Tag Archives: social workers

Guest post: A Case for Advocating from Within

Posted on October 28, 2010 by | 8 Comments

**Note from Melinda: This guest post is from a blog reader who has generously agreed to share her story of advocating from within her employing organization. For obvious reasons, she remains anonymous in this forum, but she is willing to engage in conversation if other readers have questions or comments about her work.

Working within a movement to create social change is something I have wanted to be a part of since childhood. Always rooting for the underdog, cheering for the kid in fourth place or sitting at the table with the classmate by themselves seem to have been a theme in my life. I also love to challenge authority. It has left me with multiple time-outs, probably a good year lost to groundings and supervisors waiting in their office with a stack of write-ups titled “Insubordination’.

It was not a huge surprise when I wound up working for a women’s organization straight out of college. It felt comforting to look around and see other people dedicated to improving the lives of women and children. The realization came that the violence women are enduring are not random or isolated acts, but rather sustained by a framework developed by systems that maintain power and control over her life. It is easy to see the abuse women survive from their partner, sometimes, but not so easy to see the abuse they endure due to sexism, racism and classism. Diagnoses such as PTSD, depression and anxiety are commonly used in my world. The effect of these seems to remove “providers” further from the “consumers”. Diagnostics don’t seem to accurately reflect the experience of millions of women nor prevent the larger issues of violence against women. In my line of work we talk about how it is our responsibility to help her craft, draft and tell her story for her healing. Why not help her craft her story to connect and correct the larger injustices?

Working for a self-touted client-centered organization it seemed natural for this type of a program to be created, shaped and implemented. My organization is part of a state-wide coalition that claims to be part of a social change movement. Implementing a survivor-designed and led advocacy group seemed like an easy fit, right? That’s what I thought. What I have found are the people, organizations or systems that are “supposed” to be on our side can actually provide more challenges than who we think our natural opponents to be.

Internally, administrators balked at legislative advocacy because they believe that it’s our coalition’s responsibility (not our organization’s), they’re misinformed about the parameters of how nonprofits can lobby, and they’re concerned about the time/energy for adding another project to the organization. The project was not allowed to be added into my new job description as my supervisor did not feel “the project was developed enough.” Concern for burnout and shifting priorities from my primary responsibilities are other stated reasons from my supervisor to pull me off the project. The current barrier is her concern that the grants that pay my salary all specifically state ‘no lobbying’. Contacting the grantors is in the plans; however I have been barred from participating in the conversations.

Participating in our Coalition’s Legislative Advocacy Day has been an activity that our organization traditionally does. Bringing survivors to this day is something that I thought seemed logical. The welcome was lukewarm and ill-prepared, as they had never invited survivors to this event. After women told their stories to State Legislators and a representative responded empathetically, the Coalition reacted and I was told they strategically build relationships and plan out legislation. They were alarmed at the survivor’s “uncontrolled message” and told me that they never want a “story like that ever getting back to the capital”. The effect of this statement is unfortunate in several dimensions. Violence against women can involve substance abuse, mental health, poverty and sometimes suicide and homicide. Instead of seizing the opportunity to educate people in power about the complexities of the lives of their constituents, the Coalition sent a message to my organization and the survivor that shamed her (what had happened was her fault) and attempted to take her power away by controlling her story.

Why do I keep pushing for a survivor-led advocacy group? Because what I hear time and time again is that system action or inaction has a direct impact on people’s lives. Survivors look to systems for basic needs, protection and justice. When systems fail, women feel violated, and sometimes the “beat down from the system is worse than a man’s.” Women have been affected by the problem of violence and have a stake in the issue. They are the experts in how systems fail and re-victimize. They have a strong desire to end the re-victimization by changing the way people think about violence against women, responses to survivors and holding these systems accountable for their actions. They want a social change group that is a combination of education, policy change and legislation. If we want true change, then the people who are most affected by the problem must be at the center of righting the wrongs.

