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History, the major storehouse of information, informs us about the important relationship between people and society and increases our understanding of basic societal values and institutional arrangements. A recent New York Times op-ed described "The Dangerous Decline of the Historical Profession." Likewise for historical content in social work education, exacerbated by the 1970s' rise of neoliberalism and the profession's long marginalization of historical research and teaching. The Social Welfare History Group renews its call to bring historical content back into social work education and to correct its deep-seated race, class, gender, and colonizing distortions. To ensure that all social work courses include history, we can revive the value historical knowledge; prepare a cadre of historical researchers and instructors; financially support emerging scholars and develop a pipeline of history-informed faculty to teach the next generation of social workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historical, feminist scholarship demonstrates that the welfare state underwrote the work of social reproduction, enabling procreation, socialization, sexuality, nurturance, and family maintenance. Carried out by families and other public and private social institutions, social reproduction includes making food, clothing, and shelter available for immediate consumption; ensuring the health and productivity of the current and future labor force; providing for people too old, too young, or too sick to care for themselves; and socializing family members. Historically, social reproduction includes both women's unpaid labor in the home and low-paid labor in the market and converts the wages of paid workers into the means of subsistence for the entire household. The economic crisis of the mid-1970s marked the end of the "golden age" of capitalism, and yielded neoliberal politics that sought to undo the redistributive elements of the New Deal and the Great Society. It called for a smaller state, greater reliance on market forces, and reduced expenditure on family maintenance. This article, a reprint of a 2017 book chapter, explores the crisis in social reproduction in the United States that surfaced with the rise of neoliberalism and the "carceral state." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the past several decades, the introduction of the business model, managerialism , into the human services has led to dramatic changes in conditions of work and service delivery. This metric-driven approach increased the emphasis on measured performance outcomes and undercut the mission-driven nature of human services organizations. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread protests against racial injustice exposed routinely ignored structural racism long embedded in our social institutions. This reckoning led social workers to re-examine professional practices, organizational structures, and public policies through a critical, antiracist lens. Applying a racial justice lens to their study of the impact of managerialism in the human services workplace, authors identified troubling evidence of systemic racism in leadership hierarchies, worker control/surveillance on the job, quality of the physical work environment, exposure to workplace violence, exclusion by microinequities, and agency commitment to social justice. Worker resistance, ethical dilemmas, and well-being also varied by race. To become an antiracist profession, social work must seek long-term change in the human services workplace. The following analysis of the combined negative impact of managerialism and structural racism on human services organizations names the problem and presses us to rewrite the rules so we become a racial justice profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Has public policy shaped the persistence of residential segregation by race over time? Social Structures of Accumulation (SSA) theory, which explains major shifts in policy paradigms as a response to an economic crisis informs our analysis. We compare federal housing policy across two SSAs: the Keynesian period (1940–1970) characterized by welfare state expansion and the neoliberal period (1970–2010) marked by its contraction. Using the isolation index (a segregation measure), we track changes in the 20 Great Migration cities with the highest Southern-born Black population. Segregation rose steadily from 1940 to 1970s, plateaued at high levels from 1970 to 2010, but remained higher in 2010 than in 1940. Historical policy analysis reveals that regardless of the period, federal housing policy actively promoted residential segregation and underscores the urgency for social workers to mobilize for policy change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the last three decades in both the United States and Europe, neoliberal policies, especially privatization, have restructured services in ways that dramatically affect the capacity of human services workers and agencies to serve all clients. Privatization means not only transforming public programs such as Social Security, but also managerialism —the incorporation of business principles, methods, and goals into public and nonprofit human services organizations. Few researchers have looked at the impact of market-based managerialism (focused on productivity, accountability, efficiency, and standardization) on social work's mission and the effectiveness of human services workers and organizations. Using an anonymous survey of 3,000 New York City human services workers, authors examined the impact of managerialist practices including performance measures, quantifiable short-term outcomes, and routinized practices on frontline workers and service provision. A troubling trend emerged. Workers in agencies with a high commitment to managerialism found it considerably more difficult to adhere to social work's mission and fundamental values. This conflict between the "logic of the market" and the "logic of social work" subsided dramatically in agencies with a low commitment to managerialism, indicating that even in today's competitive environment, agencies can protect the social work mission. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Social Work Voter Mobilization Campaign, also known as Voting is Social Work, involved social work faculty, field educators, practitioners, and students in a nonpartisan voter engagement drive. Following the 2018 elections, researchers surveyed Campaign participants in social work schools and agencies to document their voter engagement activities.The study reported extent and amount of their involvement. The survey distinguished between the voter engagement participation of school- versus agency-based social workers, which has not been studied elsewhere. Participants also reported the benefits of political participation to individuals, communities, and the profession and perceived barriers such as organizational constraints, fears of appearing partisan, and distrust of politics. Presented in historical context, the findings highlight the need to mainstream voter engagement throughout social work education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reopens the historic debate about the roles of micro and macro practice in social work and encourages the profession to find ways to achieve a better balance between case and cause in education, practice, and research. To this end, it traces the history of the case versus cause debate including conceptual frameworks for rebalancing social work education: Bertha Capen Reynolds, C. Wright Mills, and William Schwartz, highlights three alternative approaches for resolving the dualism put forward over the years; separation, merger and interconnection; and identifies four model that help to bridge the gap by taking both the individual and the social structures into account: ecological, financial capabilities, trauma theory and oppression. This historical analysis offers promising directions for the social work profession as it tackles 21st-century social challenges, including growing inequality and austerity- driven public policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human service agencies and front line practitioners are well known for the quality of services they provide to individuals, families, and communities. The last three decades of austerity-driven public policies-especially privatization-have restructured the human services in ways that have dramatically affected agencies, practitioners and clients. Yet we know very little about how this policy affects the practice experience of front line workers. Based on a literature review and preliminary qualitative results from a survey of human service workers in the public and non-profits sectors in New York City this paper (1) briefly reviews the functions of the welfare state; (2) depicts three overlapping historical stages of privatization in the human services; (3) describes the operationalization and implementation of privatization on the front lines; (4) explores the impact of privatization on service delivery and direct practice from the perspective of the practitioner; (5) summarizes the implications of this important policy trend for direct practice, the profession, and communities served by social workers; and (6) suggests steps social worker can take to address the sea change in the profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents work that is part of a larger and ongoing research agenda exploring the persistence of health and social problems in some parts of New York City. To this end, the authors have developed a GIS framework that translates a highly diverse set of variables into neighborhood indicators that can help local residents as well as decision makers to understand the relationship between "place" and individual behavior. Using the example of two new indices, Community Loss and Neighborhood Risks, the readers will learn how data can be transformed to emphasize the communal nature of phenomena that is typically understood only in relations to individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Community Loss Index (CLI), a new social indicator, focuses on the understudied role of place as a source of stress and an aggregator of individual experiences. Building on the relationship between loss and stress, the index attempts to capture collective loss, defined as the chronic exposure by neighborhood residents to multiple resource losses at the same time. Using maps, the article analyzes the spatial distribution of six types of loss in New York City and the characteristics of people who live in high- and low-loss neighborhoods. Regionalization reveals a neighborhood-based concentration of loss, patterns of loss that are both widespread and variable by location, and that a group's vulnerability to the adverse effects of community loss depends on where the group lives. The CLI provides a place-based context for investigating neighborhood-based collective loss and allows community members and public officials to fine-tune interventions based on actual community needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the public sector union attacks in service users, workers, and unions affecting women. It states that the to dismantle the public sector was a part of the neoliberalism in the 1970 U.S. economic crisis. It mentions the pursued policy agenda of the U.S. leaders called Reaganomics to redistribute income, reduce taxes, and deregulating business.

