Overview
Focuses on core skills social workers need to practice in the political sphere
Tied to the 2015 Council on Social Work Education Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards
Designed for advanced MSW courses that prepare students for macro practice positions
Includes interactive activities to help students engage with power and conflict
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Table of contents (15 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Social Work in Politics
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Front Matter
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Assessing and Planning Effective Political Social Work Strategies
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Front Matter
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Engaging and Intervening with Effective Political Social Work Strategies
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Front Matter
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Evaluating Political Social Work and Planning for the Future
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Front Matter
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Keywords
- Political social work practice
- Political process
- Social change
- Electoral politics
- Social work careers
- Policy-making
- Social Work Education
- Social Work Methods
- Community Engagement
- Grand Challenges for Social Work
- Social Work and Social Policy
- Legislative Action
- Social Workers Engaging in Politics
- Civic Engagement
About this book
This social work book is the first of its kind, describing practical steps that social workers can take to shape and influence both policy and politics. It prepares social workers and social work students to impact political action and subsequent policy, with a detailed real-world framework for turning ideas into concrete goals and strategies for effecting change. Tracing the roots of social work in response to systemic social inequality, it clearly relates the tenets of social work to the challenges and opportunities of modern social change. The book identifies the core domains of political social work, including engaging individuals and communities in voting, influencing policy agendas, and seeking and holding elected office. Chapters elaborate on the necessary skills for political social work, featuring discussion, examples, and critical thinking exercises in such vital areas as:
- Power, empowerment, and conflict: engaging effectively with power in political settings.
- Getting on the agenda: assessing the political context and developing political strategy.
- Planning the political intervention: advocacy and electoral campaigns.
- Empowering voters
- Persuasive political communication.
- Budgeting and allocating resources.
- Evaluating political social work efforts.
- Making ethical decisions in political social work.
Political Social Work is a potent reference for social work professionals, practitioners, and students seeking core political knowledge and skills to practically advance their work. For specialists and generalists alike, it solidifies political action as vital for the evolution of the field.
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Authors and Affiliations
About the authors
Suzanne Pritzker, PhD is an Associate Professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, where she teaches courses in policy analysis and advocacy in the MSW and PhD programs. Her research focuses on young people’s civic engagement and on strategies to increase political participation. She has authored over 20 publications on topics specifically related to policy and civic engagement. Her political social work experience includes working as a Virginia Governor’s Fellow, as an appointee in the Office of the Virginia Secretary of Education, and as an analyst with the Virginia General Assembly. Suzanne earned her BA in History and M.Ed. in Social Foundations of Education from the University of Virginia, MSW from Virginia Commonwealth University, and a PhD in Social Work from Washington University in St. Louis. At the University of Houston, she coordinates the College’s Austin Legislative Internship Program, through which graduate social work students are competitively selected to intern full-time in the Texas Legislature, founded and leads a monthly Policy Insider Series that brings social work policy experts to campus monthly, and chairs the College’s Political Social Work Specialization. She is a member of the Council on Practice Methods and Specializations with the Council on Social Work Education, an ally of the Special Commission to Advance Macro Practice in Social Work, and a member of the board of Influencing Social Policy (ISP).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Political Social Work
Book Subtitle: Using Power to Create Social Change
Authors: Shannon R. Lane, Suzanne Pritzker
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68588-5
Publisher: Springer Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer International Publishing AG 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-68587-8Published: 07 February 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-00789-8Published: 03 September 2018
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-68588-5Published: 16 December 2017
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XXV, 505
Number of Illustrations: 5 b/w illustrations, 46 illustrations in colour
Topics: Social Work, Social Policy, Public Policy