The 11th edition of Social Work Speaks is a comprehensive and unabridged collection of policies adopted and revised by the NASW Delegate Assembly in 2017. The Delegate Assembly, NASW s key policymaking body, meets every three years. The policy statements set the parameters for NASW s positions and actions on a broad range of public policy and professional issues. This edition includes 24 updated policy statements on topics ranging from human trafficking and transgender and gender nonconforming people to immigrants and refugees. Social Work Speaks is a reference tool that represents the collective thinking of thousands of social workers across all fields of practice. This user-friendly resource can assist in developing organizational responses to policy issues, conducting policy analysis, and working in advocacy coalitions. Social Work Speaks is a first-rate introductory social policy text that will spark dynamic and valuable debates on public policy and the role of social work in leading change. Social workers who want to be informed and involved in policy analysis, advocacy for social policies, or the formulation of future policy statements will find the 11th edition of Social Work Speaks a useful resource. — back cover

The 12th edition of Social Work Speaks contains the unabridged policies adopted and revised by the National Association of Social Workers , a key policy-making body, in 2020 and represents the collective thinking of thousands of experienced social work practitioners. Broken into 62 topic areas, this text contains both revised policies approved by the 2020 Delegate Assembly and those approved by previous assemblies. Thoroughly vetted during a process using subject matter expert panels, public comments, review panels, and voting, 14 policy statements were updated in key areas of particular interest during challenging times: Adolescent and Young Adult Health; Community Development; Confidentiality and Information Utilization; Crime Victim Assistance; Family Violence; Foster Care and Adoption; Hospice Care; Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; Mental Health; Parental Abduction (formerly, Parental Kidnapping); Rural Social Work; School Safety (formerly, School Violence); Sovereignty, Rights, and the Well-Being of Indigenous Peoples; and Voter Rights and Participation (formerly, Voter Participation). The resulting 12th edition of Social Work Speaks is a reference tool that can inform organizational responses to policy and legal issues, policy analysis, and advocacy coalitions. This user-friendly resource also serves as a first-rate introductory social policy text, supplemental reading for macro courses in social work, and specific instruction for courses in specialty topics. --Back cover.

The Social Worker Speaks charts the motivations, work activities and attitudes of social workers across the country from 1904 to 1989. The book is about workers in the public sector (from Poor Law to Social Services Departments), probation and workers in the voluntary field (including early century philanthropic visiting societies as well as specialist societies such as the Children's Society and the NSPCC). Where possible accounts by and the words and thoughts of social workers themselves are used. Since the war, histories of social work have concentrated on practice theory and methods, developments instigated by legislation, university training and professional status, but there has been little attention paid to who social workers were, what they believed, what they actually did, and what they thought of what they did. Also, individual social workers appearing in nearly all histories have been 'leaders' - managers, teachers or academics, with people who did the job on the front line accorded barely a mention. If part of the aim of this book is to remedy this partial coverage, another aim is to offer a more human history of social workers. There is too little celebration or humour in what has been published about the history of social workers; The Social Worker Speaks deliberately includes stories of how social workers behaved, their frustrations and triumphs, passions and occasional sins. So this is deliberately not a history of social work, but a history of social workers - the first of its kind.

This social work book is the first of its kind, describing practical steps that social workers can take to shape and influence both policy and politics. It prepares social workers and social work students to impact political action and subsequent policy, with a detailed real-world framework for turning ideas into concrete goals and strategies for effecting change. Tracing the roots of social work in response to systemic social inequality, it clearly relates the tenets of social work to the challenges and opportunities of modern social change. The book identifies the core domains of political social work, including engaging individuals and communities in voting, influencing policy agendas, and seeking and holding elected office. Chapters elaborate on the necessary skills for political social work, featuring discussion, examples, and critical thinking exercises in such vital areas as: Power, empowerment, and conflict: engaging effectively with power in political settings. Getting on the agenda: assessing the political context and developing political strategy. Planning the political intervention: advocacy and electoral campaigns. Empowering voters Persuasive political communication. Budgeting and allocating resources. Evaluating political social work efforts. Making ethical decisions in political social work. Political Social Work is a potent reference for social work professionals, practitioners, and students seeking core political knowledge and skills to practically advance their work. For specialists and generalists alike, it solidifies political action as vital for the evolution of the field.

What story would Eve have told about picking the apple? Why is Pandora blamed for opening the box? And what about the fate of Cassandra who was blessed with knowing the future but cursed so that no one believed her? What if women had been the storytellers? Elizabeth Lesser believes that if women’s voices had been equally heard and respected throughout history, humankind would have followed different hero myths and guiding stories—stories that value caretaking, champion compassion, and elevate communication over vengeance and violence. Cassandra Speaks is about the stories we tell and how those stories become the culture. It’s about the stories we still blindly cling to, and the ones that cling to us: the origin tales, the guiding myths, the religious parables, the literature and films and fairy tales passed down through the centuries about women and men, power and war, sex and love, and the values we live by. Stories written mostly by men with lessons and laws for all of humanity. We have outgrown so many of them, and still they endure. This book is about what happens when women are the storytellers too—when we speak from our authentic voices, when we flex our values, when we become protagonists in the tales we tell about what it means to be human. Lesser has walked two main paths in her life—the spiritual path and the feminist one—paths that sometimes cross but sometimes feel at cross-purposes. Cassandra Speaks is her extraordinary merging of the two. The bestselling author of Broken Open and Marrow, Lesser is a beloved spiritual writer, as well as a leading feminist thinker. In this book she gives equal voice to the cool water of her meditative self and the fire of her feminist self. With her trademark gifts of both humor and insight, she offers a vision that transcends the either/or ideologies on both sides of the gender debate. Brilliantly structured into three distinct parts, Part One explores how history is carried forward through the stories a culture tells and values, and what we can do to balance the scales. Part Two looks at women and power and expands what it means to be courageous, daring, and strong. And Part Three offers “A Toolbox for Inner Strength.” Lesser argues that change in the culture starts with inner change, and that no one—woman or man—is immune to the corrupting influence of power. She provides inner tools to help us be both strong-willed and kind-hearted. Cassandra Speaks is a beautifully balanced synthesis of storytelling, memoir, and cultural observation. Women, men and all people will find themselves in the pages of this book, and will come away strengthened, opened, and ready to work together to create a better world for all people.