This article argues that gender, race and class matter in welfare reform. It provides a brief historical overview of the US welfare programme for single mothers; describes the main provisions of welfare reform (enforcing work, promoting marriage and limiting the role of the federal government in wider society); and identifies the impact on women and children. It concludes that welfare reform is best understood as part of the neo-liberal/Right attack on the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Welfare reform has placed the lives of clients, the jobs of social workers, and the mission of agencies in jeopardy. Based on interviews with senior staff at 107 nonprofit human services agencies, this article documents the largely untold story of how nonprofit agencies' workers responded to the impact of welfare reform on their clients, their jobs, and the delivery of services. Workers reported less time for social services because of welfare-related regulations, penalties, work mandates, crises, and paper work. They also reported more service dilemmas including less control of the job, more ethical conflicts, less efficacy, and increased burn-out. Even so, workers felt that they were making a difference, and agencies indicated increased advocacy. Relying heavily on the voice of social workers, the article illuminates the experiences and feelings of agency staff as they try to do their best for clients in difficult times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most people have an inaccurate assessment of who is "on welfare." Two decades have passed since Social Work published the original version of this article, which applied Titmuss's framework of a three-tiered social welfare system and showed that nearly "everyone is on welfare." Based on new data and a more in-depth analysis, this article re-examines who benefits from and who pays for social, fiscal, and corporate welfare and concludes that all three welfare systems continue to serve and to favor the middle class, wealthy households, and large corporations. Social workers can work to transform the system from one that rewards power and privilege to one that ensures distributive justice for all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a list of books published in the field of public health. The books include "AIDS Allergy and Rheumatology," edited by Nancy E. Lane, "All About Asthma: Stop Suffering and Start Living," by Irwin J. Polk, and "Mortal Peril: Our Inalienable Right to Health Care," by Richard E. Epstein.

