Social Work Commons^™

Undoing Institutional Racism: Anti-Racism Training Handbook, India Irons

MSW Capstones

Research has shown that African American children and their families experience racial discrimination and bias in the child welfare system. Therefore, this project proposal aims to address racial discrimination and bias in the child welfare system by defining racism, analyzing color blind policy approaches and how it affects practice when working with families of color.

Undoing Institutional Racism is a facilitated intergroup dialogue that challenges the caseworkers, supervisors, and area administrators within Children’s Administration to “analyze the structures of power and privilege that hinder racial equity and prepares them to be effective organizers for social justice,” (The People’s Institute, 2008). …

Advocacy In Action: A Framework For Implementation Of The American Counselors Association Advocacy Competencies On A Local Level, Jeffrey M. Lown

Educational Specialist, 2009-2019

Despite calls from within the professional field and external forces, counselors have faced ongoing challenges in their efforts to be effective advocates for their clients and themselves. A review of the literature reveals that throughout the history of the profession, prominent figures have called on counselors to assume advocacy roles, and that some initiatives have been successful in fostering lasting change. However, as counselors and their clients’ needs continue to evolve, so too must strategies to address these needs be reevaluated and new initiatives put into place.

In this paper, I have outlined a committee structure and agenda that seeks …

Rethinking Social Work's Role In Public Assistance, Julie Cooper Altman, Gertrude Schaffner Goldberg

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article presents an argument for revisiting social work's relationship to public assistance in the wake of 10 years of welfare reform. Three case studies drawn from a mixed-method study of the quality of life of former TANF recipients illustrate the range, depth and complexity of the needs of persons while they are on the welfare rolls, transitioning off and living without cash relief. The article briefly traces the history of social work's commitment to and provision of social services for this population and argues that it may be time to revisit the profession's role in public assistance. In light …

Astroturf, Technology And The Future Of Community Mobilization: Implications For Nonprofit Theory, John Mcnutt, Katherine Boland

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Nonprofit Organizations advocate for the poor, the disenfranchised and the oppressed. This process is thought to build social capital and civil society, while engendering the development of social skills and deliberation. In recent years, scholars have observed that nonprofit advocacy organizations have moved from membership associations to professionalized policy change organizations. Virtual advocacy will move the process farther afield. Astroturf, the creation of synthetic advocacy efforts, continues this process further. All of this has troubling implications for nonprofit organizations and nonprofit theory. This paper describes the astroturf phenomenon, reviews pertinent nonprofit theory and speculates on the impact of astroturf for …

Community Practice And The Internet, Roger A. Lohmann, John Mcnutt

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This article examines several developments in electronic technology which appear to hold great potential for advancing human well-being and community organization and have already manifested some important portion of that potential in recent years. They are, in order of presentation, electronic communication and networking, electronic advocacy, fund raising support, geographic information systems and data base management. We conclude this brief article with a brief discussion of information poverty and the growing disparity of information haves and have-nots.

Practice In The Electronic Community, Roger A. Lohmann, John Mcnutt

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The Internet was at its inception a commons rather than a marketplace. Increasingly, however, communitarian notions have been overwhelmed by the internet as one huge shopping arcade. The potential is certainly there for this amazing technology to advance the causes of human freedom well-being and community. At the same time, however, this powerful set of technologies that in less than a decade have become nearly universal in scope and sweep, have the potential also to become simply another extension of the global economic marketplace. Far worse, there is also the potential to become a power tool for class domination or …