so with that I'm going to turn it over or Garfinkel who with his colleagues
Jane well Vogel and Heidi Alan looked at the status of the profession and
scholarship around to Social Policy so thank you mark thanks to all of you for
coming after a long conference and I hope that what we present will make your
Wow so the paper that I'm doing is social policy and Social Work in the
21st century and with two co-authors Jane wall Fogle and Heidi Allen neither
of whom are here but they have expertise in areas that I don't and made it very
important contributions so our charge is to assess the condition of social policy
research in social work at the dawn of the 21st century we also say a little
bit about the state of the profession in terms of influencing policy just
focusing on the scholarship for a moment it's a daunting challenge to and Markin
it at this and his comments to assess the role of social policy research and
social work because the field is so broad including includes obviously
poverty anti-poverty research tower welfare health aging housing
neighborhood and Community Development anti-discrimination policy some would
say still criminal justice policy of they were not intimately involved in
that any more tax policy is relevant as well and
gender policy so and I could go on that's a partial list so the question
that we face the first question was what do we talk about so our solution was to
focus on only three areas and the criteria for choosing the areas one that
the areas be everyone would agree that the areas we choose are central to
Social Work a second and more pragmatic was that we have some expertise in this
area and that's why we have three of us I have expertise in the broad area of
anti-poverty policy or generally social economic well-being a chain waffle who
has expertise in child welfare and Heidi Allen expertise in health policy the
method which I'll come back to at the end you should think of what we're doing
it's a in some ways novel I hadn't thought of initially but what we do is
focus on what we think are really seminal contributions coming from people
in social work and we so we focus on just leading research in these three
areas I'll come back to that and say the limits of that and to summarize the
findings Social Work scholarship is remarkably strong and I'm an optimist by
nature but I think I hope to convince you that that's not just the reflection
of my personality rather it's a reflection
the evidence so I'm gonna begin with anti-poverty policy or economic
well-being or generally again the vastness of the literature just in this
area requires narrowing and we've narrowed to four areas core poverty
research child support asset development and comparative research cross national
comparative research with respect to core party research I'm going to begin
with overarching research on poverty and here the first thing I thought about was
the Institute for Research on poverty has published I think it's now four
volumes on fighting poverty confronting poverty understanding poverty there was
a fourth but two of those three were edited by Sheldon Danziger who was a
member of the faculty at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and these are my
these were at the time they were published must reads for people who took
seriously scholarship we're interested in overall scholarship in poverty and
here I'm gonna divert a little bit to the state of the profession so again I
think very impressive four of the 13 directors of the Institute for Research
on poverty came from Social Work I've the only profession that has a stronger
representation economics same thing with respect to there's now a National
Academy of Science Panel charged with coming up with how do we reduce poverty
child poverty by half in the next ten years
again four of the 15 National Academy of Science members are
social work come from Social Work the
again the only profession that has stronger representation economics
poverty measurement I'll just talk about two contributions there
one is the as I think probably most of you know that in 1995 the National
Academy of Science recommended that we adopt a new measure of poverty as
opposed to the official measure lots of weaknesses of the official measure I
will focus on only one which is the official measure doesn't count the
benefits from the programs that we have actually expanded the most especially
with respect to child poverty so food stamps is not counted the Earned Income
Tax Credit is not counted public housing is not counted in the official measure
finally in 2011 or 2012 the Census Bureau published a supplementary measure
of poverty the SPM and I'm gonna talk about the OPM that's the official
measure of poverty they didn't replace the official measure
it's called supplementary measure D and lots of differences I'm just focused on
one it counts all these benefits cats all these benefits and a group of us at
Columbia University myself Jane wall Fogle a student at the time Liana Fox
and a research scientist Chris Weimer and there are two or three others the
co-authors what we did was to publish take the SPM back in time historically
so the Census Bureau only published data for the teens
I think they go back to 2011 but we took it all the way back to 1967 and the
difference in the reduction in poverty is dramatic if you look at the official
measure the trend in child poverty is actually child poverty goes up a little
from sixty-seven to the current period if you use the SPM we reduce child
poverty by more than forty percent that's a very different narrative the
first narrative is we threw money at problems that didn't work the second
narrative is that money was well spent it was very effective in reducing
poverty a second area I'd cousin and by the way that was cited in the
president's annual economic report of the president on the occasion of the
50th anniversary of the declaration of war on poverty there's a chapter in that
report of the president economic report of the president that looks at a 50-year
look back on the war on poverty and our work is central to that material
hardship social workers have made seminal contributions on material
hardship I remember when I first the the concept was invented by said the
measurement was first done by sandy Jenks the first couple of times I saw
and I had a student in class that I poo pooed the measure and said well I'm
