Suzanne Pritzker

Field Note—Integrating Policy and Political Content in BSW and MSW Field Placements

Practice incorporating policy and political social work is a key component of the social work profession and an area in which students would benefit from exposure during social work education. Field education presents a significant opportunity for students to develop policy and political practice skills; however, individual and structural barriers may prevent students from developing practice experience in this area. Based on a survey of bachelor of social work and master of social work field directors in the United States, this field note examines the current state of policy and political practice field opportunities and examines barriers to offering such opportunities more widely. Ideas to facilitate these field opportunities, including curriculum-wide education about policy practice, relationship building, creativity, and identifying diverse placement sites, are presented.

Immigrant Youth and Voluntary Service: Who Serves?

Prior research has not examined whether volunteer activity differs for U.S. immigrant youth of different generations or citizenship status, nor which immigrant youth volunteer. Analysis of the Current Population Survey finds that immigrant generation and naturalization status predict the rate, intensity, and breadth of volunteer activity. Regardless of status as a nonimmigrant, second-generation immigrant, naturalized, or nonnaturalized first-generation immigrant, youth who are female, younger, wealthier, or enrolled in school are most likely to volunteer. Demographic patterns differ, however, when we examine volunteer intensity and breadth. Implications for understanding barriers to immigrant youth volunteerism and directions for further research are discussed.

Pathways to Adolescent Political Participation across Race and Ethnicity

This study assesses impacts of racial/ethnic identification on adolescent civic development to inform interventions to counter civic disconnect on the part of ethnic minority youths. Analyses of 4 years of national Monitoring the Future data find that Black and Latino adolescents hold negative political attitudes and low rates of political behavior. Structural equation models find dissimilarities in paths between political attitudes and behaviors for White, Black, Latino, and Asian adolescents. Findings suggest that political attitudes may operate as precursors to political behavior in different ways across races/ethnicities. Implications for civic interventions and future minority youth civic development research are discussed.

Promoting Election-Related Policy Practice Among Social Work Students

ABSTRACT Political involvement is an integral component of the social work profession, yet there is no explicit reference to social work participation in election-related activities in either the National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics or the Council on Social Work Education Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards. Social work education may offer an opportune time to shape crucial patterns of future electoral participation among social workers. This study examines BSW, MSW, and PhD student electoral involvement during the 2012 presidential election and ways social work program administrators across the country encouraged students to acquire skills and experience in election-related policy practice during the election season. Findings indicate that the extent of opportunities offered to students varied widely across programs as well as across types of electoral activities.

Measuring Adolescent Social and Academic Self-Efficacy Cross-Ethnic Validity of the SEQ-C

Objective: This study examines the psychometric strength, including cross-ethnic validity, of two subscales of Muris’ Self-Efficacy Questionnaire for Children: Academic Self-Efficacy (ASE) and Social Self-Efficacy (SSE). Methods: A large ethnically diverse sample of 3,358 early and late adolescents completed surveys including the ASE and SSE. Analyses focused on the subscales’ psychometric properties for the aggregate sample as well as for specific racial/ethnic subgroups. Results: For the ASE, Cronbach’s α for the aggregate sample is .85, ranging from .84 to .86 across racial/ethnic subgroups. For the SSE, the aggregate Cronbach’s α is .81, ranging from .77 to .86 across these subgroups. Conclusions: While aggregate findings indicate psychometric strength, analyses of cross-ethnic validity find some factor structure and item loading differences across racial/ethnic subgroups, indicating the need to ensure accurate measurement of self-efficacy across diverse youth samples.

Cancer survivorship care-planning: Practice, research, and policy implications for social work

ABSTRACT Increasing numbers of cancer survivors are living longer than 5 years from their diagnosis date. This has resulted in a growing population of cancer survivors, expected to reach 19 million by 2024. Survivors frequently experience late effects caused by cancer and its treatment, reducing survivors’ quality of life in multiple domains. Survivorship care-plans may aid the many physical, psychosocial, and financial needs that emerge posttreatment. However, the lack of reimbursement mechanisms, the limited amount of effectiveness research, and minimal guidelines for content and delivery are barriers to the widespread provision of survivorship care-plans. Challenges and opportunities for social work practice, research, and policy are identified and discussed.

Planning the Political Intervention: Advocacy Campaigns

This chapter builds from the five-stage process for developing political strategy introduced in Chap. 5, and adapts it specifically to the process of planning an advocacy campaign. An advocacy campaign is a political change effort focused on bringing about a specific policy change or changes. This process is most relevant to domains 1 and 2, specifically to strategies involving advocating for expanded political power, and for influencing policy agendas and policy decision-making.

Understanding and Raising Resources

The ability to understand, acquire, and manage financial resources is essential for electoral campaigns, advocacy efforts in nonprofit organizations, and political social work in the offices of elected officials or public agencies. This chapter and Chap. 12 serve as a pair to provide you the necessary information to begin raising and managing financial resources in political settings. Effective political strategies require political social workers to think carefully and strategically about money. As Mutch (2016) describes in regard to electoral campaigns: Money is necessary because campaigns are expensive, but money alone rarely wins elections. Think of running for elective office as like playing blackjack in Las Vegas. Having a lot of money is no guarantee that you will win, but without money you cannot even get into the game” (p. 5).

“Promoting the General Welfare of Society”: The Political Activity of Social Workers and Human Service Organizations

Social workers are politically active both as individuals and as part of larger groups and organizations. This chapter provides an overview of social workers’ current and past political activity, as well as factors that encourage or limit social workers, our profession, and our employers from engaging in the political process. We consider relevant legal issues that guide organizations’ political activities and learn about rules that may apply to individual field placements or employers. Relevant theories and models are used to create a picture of social workers’ political involvement, both individually and collectively. Political knowledge, skills, interest, efficacy, and mobilization and their influences on social workers’ political activity are discussed, as readers are asked to reflect on political activities in which they have participated and potential future political activity. Activities include a political knowledge quiz and a survey that allows readers to compare their political efficacy with other social workers and the American public.

Contexts for Political Social Work Practice

Political social workers practice in many contexts. They use their social work skills, values, and knowledge of the political context to navigate power dynamics. This process allows them to influence policy and the political process on behalf of clients, communities, organizations, and the social work profession. This chapter provides an in-depth discussion of professional political social work roles to guide readers in thinking about contexts in which you might incorporate political social work into your social work practice. These contexts include practice at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels. While there are many ways to engage in political social work practice, this chapter highlights practice in the five different domains introduced in Chap. 1: (1) expanding the political power of underrepresented clients and constituencies; (2) influencing the policy agendas and decision-making of candidates and policymakers; (3) holding professional and political staff appointments; (4) engaging with campaigns on behalf of, or in opposition to, candidates, ballot initiatives or referenda; and (5) seeking and holding elected office. Throughout this chapter, you will engage in interactive, reflective activities about the various political contexts within which you may practice.