10 Chapter 10 – HOW DO SOCIAL WORK BASIC PRACTICE SKILLS BENEFIT AN ELECTED OFFICE HOLDER AND THE PEOPLE THEY SERVE?
This chapter supports Module 10 in which you will:
- Apply the various stages of social work practice- engaging, assessing, intervening and evaluating practice- utilizing systemic and other multidisciplinary theoretical perspectives to an issue that you would face as someone who holds elected office.
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In this chapter, we get to know social workers who make policy practice their specialty — in many ways, from lobbying to holding office at various levels. Sometimes we get focused on just very high offices like Congress or the Presidency and forget about more local offices like school board, county commissioner, city council, and so on. And, there are more to be had by application or appointment like zoning boards, library boards, and others. Absher introduces us to many North Carolina social workers who served in various capacities. Miller, Jennings, and Angelo have a more recent discussion of how social workers in various parts of the US bring their advocacy skills to bear in the political arena.
Social workers in other countries hold offices too — Kindler and Amann teach us about Swiss social workers in politics. Though Absher, Miller, Jennings, and Angelo are an ocean apart from Kindler and Amann, you’ll see that social workers engaged in policy practice everywhere use the same social work skills (building rapport, listening, learning, engaging, assessing, intervening, evaluating) that we use everyday in all kinds of micro, mezzo, macro practice.
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Read:
- Absher, L. (nd) The odd couple? Social work and politics in North Carolina.
North Carolina NASW. https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.naswnc.org/resource/resmgr/imported/Social%20Work%20and%20Politics%20in%20NC.pdf - Kindler, T. & Amann, K. (2022). Strategies of social workers’ policy engagement: A qualitative analysis among Swiss social workers holding elected office. Journal of Policy Practice and Research. 3. 1-14. 10.1007/s42972-022-00058-1. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s42972-022-00058-1
- Miller, D., Jennings, E., and Angelo, J. (2021) Social workers as elected officials: Advocacy at the doorstep, Journal of Social Work Education, 57:3, 455-463, DOI: 1080/10437797.2019.1671268