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Posted in From the Trenches (Guest post)

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Translating what we know into what they’ll trust

Posted on October 14, 2010 by | Leave a comment

photo credit, victius, via Flickr, Plinth Telephone System

So this week I’ve been thinking a lot about social workers, and our particular skills, and how those can come into play in the advocacy that we know our clients deserve and our world desperately needs. I’ve argued that we know enough, already, to make a significant contribution.

I believe that. I’ve seen both effects at work, and I know that they make social workers a force with which to be reckoned, when we turn ourselves loose on the injustices that plague our communities.

And yet.

I also know, and have seen, how social workers can be so frustrated in policy, when they feel that their clients’ voices are not heard, that their practice wisdom is ignored, and that they are marginalized in the policy process.

I’ve heard on more than one occasion from social workers who lament, when policymakers are talking deficit reduction and cost containment and we’re talking kids having a chance to succeed and focus on families, that it’s as though we’re speaking a different language.

And, so, when I was reading in Blink about how “our world requires that decisions be sourced and footnoted, and if we say how we feel, we must also be prepared to elaborate on why we feel that way” (p. 52), when the reality is that sometimes we can’t articulate that very well, or at least not to the satisfaction of those who are hostile to or at least suspicious of our profession and our orientation to begin with, which is state of the relationship between social workers and some policymakers today, it kind of struck me:

we ARE.

Speaking different languages, that is.

And the consequences can be grave, because they (policymakers) need to hear what we (social workers and those with whom we work) have to say.

So, then, it strikes me that one of our core challenges, in thinking about social workers and advocacy, is how to share what we know in ways that will be viewed as legitimate and, ultimately, gain credence in the battle over how to define social problems and how to frame how we solve them.

This means learning how to give effective testimony, so that we fit the form enough for our substance to shine. It means weaving compelling stories into our policy arguments, and knowing how to reinforce those stories with the kinds of evidence (including, yes, statistics!) that people are more familiar with (all the while introducing the personal case as another type of valuable information). It means understanding what policymakers mean when they talk about deficits and bending the cost curve, not so that we acquiesce to their priorities, but so that we can integrate some of their language into our own rationales for change.

And it means, of course, building the kinds of relationships to power that will, eventually, mean that we can influence the language of policy deliberation, and, in the meantime, that people will care enough about what we’re saying to ask for an interpreter.

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Posted in Tips and How-Tos

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Why mentors matter: the woman behind the woman behind

Posted on September 30, 2010 by | Leave a comment

Florence Kelley, photo with permission of History Link

One of the themes from The Woman Behind the New Deal that has lingered with me since I read it last month relates to the role that other women, in particular other women social workers, played in shaping the social conscience, feminist identity, and, ultimately, career choices of Frances Perkins.

Florence Kelley, for example, provided Frances with a vision of a working, politically-active woman in an age with a very different dominant view of women’s roles. So did Jane Addams. And, perhaps even more important than these inspirations was the real interest that these women and others took in cultivating Frances, finding places for her within social movements, sharing books and exposing her to alternative thoughts about family, economics, and just society.

One of the things that struck me was how interconnected these women were. In Chicago, Washington, DC, New York, and points in between, they pop up in each others’ lives, organizations, and campaigns. They shared not just passion for social justice but real affinity for one another, and a solidarity born out of fighting tough struggles as an overlooked and often marginalized gender.

And they made a difference, not just in the legislative environment that improved the lives of generations of Americans (consumer protection, regulation of child labor, development of mothers’ pensions, worker safety…), but also in the capacity of other women activists to weather their own difficult battles, at home and in the public sphere.

And reading the excerpts from their letters to each other, and the interweaving of their lives over the course of decades, has made me think more about how much my students today (and, really, me too!) could benefit from such a strong network of social work “justice fighters”–people with whom to share not just tips and web links, but also tears and celebrations, people who share not just our causes but also our stories, our values, and our professional identity.

I don’t mean to suggest that there’s none of this kind of mentoring among social work advocates today; certainly I try to provide it for some of my students, and I have definitely benefited from the investment made by other women advocates in my own life and work. There are institutions like the Social Welfare Action Alliance that try to formalize some of this convening, and there is the existence of the field instruction experience which, at least theoretically, seeks to provide some mentoring in the foundation of a new social worker’s career.

