Grand Challenges for Social Work and Society

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Lubben ◽  
Richard P. Barth ◽  
Rowena Fong ◽  
Marilyn L. Flynn ◽  
Michael Sherraden ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
American Academy ◽  
Youth Development ◽  
Equal Opportunity ◽  
Work Organizations ◽  
Social Good ◽  
Grand Challenges ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health Gap ◽  
American Society

The Grand Challenges for Social Work (GCSW) focuses on big, important and compelling problems for all of American society. Sponsored by the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, the 12 Grand Challenges address issues of healthy youth development, the health gap, family violence, long and productive lives, social isolation, homelessness, changing climate environments, technology for social good, smart decarceration, economic inequity, financial capacity, and equal opportunity and justice. GCSW is designed to promote scientific and transformative innovation in social work, engage the social work profession in strengthening the ties among social work organizations, foster transdisciplinary research, create greater acknowledgement of social work science within the discipline and by other and related disciplines, and expand the student pipeline into the social work profession.

scholarly journals Meeting the Grand Challenges in a Rural Community

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 236-251
Author(s):  
Fredi Giesler ◽  
Robert Rieske ◽  
Lacey Wuthrich ◽  
Tara Ashley
Keyword(s):  
Health Care ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Youth Development ◽  
Direct Interaction ◽  
State University ◽  
Grand Challenges ◽  
Idaho State University ◽  
The Social ◽  
Hands On ◽  
Work Education

Three of the Grand Challenges identified by the social work profession are specifically related to health care: healthy youth development, closing the health care gap, and advancing long and productive lives. Idaho State University (ISU) initiated a collaborative interprofessional health education project (IET) over 30 years ago. This collaborative includes ten health care disciplines across five colleges and provides in-depth assessment and referral to three families annually. This study describes the development of a collaborative, high impact, teaching exemplar, and examines the knowledge, perceptions, and competency of participating students using the framework of the IPEC competencies and the CSWE practice competencies for social work education. Results are derived from a pre-post survey administered during the previous two years. The project includes two groups of students: those that engaged in a hands-on experience with a client and those that only observed clients. The Observation-Only group completed the SPICE-R2 and the IEPS. Students that had direct interaction with clients completed the IEPS (pre-post engagement with clients) as well as the ICCAS. Attitudes, perceptions, and perceived competency improved amongst students participating in the IET course from pre-assessment to post-assessment with moderate to large effects being observed.

Social Work Science in the Context of Social Work Ideas

2019 ◽  
pp. 68-83
Author(s):  
Rowena Fong ◽  
Edwina Uehara
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
American Academy ◽  
Critical Realism ◽  
Social Issues ◽  
Grand Challenges ◽  
The Social ◽  
Scientific Identity ◽  
Society Today

This chapter describes the evolution of social work science in relationship to the development of the Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative. The two initiatives, which took root in the field in close to the same period, created a mutually supportive, synergistic environment that benefitted both. Social work science, grounded in critical realism, embraces methodological approaches supportive of the fundamental principles of the social work profession and contributes to both the scientific identity needed for the stewards of the profession of social work and the scientific pipeline for the Grand Challenges for Social Work. An initiative of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, the Grand Challenges for Social Work delineate bold innovations and collective action powered by proven and evolving scientific interventions to address critical social issues facing society today. This chapter discusses how this work helps to both develop and derive support from social work science.

Grand Challenges for Social Work and Society

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Social Responses ◽  
Major Health ◽  
Grand Challenges ◽  
Social Agenda ◽  
The Social ◽  
American Society

The grand challenges are an effort—led by the social work profession—to address 12 major challenges for American society with innovative, evidence-informed, and socially-focused approaches. In essence, this volume offers a social agenda for America—one that begins with understanding that social factors are fundamental to the progress of humanity and that development of civil and peaceful social relationships have been the basis for human progress. These social factors also help explain the challenges that we now face including homelessness, major health disparities, family violence, social isolation, climate change, massive incarceration, extreme economic inequality, unequal opportunity and justice, and long lives that too often lack productivity. This volume bring analysis of these challenges but, more significantly, also brings ideas about how to make measurable progress in a decade and how we can better bring existing advances to scale. The Grand Challenges emphasize bringing different professions together to work on these problems and to help create innovative new interventions that will bring greater social cohesion; development of individuals, families, and communities, and social responses that foster society’s strength.

scholarly journals Opportunities to “Make Macro Matter” through the Grand Challenges for Social Work

2021 ◽  
pp. 104438942097248
Author(s):  
Samantha Teixeira ◽  
Astraea Augsberger ◽  
Katie Richards-Schuster ◽  
Linda Sprague Martinez ◽  
Kerri Evans
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Grand Challenges ◽  
Macro Practice ◽  
Societal Challenges ◽  
The Social ◽  
Macro Social Work ◽  
Instrumental Role