The article analyzes the privatization of the welfare state during the administration of President Ronald Reagan in the U.S. Privatization channels public dollars into private hands, strengthens the two-class welfare state and reproduces inequalities that the free market inevitably creates. Although the current administration has increased privatization and the role of private enterprise in the welfare state, government support for the delivery of services by privately owned for-profit or non- profit agencies is not new. Privatization fits well with the Reagan Administration's strong belief that business and industry can do a better and cheaper job than government, whether in building weapons, running city buses, or delivering social services. However, with this administration, arguments for privatization on the grounds of efficiency have been used to rationalize its efforts to dismantle social programs; to reverse employment gains made by women, minorities, and the poor; and to create even greater investment opportunities for private enterprise.

The article analyzes how the system of tax benefits available to middle-and upper-income groups parallels the social welfare system for the poor based on the model of three welfare systems by sociologist Titmuss. Nearly twenty years ago, Titmuss observed that programs of the welfare state, tax code provisions, and fringe benefits despite different names arid administrative auspices-all recognized the similar dependencies of old age. childhood, widowhood, sickness and the need for income support, health care, education, employment and housing. Social welfare programs-the direct public provision of cash and in-kind benefits to individuals and families, free or at below market cost-are popularly regards as serving only the poor. The low visibility of tax expenditures obscures the reality that, when considered In addition to social welfare benefits, tax expenditures allow nearly everyone to be "on welfare." The 1981 cut in tax rates also helped upper-income groups the most. Their tax burden dropped significantly because of a reduction In the maximum tax rate on "unearned income" (for example, unincorporated business profits, dividends. Interest, capital gains, and other sources of personal income concentrated in upper-income brackets).

The curriculum mandate of the Council on Social Work Education establishes the need to include nonsexist content on women in social work education. To assist schools in achieving this goal, this paper develops a continuum model containing three options for such integration: minimal, moderate, and maximal. These options are organized around several dimensions: (1) the nature of the mandate to instructors, (2) the degree of comprehensiveness of content about women, and (3) the allocation of curriculum time or space to women's issues. Suggestions for moving an introductory social policy course from the minimal to the moderate option are presented, followed by a discussion of strategies for assessing and creating system readiness for curriculum change within schools of social work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion in support of social work students to be educated for social change. Social work's mission and values have always mandated work on behalf of individuals and social change. Since its origin at the turn of the century, social work has strived to maximize human development, self-determination, and social justice and to minimize the conditions that limit these possibilities. At the same time, the profession faced strong pressures to promote individual adjustment and to protect the status quo. The tension between containment and change cannot be avoided' because it flows from social work's structural role as mediator of individual and systemic needs that often conflict. If the profession is to close the gap between its purpose and performance, social work educators must make a deliberate commitment to train students to become experts in individual and social change. To do otherwise is not only bad practice, but risks an inevitable alignment with society's more conservative social forces.

