Social Policy for Effective Practice

Book Overview

The fifth edition of Social Policy for Effective Practice offers a rich variety of resources and knowledge foundations to help social work students understand and contend with the continually evolving social policy landscape that surrounds them. The authors have continued their values-based approach and kept the focus on clients’ strengths to help students position themselves for effective engagement on new fronts where policy threats and outcomes affect clients’ lives in myriad ways.

The new edition comprehensively covers the process of defining need, analyzing social policy, and developing policy. In this new edition, readers will find: 

• A thorough examination of new policies, including challenges to the Affordable Care Act, voting rights, immigration, women’s rights, and LGBTQ+ rights, as well as situations involving substance use, mental health, and economic inequality.
• Expanded coverage of shifting demographics, including population diversity and aging.
• Increased connections drawn between historical, present, and potential future policy contexts
• Updated exercises, exhibits, and social media links in-text and an entire suite of web-based tools found through www.routledgesw.com, including complementary reading suggestions and teaching tips, a full library of lecture slides and exam questions, and EPAS guidelines.

For use as a resource in foundations generalist social policy courses, either at the baccalaureate or master’s levels, the new edition of Social Policy for Effective Practice will challenge students to find areas of policy practice that spark their passion and prepare them to think about and use policy practice as a tool that can lead to the changes they care about.

Table of Contents

1: Social Work and Social Policy: A Strengths Perspective 2: The Historical Context: Basic Concepts and Early Influences 3: The Historical Context: Development of Our Current Welfare System 4: The Economic and Political Contexts 5: Basic Tools for Researching Need and Analyzing Social Policy 6: Social Policy Development 7: Civil Rights 8: Income- and Asset-Based Social Policies and Programs 9: Policies and Programs for Children and Families 10: Health and Mental Health Policies and Programs 11: Policies and Programs for Older Adults 12: The Future 

About the Author

Dr. Rosemary Kennedy Chapin is an award-winning teacher and researcher, possessing extensive program development experience in the social policy arena. After receiving her PhD, she worked as a research/policy analyst for the Minnesota Department of Human Services, where she was involved in crafting numerous long-term care reform initiatives. In 1989, she joined the faculty at the University of Kansas, where she established the Center for Research on Aging and Disability Options (CRADO). Dr. Chapin has been recognized by many groups at both the state and federal levels for her years of cutting-edge research and advocacy. In 2016, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) awarded her as a Social Work Pioneer. She has also been singled out for her pioneering policy practice work by the national organization Influencing Social Policy. Dr. Chapin and her husband have three children and live in Lawrence, Kansas.

Melinda K. Lewis is an Associate Professor of Practice in the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas and Associate Director of the School’s Center on Community Engagement and Collaboration. The instructors’ materials for this text were informed by her teaching of foundation and advanced-level MSW social policy and policy practice courses, and she also has years of experience advising students and field agencies on policy analysis and policy practice. Before joining the KU faculty, she worked on policy advocacy and community organizing at the local, state, and federal levels, in pursuit of economic justice and human rights. From 2012-2018, she was Assistant Director of the Center on Assets, Education, and Inclusion, based at the University of Michigan. She co-authored three books examining various aspects of the relationship between wealth inequality and children’s educational outcomes. The most recent, Making Education Work for the Poor: The Potential of Children’s Savings Accounts (2018, with Dr. Willie Elliott), makes the case for financing higher education from universal assets rather than dependence on student debt.

Instructor Resources