The Grand Challenges for Social Work initiative, led by the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare (AASWSW), aims to organize the social work profession around 12 entrenched societal challenges. Addressing the root causes of the Grand Challenges will take a coordinated effort across all of social work practice, but given their scale, macro social work will be essential. We use Santiago and colleagues’ Frameworks for Advancing Macro Practice to showcase how macro practices have contributed to local progress on two Grand Challenges. We offer recommendations and a call for the profession to invest in and heed the instrumental role of macro social work practice to address the Grand Challenges.

scholarly journals Social Work Grand Challenges and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals: Linking Social Work and Women’s Health

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Annalise John ◽  
Elizabeth Gamarra ◽  
Melissa Bird ◽  
Rachel L. Wright ◽  
Caren J. Frost
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Women’S Health ◽  
Women's Health ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
Grand Challenges ◽  
Crucial Component ◽  
The Social ◽  
Development Goals

The health of women is a crucial component to family and community wellbeing. However, social work scholars have not been very engaged in research pertaining to the health needs of women. With the Grand Challenges of Social Work becoming a major element for national discussion and with the revision of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SGD) in 2015, we wondered how connected the 12 Grand Challenges and the 17 SDGs were. We searched the social work literature from 2005 to present to identify what salient publications were available about women’s health and then connected them to the current themes of the Grand Challenges and SDGs. There are no more articles to review in the social work literature. Using a feminist social work framework, we summarize the topics covered in these articles and define a call to action for more scholarly work on women’s health in the context of current national and global conversations about this social justice issue.

Rethinking Social Justice: A Contemporary Challenge for Social Good

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 186-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lia Levin
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
Special Relationship ◽  
Social Good ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Social Work Research ◽  
The Social

Social justice’s special relationship with the social work profession has recently been confirmed by new definitions of social good that identify the promotion of social justice as a primary goal of social work research and practice. This contemporary use of the ideas and ideals of social justice creates an opportunity to reexamine it in the context of modern societies and postmodern knowledge. This article presents four steps for reassessing existing definitions of social justice, as reflected by three cases documented by international institutions that define themselves as promoters of social justice. Through this reassessment, this article seeks to contribute to the regeneration and advancement of interdisciplinary debate over the contents and nature of social justice, under the presumption that any effort toward social good aimed at enhancing social justice should first identify or discuss to what sort of social justice it aspires.

American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Gehlert ◽  
Rowena Fong ◽  
Gail Steketee
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
American Academy ◽  
Early Career ◽  
Mentoring Program ◽  
Grant Application ◽  
Early Career Faculty ◽  
The Social ◽  
Or Practice ◽  
Source Of Information

The American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare (AASWSW) is a scholarly and professional society of distinguished of social work and social welfare scholars and practitioners that was conceived in 2009 to establish excellence in social work and social welfare research and practice. The first 10 Fellows were inducted in 2010 and a total of 172 Fellows have been inducted since that year. Nominations are solicited from current Fellows, processed through a Nominations and Elections Committee process, and voted on by the membership. Through committee structure and an expanding, and now independent, practical initiative called the Grand Challenges for Social Work that was the Academy’s first initiative, the Academy serves to advance social welfare through advocacy and policy and to encourage scholarship, along with expanding the reach of the Academy Fellows’ expertise into critical government and public forums. The AASWSW s in its second-year of administering a mentoring program to provide expertise and resources for early career faculty through Fellows who volunteer as mentors for specific projects like a grant application or research manuscript. Future Academy endeavors include awards for innovation and impact in research or practice, sponsoring policy briefs, often in conjunction with other academies, and serving as a relevant source of information for the social work profession.

Smart Decarceration

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie Pettus
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Welfare ◽  
American Academy ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Grand Challenges ◽  
The World

After a period of mass incarceration that spanned the 1970s through the 2010s, the United States remains the leading incarcerator in the world. Incarceration rates in the United States outpace those of other countries by several hundred per 100,000. Incarceration rates began to decline slightly in 2009, when there was a loss of fiscal, political, and moral will for mass incarceration policy and practices. First, the onset of smart decarceration approaches, the historical context from which smart decarceration stems, and the societal momentum that led to the conceptualization of smart decarceration are described. Smart decarceration is a lead strategy in social work that has been adopted by the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare as one of the 12 Grand Challenges for Social Work for the decade 2015–2025. Finally, an overview of the current status of smart decarceration and details shifts and initiatives to pursue at the intersection of social work and smart decarceration is provided.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document