skeptical about it I was that wrong about that and a number of people from
Social Work have published very convincing papers of why this is a good
measure five minutes I thought I had 30 minutes oh my god okay well
enough Santa biding economic insecurity is perhaps a better measure so alright
Chuck I'm gonna go through this quickly child support
I've made some contributions in that dan Meyer and Maria cancion at the
University of Wisconsin have made seminal contributions in this area in
child support I would say that contributions from social workers
dominate the literature and moving ahead quickly to asset development so
yesterday we gave an award to Michael Jordan for his work and asset
development as I've said to friends and colleagues he makes me look like a piker
in terms of what he's done and asset development I don't want to say he's he
and his students and colleagues are the entire literature but it's pretty
remarkable pretty remarkable contribution comparative research icon
and cameramen using the Luxembourg income study again social workers have
made incredible contributions their modern case studies we have some
remarkable examples chin gala sitting in the audience there has done a study of
China China's the bowel system it's the largest public assistance
program in the world and Jane waffle goes book on child poverty Britain's war
on poverty again remarkable important study a child welfare this this is our
area we have the professional it's like maybe we should curse God for giving it
to us it's the hardest area but we haven't we have it and the scholarly
contributions have been remarkable
they're people sitting in the audience here
Jane wall Fogle you can look down the list this is just child maltreatment and
child protection but also if you look at foster care guardianship adoption and
independent living again very impressive a couple notes on the current state of
scholarship we'll come back to them if you have questions aren't the health
policy well health policy is an area which we literally chose because it's
not an area where we've had this kind of influence but it's an area where Social
Work is playing a incredibly big role and a growing role and scholarship now
is beginning to emerge so especially in the area of one way I think about health
policy and the role of Social Work is that a lot of health problems are not
best addressed by health professionals they're actually best addressed by
social workers because a lot of the issues about health are not just health
profession related quickly and so I think two interesting developments in
health is that we now have a chance that there may be a National Academy of
Science panel created that would be take a look at the role of Social Work in the
conclusions so a scholarship is strong in
anti-poverty research and child welfare promising and health policy in terms of
policy influence I would say the professional role is mixed we have a
very prominent place at the table but what we've actually achieved if we
should only view it as limited it's not that we've not achieved anything but
we've not achieved what we aspire to and we need to work on that with respect to
pass the future success I would say the keys are and if you go back and look at
the slides you will see one is to remain up to date in research skills second to
hire scholars from different disciplines and I would say especially economics I
had a little bias I'm a half economist myself but I think it's not just bias I
think if you look at the contributions working in interdisciplinary teams I
think that's essential and if you looked at the items that are listed you'd see
an enormous amount of interdisciplinary cooperation creator played leading roles
in research institutes and laboratories I think it's I began with the Institute
for Research on poverty I think you will see Institute's scattered across the
country that social workers are involved in I think that's essential for our
continued leadership and second I think and this is something we are very good
at comes naturally to us which is collaboration with government and also
with foundations but I think the collaboration with government us being a
practice profession makes it a knack even when we have better so limitations
then that methodology is unique you could say for focusing on first-rate
papers to make the claim that Social Work research is strong is it some way
there's an element of tautological but here's the thing we could have come up
empty that is there could you know if we use that as the test there could have
been no papers and the contrast between health where we have less and
anti-poverty research we have more is an second the focus on our own expertise
question raises the question is are our findings generalizable I think the
answer is yes I think all across the country in different areas you will find
first-rate contributions from Social Work but that's a hypothesis I don't
have the evidence I didn't present the evidence lastly let me say it's a
preliminary draft and look forward to feedback first Mara
thank you
thanks much or yes we have Maura Curtis from one of the institutions that the
rivers talking about as the Institute for search on poverty as they're
discussing
hi so I had the benefit of reading the whole PowerPoint slide so maybe you'll
get some of it in the context of of my comments so this was a fun and
interesting task what Earvin colleagues were charged with doing and so in
thinking about providing comments on something like this about the nature and
state of a Social Work research and policy in particular and areas of
competence in areas moving forward it's a big question yeah so I thought about
it in this way policy practice in historical context that's what I craved
I craved that it create a bit of historical context and I kept thinking
about the fruit the fierce urgency of now like the times were living in now in
reference to where we have expertise historically so what was the author's
charge what they were charged with doing was to assess the conditions of social
policy research in social work at the dawn of the 21st century and make
recommendations for future success it's daunting I agree with herbed at all it's
a hard thing social policy research is very broad poverty child welfare health
aging housing neighborhood and Community Development anti-discrimination criminal