Focuses on how today's welfare reform efforts, at both the state and federal levels, and going back to the 1988 Family Support Act, are especially troublesome for women. Women as the target of increasingly coercive measures; Support for said measures based upon an appeal to misogynist and racist stereotypes of poor women and welfare; Women as scapegoats for those who blame poverty on individual choices.

The profession of social work has the potential both to meet individual needs and to engage in social change. However, the profession's position between the individual and society often forces practitioners to choose between adjusting people and programs to circumstances or challenging the status quo. The twin pressures of containment and change have made social work an arena of struggle since its origins in the late 19th century. In honor of social work's centennial, this article examines the sources of the profession's prochange mandate and the structural factors that limit social work's ability to pledge itself to this stance permanently and recommends some steps social workers can take to recommit the profession to greater activism. Special attention is given to documenting the long but largely ignored history of social work activism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses stereotypical notions of women, poor people and people of color in the verbiage of social welfare. It presents an annotated glossary that identifies some of harmful language, reveals latent meanings, and recommends alternative words where possible. It is claimed that although social workers know that conservative ideas have captured the social welfare policy agenda, few appreciate the extent to which their personal and professional language contains unspoken messages that may not be their own. As terms like, "nontraditional jobs," "women workers," and "diversity" or more value-laden terms like "welfare dependency," "underclass," and "reverse discrimination" have become part of social workers' daily parlance, these words' meanings effectively shape social workers' consciousness and ultimately their actions and deeds. The article explores the meaning of the phrase "feminization of poverty" and its implications with discussing the need of the welfare state, specially for women. It also emphasizes on the need for language that exposes rather than conceals injustices.

The article focuses on the need for women to plot strategies concerning political parties in the U.S. It is hard to get one to vote these days, now that both major parties have decided to woo the conservatives. The Republicans signaled their support for the Far Right by revising their 1980 party platform to reject both the Equal Rights Amendment and women's right to choose to have abortions and by failing to disavow Patrick J. Buchanan. The Democrats forfeited principles for political expediency by remaining silent as the political agenda moved rightward or by becoming "New" Democrats who rejected the heritage of the New Deal, the War on Poverty and the Warren Court. Neither party has women's interests at heart. Therefore, women must plot two strategies: one to deal with the presidential election and the other to promote basic social change. Both strategies will be more complicated today than in the past because of the drift to the right. There used to be only one kind of conservative--the kind who did not approve of governmental intervention in the economy or in personal life.

The current effort to use social policy to restore the traditional nuclear family reflects deep-seated fears about the changing structure of the middle-class family, as well as distrust of the caretaking capacity of the poor. The concepts of the family ethic and social reproduction are used to examine and explain the cutbacks in social welfare and the state's increasingly punitive treatment of poor women and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a discussion of how more women than men are likely to worry about economic uncertainty because it is believed by the author that economic events affect people with less, adapted from an earlier version of this article that was published online by the web site Women's eNews on September 9, 2008.

Presents a letter to the editor commenting on issue related to social service.

The article presents a response to social work educationist Dean Bardill. Dean Bardill suggests that requiring social work students to be educated for social change would have dire consequences for the profession. He argues that the effort would backfire, leading social workers to be replaced by other human service workers, MBAs, and other administratively educated disciplines. Likewise, sociological research would supplant practice and become the centerpiece of social work education. While acknowledging the tension between micro and macro "changers," he reproduces the false dichotomy between individual and collective interventions that unfortunately divided the profession for most of the 20th century. As in the earlier historic debates over the relative merits of individual and social change, change is relegated to macro practice, leaving micro practice to focus on treatment and adjustment. The false polarization reflects the contradiction inherent in social work-that regardless of method, all social work practice can be directed to either preserving or transforming the psychological and sociological status quo.