But we need more.

Because, while it may not be as revolutionary to work and mother at the same time as it was in Frances Perkins (or Florence Kelley)’s day, it’s still not easy to be a social worker seeking to integrate clinical skill with radical social change. And I know that there are holes in the networks that support new social work activists, because my students often tell me that they feel alone when they launch their careers. This blog, really, is in part an attempt to fill some of that void.

Speaking truth to power is always somewhat lonely. Frances Perkins’ story offers many insights for social workers today, but perhaps chief among them is that she probably never would have become what she did, and therefore never won for us what she did, if not for the women social workers who guided her, lifted her up, surrounded her with wisdom and encouragement and, when necessary, chastised her into using her hard-won power for the least among us.

We’d all do better with friends like that.

Where do you find support for your social work advocacy? Who are your mentors? What are your recommendations for social workers starting out on a social change path? And what are you willing to do to bring up (and bring out) the next Frances Perkins?

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Posted in Background Reading

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How we got the New Deal, and why we always need a list

Posted on August 3, 2010 by | Leave a comment

List, via Flickr Commons

My favorite scene from the book The Woman Behind the New Deal is in the prologue, when Frances Perkins comes to her meeting with Franklin Roosevelt with a handwritten list of all of the initiatives she wanted to push, if she would agree to become his Secretary of Labor.

It was a list which, for her, represented the only things worth taking on such a monumental job, so exposed to public scrutiny. For him, then, it was a sort of litmus test–if he wouldn’t agree to back her policy vision, he wouldn’t have her as his Labor Secretary.

For us, the list was nation-changing.

A 40-hour workweek, minimum wage, workers’ compensation, unemployment insurance, a federal ban on child labor, Social Security…all radical ideas then that have since become core aspects of our social policy structure and defining components of the modern social contract.

There are two fundamental lessons to come from this almost-apocryphal story:

  • We need a list.
    Sometimes we advocates for social justice are so sure that the world is against us, so convinced that our causes are hopeless, so enamored of fighting uphill battles, that we fail to ask ourselves what we’d want if someone really offered us the chance. What seems impossible today, that we’d really like to have by tomorrow? What’s our list of our top 3 priorities, or even top 5 or 10, towards which all of our work, every day, should be focused? What would we do with tons of power, if we got it?

    Stop for a minute. Write your list, if you don’t already have one. Carry it around. And be ready–you never know who might want to see it.

  • Lists aren’t enough.
    In the completion of that same vignette later in the book, Roosevelt says to Frances as she leaves, “I suppose you’ll nag me about this forever.” (p. 124) Frances realizes that he hopes that it will be so; he knows that the country needs and deserves the changes she’s outlined, but he lacks the political courage or strength of conviction to insist on them. He has chosen her not just for the vision represented in that list, but also for the knowledge that she will force him to live up to his promises.

    The lesson for us in that is that, if we’re spending all of our time thinking through what changes we want to see in the world, we may not be cultivating the relationships and the power that we’ll need to see them realized.

    Imagine if all she’d had with her was a reminder to pick up milk!

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    Posted in Inspiration and Examples

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    Al Smith was right: why we need an inside game

    Posted on August 2, 2010 by | Leave a comment

    In The Woman Behind the New Deal, the author reveals a conversation between Frances Perkins and long-time Tammany Hall politician, Al Smith.

    Frances is trying to decide whether to accept a government position on the Industrial Commission. It would allow her to reform working conditions through the vehicle of a government entity with authority to force changes, he asserts. She demurs, not convinced that being a part of an admittedly imperfect (even corrupt) government is the best place for a social work reformer.