justice tax and gender and others and so their approach as Earth outlined was to
focus on three areas that are central to social a society and social work and I
would add existing expertise and developed infrastructure structural
relationships trust and historical practices okay and so they came up with
these three pots poverty child welfare and then health with newer research
focusing there okay so it's a big test so then I wanted to restate it okay so I
would restate the challenge a bit more broadly I think there's a number of ways
to approach thinking about this task both both conceptually and practically
so it's overwhelming and it's overwhelming for what I think is a good
reason the breadth depth and function of Social Policy Research and Social Work
it's conducted by Social Work scholars or in and on systems delivering Social
Services and by a wide range of actors within allied with or produced by an
agency or governments we'll need for policy research finding so that function
of how folks are doing their work determines in part the the questions
asked in the policy process so let's think about those three core areas
particularly for the first two there's no doubt and both the present and
current historical dominance of Social Work scholars in these areas and what
I'm struck by which makes my point okay earth was talking he's talking about
this person who he trained who then went over here and this person who knows this
person so you see the how the focus of the training around a particular
substantive area and then where people go into different systems and then the
potential for that collaboration over time even out of interest area I think
that matters so I think about history opportunities because I'm a hopeful gal
I'm hopeful gal and expansion I want to know why why dominates in child welfare
right in particular why domiciled wofford why dominates in poverty it
wasn't that folks set around necessarily in the linear fashion and said oh I'm
going to take on child welfare there's a particular history to each one of these
develops areas of dominance so to put more formally each area of current
dominance has a story that combines a seized or facilitated presence in
response to an observed social problem right place right time research labor
opportunity professional policy practice dominance governments will change that
needs to be delivered or evaluated and it's a confluence of these different
pressures and then the expertise is developed ok so because I like to but so
then I took a little time rereading some stuff and thinking about who doesn't
want to think about Fran miss Perkins who doesn't want to think
about Frances Perkins her time at Hull House her time in New York State an
architect of the New Deal hey Harry Hopkins and then where he goes and so
that's an older example but that example of how these folks interacted in these
different functions different roles and different systems and then went into
different systems and then when they needed to know something about something
that they didn't know there was someone in their network in their system who
didn't know that and so then they reached out across and abroad
okay so here's my today what are the opportunities what are the new
opportunities have a concerted attack on the basic structure of the welfare state
right now and norms of democratic process opened up for social policy
research and practice thank you I don't have the answer to this question but I
want to entertain the question because will I become concerned about what I am
I know know how I was trained to think about the world but I don't know what I
don't know and I don't know who I don't know and that lack of knowing that means
I might miss opportunities that combine the political context that we're living
in and maybe there's practice dominance in an area but it doesn't get half
infrastructure or research infrastructure but maybe it's deeply
important to the profession the nature of the democracy or the unraveling of
our welfare state I want social work to be there I want to lose any of that
we're doing but if there's new places I want to know that I know what they are
so how do we take into account the fierce urgency of now that will ensure
we have maintained and expanded the reach of our professional presence and
policy practice and have some kind of method for not for understanding how to
incorporate the time in which we're living so that we have methods for not
missing the next
that'll keep us busy great thank you very much more so we have we have time
for questions comments and all I would say is I would ask you to keep your
questions or comments to one minute or less that's actually a fairly long
period of time and it'll allow us to have more and if nobody comes up you can
continue your question after that but for now let's just do that
and then please identify who you are and where you're from
is this on you know I'm Bobby Everson's from the University of Pennsylvania I am
a self-proclaimed ethnographer and I can do work with low-income families and
economic mobility and I have statements more than questions but I don't want you
to forget Diana Pierce's influence on the Supplemental measure o the with her
self-sufficiency standard she was quite her work was quite notable in
influencing that that measure and I also want to really encourage us beyond
generalizability to the depth and the substance that can take place in terms
of policy influenced by qualitative work my work in particular has had quite
strong policy influences which has really been that's the satisfaction of
it so keep on with what you're doing and extend it and that's thank you
hello do you want me to introduce myself yeah Lenna the pom Nassif from Rutgers
so this is a question that I don't know if anyone can actually answer but my
concern over these last years that I've been here in the profession is the lack
of focus on social policy across many schools of Social Work as most of you
know I think many of us experience the same thing most of the students that are
coming in in terms of the master's programs are not interested at all in
social policy they're all interested in clinical work and I this is I think a
problem so I'm just curious about what your thoughts are on that so actually
I'll address both of the comments briefly so I think qualitative work is
