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The purpose of this discussion paper is to explore how nurses can be strategically poised to advocate for needed policy change in support of greater income equality and other social determinants of health. We adapted Bronfenbrenner's social‐ecological model to highlight how four broad pervasive subsystems shape the opportunities that nurses have to engage in advocacy at the policy level. These subsystems include organizations (the microsystem), professional bodies (the mesosystem), public policies (the exosystem), and societal values (the macrosystem). On the basis of this adapted model, we recommend changes among modifiable elements of the microsystem and mesosystem that can help position nurses (ecologically and collectively) to advocate for public policy change and use examples from a Canadian context to illustrate these points. We believe that the ideas arising from this model can be widely used where policy action on the social determinants of health is needed to inform, guide, and frame change efforts and advocacy work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The significant role of the community in the lives of children and youth at-risk has become increasingly clear to social work academics and professionals over the last three decades. Alongside the more traditional individual and family responses, community interventions have been designed to catalyze change in the environment of children and youth at-risk and supply holistic and sustainable responses to their needs. Ten such community intervention programs were identified from the United States, Australia, Canada, and Israel. Most employed the community development model, focused on developing leadership and social capital (improving community networking) and advancing coordination between the organizations and sectors in the field of risk among children and youth. The diverse programs reviewed focused both on at-risk children and youth in general or specifically on child abuse and neglect. The programs originated from different health, education, and welfare disciplines and sponsoring authorities. The majority were funded originally by private foundations; however, government involvement was significant, particularly in the adoption and support of initiatives after their development. The current analysis of the programs refers to core issues that arose from the review: professional orientation, main target unit, main initiator, and research and evaluation. Analysis of program characteristics enables identifying relevant aspects of these programs for use by policy, governmental, and nonprofit sector stakeholders seeking to develop similar programs. Conclusions and recommendations to advance the field are suggested considering the current context of government cuts in welfare funds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]