    “Smith chided her. ‘If you girls are going to get what you want through legislation, there better not be any separation between social workers and the government.’” (p. 77)

    When Frances relates the offer to her friend and mentor, social worker Florence Kelley, Kelley’s response was, “‘Glory be to God…I never though I would live to see the day when someone that we had trained and who knew industrial conditions, cared about women, cared to have things right, would have the chance to be an administrative officer!” (p. 77)

    Frances, obviously, took the job, which helped to launch a lifetime of service to workers through the medium of government service.

    With the benefit of history, it’s so clear that, for her, working within the government was the best place from which to enact the reforms so important to her and, ultimately, to the country.

    And that’s why this anecdote about her ambivalence is so important, and so instructive.

    What is it about social workers that makes us, often, so reluctant to enter this “inner sanctum”–the halls of government where so many of the policies that influence so much of our work, and our world, are made?

    Is it our noted discomfort with power? A concern that getting too close will compromise our ethics? Unfamiliarity with the policymaking process, that makes us feel incapable of rendering excellent service in that realm? Preference for the less formal work settings of nonprofit organizations? Inadequate guidance to steer us towards government service as a career path? All of the above?

    There’s certainly a case to be made for the outside agitator: no social movement was ever fomented exclusively by government employees, and none is likely to ever be.

    But when we think about all of the policymaking that happens through regulations, which are largely controlled by unelected bureaucrats, and when we think further about the access and influence that these bureaucrats have with elected officials, and about the media platform that those well-positioned within administrations have, to shape discussion of issues and establishment of the social policy agenda, then it seems obvious that we need some of “our people” on the inside, too.

    And what better way to get “our people” there, than by having at least some of us (read: social workers committed to social justice) go, ourselves?

    If you’re a social worker in government service now, what obstacles do you encounter in your quest for social justice? If you’re considering government work as a part of your career, what considerations are you weighing? If you’re a committed “outsider”, why? And what should social work education be doing to prepare social work advocates for successful reform work both within and without government institutions?

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    Posted in Analysis and Commentary

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    Social Work Blog Awards 2010

    Posted on June 7, 2010 by | 2 Comments

    Drumroll, please…..

    announcing the…

    Active Social Work has created an award for the best social work blogs in a variety of categories, as described below:

  • Adoption/Fostering: this category should include blogs written under the topic of adoption or fostering services.
  • Children and Families: this category should include blogs written under the topic of Children and Families social services.
  • Diary/Personal: this category should include blogs written by social workers or social work students who maintain a journal about their activities.
  • Educational: this category should include blogs written for or by social workers with educational value.
  • Informative/Policies: this category should include blogs of informative nature about social work policies, news, etc.
  • Adult Social Services: this category should include blogs written under the topic of Adult Social Services and includes palliative social work .
  • Mental Health: this category should include blogs written under the topic of mental health services.

    The contest actually started at the beginning of the year, but, since nominations are requestd until September 1, 2010, I thought that was a bit too long for my attention span. Voting on the nominees will be between September 1-December 31, 2010, with the results announced on the 1st of January 2011.

    Many of my favorite social work blogs, including Fighting Monsters, Pittsburgh Perambulations, and Eyes Opened Wider have already been nominated.

    I found a few new ones through the site, too, because people are leaving their votes in the comments on this permanent page. I especially enjoy finding ways to connect with social workers in direct practice about the ways in which social policy impacts their practice and their clients and, since I interact online mostly with non-social workers, it’s good to find a community of folks with pretty similar values and approaches.

    Social workers, check it out. You might find some new blogs to follow.

    And, of course, if you can think of any really fabulous social work policy blogs to nominate (ahem…), well, you can do that, too! Happy voting!

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    Posted in Events and Calls to Action

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    PIE and why social workers could solve all the world’s problems

    Posted on May 20, 2010 by | Leave a comment

    From mimbrava, via Flickr

    I’ve saved for the last in this series on The Age of the Unthinkable what was my most recurring thought as I read: he’s talking about social workers!

    Throughout much of the book, as Ramo discusses the need for people who can see the forest instead of just the trees, for those who are comfortable with chaos and can continually reassess their own thinking in light of new empirical realities, for those who come at the system from the outside and admit that they know little about another’s view of the world, for those who recognize that precious little in this world is simple and that those problems which look the simplest are, often, the most complex and the most worthy of our analytical attention, I kept adding sticky notes and thinking, “social workers do that!”