very important I in the paper on quantitative work but that is not to
disparage the qualitative work at all it's also the case I think that there's
nothing new about the disproportionate focus on practice as opposed to policy
but I think that all schools as far as I know social work require policy in their
curriculum and whether we should do more and that's a good question it used to be
I just speak of my own University that we had a year-long social policy of
course that was certainly the case that SSA when I got my master's degree it was
year-long we're now down to one semester so I think there is a there is an issue
and maybe we could ensure
hi I'm Charles E Lewis jr. and I have a non-profit the Congressional Research
Institute for Social Work and policy and what we do is try to engage social
workers on the hill and if if possible to bring research that would have some
impact on legislation I'm currently working with Michael Jordan and the with
his child savings accounts and we're actually negotiating with congressman
Carl Crowell from New York who introduced the bill in 2015 to see if he
can reintroduce that bill with a few revisions that Michael is trying to put
into it but it we're on the hill trying to change policy or influence policy my
question is how much do we ensure that our research will have impact on policy
is the policy driving the research or are we doing research hoping that it
might have some some policy implications
also Garfunkel Ward's bite was my dissertation chair so I wanted I wanted
to just say something Lenna where are you Anna so you know you
know what I've come to with that idea in terms of with the math I'm teaching
undergrads now with the master's students is that all of these master's
students regardless of their preferences are policy practitioners because they
are street-level bureaucrats right and so I frame it that way and then I frame
it within the context of the code of ethics it's not and they seem to be
takers because I think for social workers who are practicing it's really
very hard they're gonna go into state agencies they're going to be asked to
deliver policies that are dead set against the code of ethics and we're in
essence asking them to hold to the line it's not - right but that's what I've
done with it so if I have some bit of peace with
because it's a hard it's a hard thing to do right
I'm the piece about the research so don't you think Charles it's both right
I mean so sometimes we're producing work because I'm at IRP right and there's in
this relationship with the state so sometimes we're producing research work
that the state needs to do what it needs to do and maybe gets used in maybe a
dozen and then we're doing the other parts of our job other people have
deeper knowledge in this but I think about it is I always look for the sweet
spot because don't want to do things I don't want to do and I don't want to do
things I don't think matter so when I'm in the room with people at least and
these things are negotiated I try to find the sweet spot where the the
problem conceptualization and the product that we're going to produce if
it's shared enough one would hope that the results then are how I experience it
from where I'm sitting and I know whether people think but sultans NASW
have had the opportunity over the last thirty years to work in three social
work organizations at that intersection of research policy practice and
education and I also had F as my social policy professor at the University was
constant only forty some odd years ago but I was just kind of delighted and I
guess I sort of took a breath of fresh air when you said that actually our
social works impact on social policy in these areas was good because I feel like
in my thirty years there's been so much sort of denigration of the profession
and what the profession does and there's so much good work going on and so I
think valuing that and honoring that and lifting that up is a really important
piece and just to address some of the issue around policy and integrating
policy throughout the profession and your comments or well taken you know
over the last year is one of the many initiatives that's gone on in Social
Work has been this sort of coalition to promote policy education and practice
and social work and about its eight ten months ago this was work policy
institute SW held a summit really looking at this issue and what we needed
to do in terms of the political land scape there are action briefs resources
and a full report from that that can be very helpful as schools of Social Work
that aren't that strong and conscious in attracting students who are really
interested in policy really want to look at how within field research practice
policy could be better integrated including what's were thinking about
when it's in Washington thinking about coupling the conference with some
Capitol Hill briefings and things like that so thank you my name is Cassandra
Simon and at the University of Alabama I am NOT a very eloquent speaker but I
usually able to get my point across I have an increasingly growing concern
about the really active role of Social Work as a profession in our role in
social justice and advocacy and activism and so since this particular piece has
to do with especially policy and policy practice understanding that we all have
to operate within the environments in which we live and that it's really nice
when we can find the sweet spots and we can find that shared part but I am
finding from talking to other people who have these same kinds of issues and we
just had a special interest group here swear on social justice in social work
research education practice and
educational practice and the profession about obstacles that are being put in
our way to actually teach students how to engage in legislative policy change
yes I am in a very red state I am in a state that was the continues to be the
last stronghold on Jim Crow laws and trying to continue to perpetuate those
in different ways and we are being blocked from using
university resources to allow students to try to affect legislative policies so
not being able to use university emails to promote to push forward petitions to
spread those petitions to all of our constituents where we're being
encouraged to find outside ways to do that and use outside this serves to do
that and so I how can we really teach policy practice if we're not able to
