that to speak their values clearly would actually undermine their argument by revealing less than humanitarian assumptions or motives. By clearly defining their values, social workers can verbalize much of the core motivation for their argument. Social workers also, thereby, earn the right to ask opponents to verbalize theirs. The importance of the presence of a representative of such clear values and ethics in policy-related discussion is clear. Often, its only potential source is a social worker.
It's clear that effective policy practice is important to social workers, their clients, the profession, the nation, and the world. It is also clear that any social worker may be called to engage in policy practice at any time. This chapter is about effective policy practice. Although it was written primarily with practice within the United States in mind, much of it is applicable to international practice. The chapter discusses preparation for policy practice, problem identification and definition, assembling a policy practice team, selecting an approach, conducting an analysis, developing an action plan, and evaluating the outcomes of the activities. It is intended to provide a general understanding of the processes, techniques, and strategies of policy practice, and to provide resources for gaining additional information and skill.
Preparation of the Practitioner
The process of preparing for policy practice might be conceived as a series of stages. The first involves the acquisition of a specific set of knowledge and skills needed to interact, assess, plan interventions, and evaluate within the policy arena. Practitioners who have reached this point in their training are able to perform all the basic functions necessary to engage in policy practice, and know how to acquire advanced knowledge, skills, and resources. Accredited BSSW and MSSW programs are designed to provide the basic knowledge and skills so that any graduates, however inadequate they may feel, have been taught the foundation of what they need to know. The Council on Social Work Education refers to this foundational set of knowledge and skills as âgeneralistâ b...