    Now, I’d certainly never argue that social work as a profession and, indeed, individual social workers within our ranks, aren’t just as guilty of routinization, expert complex, and uncritical acceptance of the status quo as any other group of people. Certainly, at times, we are, and, tragically, the results are sometimes catastrophic.

    But what we’re taught, uniquely, is that we must focus, at the same time and with equal intensity, on the person and on the environment; we instinctively get that looking at either in isolation is dangerous and useless. We are trained that we must assess carefully, that if we start with the “right way” of seeing the world, or a given situation with a client, that sets the stage for right action. Ramo uses the story of an experimental psychologist who demonstrated that people from Eastern and Western cultures have actually different ways of seeing–that those from Western contexts focus in on what they consider to be the core subject, while those from the Eastern world take in the environmental context.

    And it reminded me of much of what I read in preparation for my class this semester, about systems theory and the person-in-environment perspective, and the importance of helping social work students learn new ways of viewing their world, so that they can develop new tools with which to engage it.

    Ramo makes a really compelling case that we must learn to think within this world before we can hope to succeed in it. What he’s missing is the point that those trained as social workers are, in many ways, a step ahead in this ‘right thinking’. We have learned, often the hard way, that that which seems totally unrelated can end up being critical; that we have to ask good questions if we hope to ever find answers; that making plans is pretty overrated and can be counterproductive; and that, if we don’t start where we should (where our client is), we’ll never get to where we want to go.

    Often this orientation puts us at odds with power players in the systems around us. They want quick, black and white answers, while social workers notoriously speak in shades of gray. But, as Ramo explains vividly, in today’s ever-shifting terrain, this same comfort with ambiguity and familiarity with operating on the fringes of established protocol makes social workers particularly well-suited to address our most vexing problems.

    We understand the importance of resilience to well being (he advocates for rechristening the Department of Homeland Security as the Department of Resilience, focused not on preparing for attack but strengthening our nation to withstand one), because we see how resilience works in amazing ways in the lives of individuals, families, groups, and entire communities. We know that every answer brings a new question. And we learn quickly that avoiding collision, and helping others to avoid them, is far better than trying to heal from one.

    Finally, social workers know almost innately that spreading power instead of hoarding it brings transformation. We’re not afraid to share power, and we believe in people’s ability to solve their own problems, in part for the same reason Ramo advocates this approach: we’re always in way over our heads, and we count on those with whom we work to do a lot of the digging themselves.

    So there you have it: one of the leading geostrategic advisors (and no, I’m not exactly sure what that means) argues convincingly in his highly-acclaimed book that social workers hold the key to the salvation of our society. I mean, essentially.

    We just have to claim it.

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    Posted in Analysis and Commentary

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    Finally! A social work credential just for me!

    Posted on April 29, 2010 by | Leave a comment

    A year after I graduated with my Master of Social Work degree, I passed my licensure test. Honestly, I think I felt more relief about finishing the licensure than about getting through graduate school–whereas I loved almost all of my classes at GWB, getting through the licensure exam meant, for me, two months of almost nightly studying so that I could be somewhat knowledgeable about clinical diagnosis, pharmacology, brief solution focused therapy, and a variety of other social work-related concepts to which I virtually no prior exposure. I took the licensure exam, really, because I knew that I wanted to supervise social work students, and because I believe in the importance of having a professional regulatory and monitoring system.

    And, then, I pretty much forgot about it except for my panic every two years when I realized that I needed to finish my continuing education hours. For those hours, then, I am frustrated every cycle when I have so few choices for macro practice-related content; our state requires at least 7 hours of diagnosis and treatment continuing education credits, with no parallel requirement for anything regarding systems work or social change. I’ve learned something about treating eating disorders, childhood sexual abuse, and bipolar disorder, I guess, but I have to say that very little of what I’ve absorbed in CEUs for my license has ever helped me in my work.