really have students when they have an opportunity to actually try to change
the legislative policies that are on the table but we can't actively engage in it
because oh oh well we don't want to upset upset the donors we don't want to
upset the legislators and I'm like I see increasingly there we are social workers
are no longer leading the charge for social justice we get on the backs of
issues that are safer we get on the backs of issues that are popular at that
time when I enter the profession it was because I thought that we were the
profession that would lead the charge to try to effect change that we would be
the ones in the front with the banner and it seems that now what we are doing
is just waiting for it to be a hot-button issue or for it to be
something that is relatively safe and again understanding that we all have to
operate we all need our jobs we all you know need a roof over our head and foods
to eat I mean and food to eat but I am very very concerned about the profession
as a whole and what it is we are becoming and not becoming anymore
especially in terms of issues of social justice advocacy and activism so
yeah so I really want to hear what everyone has to say here so my my take
on the current see that's what I mean about the times in which we're living so
the risks are disproportionately born right so scholars depending on the
university depending on what you research depending on whether or not
you're a tenured what your track is depending on whether you're at a state
or a private the risks are disproportionately borne to do the work
I recognize that profoundly and that is very much the truth and so I think then
the question then becomes for me what is the professional response to the fact
that it's disproportionately borne by those of us in the Academy depending on
where we vary across those four different domains and the risk is very
real I'm at a state system you know my syllabus has been for yet you can get it
on my you know these are chilling things these are real things and I feel what
you're saying and I feel that sense of fear and worry and on all of that it's
been I think it's if it's the context of the times that we're living and when I
get together with other scholars across discipline across university some
experience at more than other depending on the region of the country that
they're in depending on if it's a public or a private and all of that and I don't
think we've talked about that as a profession or academics at all and it is
disproportionately borne depending on the kind of research you do in the
populations that you work with I don't have an answer I hear your problem
I share it and it's disproportionately borne by the profession I agree I
actually have a question that I'd like to ask you so you mentioned we should
invite economists and/or fold of course we have economists but one thing that's
happened over the last 50 years is in fact there were no schools of public
policy when the National Conference assertion would start in fact there
weren't any for many years thereafter and you know this is sort of contested
professional turf now and I'm just kind of wondering you alluded to some of this
Urban Meyer you may have some thoughts about this as well but and we've got a
couple of minutes you know what do you think about that I mean it's just
something we shouldn't think about we shouldn't worry about I know I have
students that are told by faculties well if you really wanted me a policy
scholar you should go to you know in their master's program we're told you
should go to a policy school so I haven't studied that empirically but you
know that issue I'm wondering how you respond to that and what do you think
about it I think that's bad advice
they are schools of public policy are potentially a competitor but they're
also potentially collaborators and I don't fear them
I don't again that may be a personality trait but I think there's plenty of room
for them and for social work and I think we have some comparative advantages over
schools of public policy which by the way are old they weren't called schools
of public policy they were called schools of public administration and
they were a wind of political science what's changed is they've hired lots of
economist and in some places they're dominated by economists but they don't
have the practice background that we have and they they don't have the close
connection to practice that we have that's one and second they cover a vast
range so social social policy for them is just one minor field a minor field
and I want to return to the Mara's comments the fierce urgency of now
because I think Mars right and it reflects concerns that were just raised
I didn't thank you yes so look we live in a awful environment we have a
president who's a racist we haven't experienced that none of us have
experienced that in our lifetimes but we have experienced it historically it's
there it's in some level racism is not new to us at all and it's different
because we just elected a black president and we thought we were doing
much better and then what we were so there's no question we've gone backwards
the scholarship that we are doing as a profession prepares us for when there is
an opening and there will be an opening Donald Trump is not going to be
President forever the 2018 elections are very important things could change and
we have to be part of making that change so in terms of the fierce urgency of now
it's not scholarship actually I think it's advocacy and being engaged in the
field back to scholarship though for a moment and preparing for when openings
come right now in the National Academy of Science panel and reducing child
poverty in half child allowances universal child allowances are the
number one policy on the agenda when I came into the profession the profession
was for child allowances my actually the first paper I published in social work
with evidence of a little bit of knowledge being a dangerous thing I
argued for a negative income tax as opposed to a child allowance once I
learned the little more economics I realized how flawed the argument I was
using which came from economists by the way but was not a correct use of
economics the profession has to be prepared I think we are that scholarship
in a lot of areas is preparing us for the next generation great actually I'm
not I want to thank