Bringing together international case studies, this book offers theoretical and empirical insights into the interaction between social work and social policy.
Moving beyond existing studies on policy practice, the book employs the policy cycle as a core analytical frame and focuses on the influence of social work(ers) in the problem definition, agenda setting, policy formulation and implementation of social policy. Twenty-three contributors offer examples of policy making from seven different countries and demonstrate how social work practitioners can become political actors, while also encouraging policy makers to become aware of the potential of social work for the social policy-making process.
Table of Content
Introduction: Social Work and the Making of Social Policy ~ Ute Klammer, Simone Leiber and Sigrid Leitner
Part One: Social Work, Problem Definition and Agenda Setting
Social Work as Policy Innovator: Challenges and Possibilities in the UK ~ Roger Smith
Social Work, Problem Definition and Policy Change in the USA: The Case of sex trafficked Youth ~ Lisa Werkmeister Rozas, Megan Feely and Jason Ostrander
Italian Social Workers Voices: from a Pilot Anti-Poverty Intervention to a National Policy ~ Matteo D’Emilione, Giovannina Assunta Giuliano, Paolo Raciti and Paloma Vivaldi Vera
Part Two: Social Work Interests in Policy Formulation and Decision Making
Social Reform in the US: Lessons from the Progressive Era ~ Francisco Branco
Social Work Academia and Social Policy in Israel: On the Role of Social Work Academics in the Policy Process ~ Idit Weiss-Gal and John Gal
Social Workers’ Collective Policy Practice in Times of Austerity. Italy and Spain
compared ~ Riccardo Guidi
Social Policy and Welfare Movements ‘from below’: The Social Work Action Network (SWAN) in the UK ~ Rich Moth and Michael Lavalette
Section Three: Social Work and Implementation
Policy Work and the Ethics of Obedience and Resistance: Perspectives from Britain and beyond ~ Tony Evans
Systemic Barriers to effective Implementation of Child Protection Reform in Israel ~ Ravit Alfandari
Social Workers implementing Social Assistance in Spain: reshaping Poverty in a
familialistic Welfare State ~ Sergio Sánchez Castiñeira
Layering, social Risks and manufactured Uncertainties in Social Work in Poland ~ Paweł Poławski
‘A little more Humanity’: Placement Officers in Germany in-between Social Work and Social Policy ~ Markus Gottwald and Frank Sowa
Conclusion: Social Work and the Making of Social Policy – Lessons learned ~ Ute Klammer, Simone Leiber and Sigrid Leitner
About the author
Sigrid Leitner is Professor for Social Policy at the University of Applied Sciences Cologne. Her main research interests are comparative social policy analysis, gender effects of social policy, and social work as a political actor.
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