    So, you can imagine my excitement, when, in a meeting with our university’s practicum director, she pointed out that the National Association of Social Workers has made the ACSW (Academy of Certified Social Workers) credential a sort of “license for the experienced macro professional”.

    Now, of course, this isn’t a license, but a credential (so it wouldn’t have saved me from that test!), but, as it has similar requirements for post-graduate practice and supervision as the clinical credential, I see it as exalting the stature of macro practitioners and, I hope, ultimately raising the profile of our contributions to the profession and our continuing education needs.

    Mainly, I’m excited that NASW has recognized the unique skill set that experienced macro social workers bring to practice, and sought to distinguish these professionals within our field. At this point, I don’t see that our profession, or, certainly, macro practitioners, have so carved out a niche for ourselves that we are in a position to demand ACSW certification for those in macro practice, and we certainly don’t have the insurance reimbursement pressure to force the question the way that our clinical colleagues do. So I don’t foresee a tremendous financial incentive for credentialing, at least not yet.

    But we’ll never get there without a movement towards increasing professionalization and recognition within our own field. I’d love to hear from those of you in macro practice now–do you have ACSW credentials? If not, why not? What might influence you to pursue it? What do you think, in general, about the idea of a macro practice recognition like this?

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    Posted in Analysis and Commentary

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    So THAT’S what you call it!

    Posted on March 15, 2010 by | 2 Comments

    Two Roads Converged; Vision Photography-Rigby, via Flickr

    **I’m teaching a new class this semester: Human Behavior in the Social Environment: Groups, Organizations, and Communities, and it has prompted a lot of thinking about group development, in particular, and some new ideas about organizational impact on practice, too. This week, I’ll have a few posts about some of the topics that I’m raising in this class, tying in some of the reading I’ve been doing around these ideas. I (and, I’m sure, my students!) would appreciate any of your feedback, too.

    In preparing for teaching this class, I had to go back and do A LOT of reading, especially about social systems theory. As in, A LOT of reading. See, it’s actually been quite awhile ago that I took my human behavior in the social environment courses as an undergraduate, and social systems theory isn’t really a daily part of how I think about my social work practice. Or so I thought.

    And, so, I slogged through general systems theory, biological systems, networked systems…it was all systems, all the time. I had to help my students make sense of homeostasis, steady state, entropy and synergy, boundaries, holons, and suprasystems. And it’s not that I disagree with any of it, or with its importance within the social work curriculum (although I layer a more sophisticated understanding of power and its role in groups, organizations, and communities, to broaden students’ understanding), but I’m not exactly passionate about systems theory either.

    Or, I wasn’t, until I found two long words that explain, together, a lot of what I think about social work and social change.

    Equifinality and Multifinality

    Yes, I know. I said they were long words.

    But it’s what they mean that matters.

    Equifinality (my definitions, not Webster’s): entities can reach the same state from different paths

    Multifinality: similar conditions can lead to different ends (or, context matters, a lot)

    So, “equifinality” is my new word for describing everything I believe about social work and the power of human resilience, really; if I thought that you had to start at A to get to C, then it wouldn’t make any sense to help those who are at B, you know? It means that, with a shared vision of social justice as our destination, different communities in different contexts can forge their own paths to reaching it–a belief in the strengths perspective and in self-determination that are, together, the core of my commitment to social work.

    And, multifinality, while not as central to my social work identity, captures what I try to explain to students whose immediate focus is usually on the individual and not his/her environment, and to policymakers who seize on an approach that worked in one context and wonder why it’s not having the same result in another. It’s why the person-in-environment perspective is so important in distinguishing us from other helping professions, and why we have greater success in achieving social change when we approach problems on multiple levels.

    So, there you have it, straight from systems theory, words that, while long, are certainly more concise than my roundabout articulation of how they figure into my social work worldview. Social workers, what do you remember from human behavior classes that you still apply in practice? Any systems theory concepts that really resonate with you?

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    Posted in Analysis and Commentary, My New Favorite Thing

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