Professional Identity and Policy Practice Reflection Paper

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Fordham University *

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Sociology

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Feb 20, 2024

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Professional Identity and Policy Practice Reflection Paper Laura Hammouda SW504 – Social Welfare and Policy Professor Cifuentes

Staying informed about social policy issues at the federal, state, and local level is critical to effective practice as a social worker because it ensures that all people will get helped to the best of the social workers ability. It is also a social workers ethical obligation to engage in social and political action in order to advocate for policies and legislation that promote social justice and improve individuals’ capacity to develop and meet their basic human needs. It is crucial to comprehend the background of federal legislation and federal level social policy issues and how different services have been created as a result of district and state interpretations of the law. These interpretations frequently influence the services we offer, resulting in a variance of practice among school social workers across the country. An example of a federal level social policy issue that would be vital for social workers to keep updated with is such things as relief funds, LGBTQ rights, and policies surrounding housing. Many would argue that keeping updated with federal level social policy issues is one of the most important tasks for a social worker to keep updated as well as advocate for with, as it controls many of the state and local policies in place. Keeping updated and advocating for federal level social policies also is a great way to practice social work at a macro level. It is also important to keep updated with policy issues at the state and local level as well. This lets a social worker be able to understand to what extent and options they have to help their client to the best of their ability. Advocating and learning about state and local level issues also helps the relationship of the social worker with the community around them. Overall if a social worker intended to fight and create new polices, they must first understand why existing policies were developed. They must be able to identify problems in these policies, find ways they could be improved, and design concrete proposals toward this end.

In order to expand people's access to necessities like shelter, food, and healthcare, social workers advocate on their behalf. A social worker's advocacy can take the form of small-scale initiatives that have an influence on one person, or it can take the form of extensive initiatives that benefit entire communities and society as a whole. Social workers "should engage in social and political action that seeks to ensure that all people have equal access to resources, employment, services, and opportunities they require to meet their basic human needs and to develop fully," according to the National Association of Social Workers' Code of Ethics. Advocacy for social work policies is one way to maintain that standard. For instance, social workers assist clients with the application process for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides financial aid for the purchase of food. They also work to protect and expand SNAP access for tens of millions of Americans through the creation of policies and political advocacy. Advocacy from social workers are often also highly valued as social workers are a credible field to find out statistics of the human population on rates of homelessness and lifestyles of a communities for example. In both the residual and institutional models, the government provides funds and social services in order to solve social welfare issues like hunger, poverty, and health challenges. In principle, the residual model proposes that the government should only get involved in social welfare as a last resort safety net in cases where all other options have failed. In the institutional approach, government assistance is viewed as a natural and expected part of people's lives, and it is encouraged to continue as needed. The strengths of using a residual perspective when viewing a current social issue is the fact that a residual model of social work and social welfare essentially advocates and goes after the government. This model relies on governmental support for people’s well-being as a safety

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net of last resort. The limitation of this perspective is that some social workers would only focus on fighting for a policy issue on a macro level. In order for a policy, law, etc. to be passed, it generally takes a long period of time therefore, other opportunities of helping the population can be forgotten. Another limitation is that programs produced under this perspective are generally limited to low-income families. Support from the government is also often cut off unexpectedly leaving people in more distress in some cases. The strengths of using an institutional perspective when viewing a current social issue is that this perspective essentially is available and advocated for everyone in a society, rich or poor. This perspective sets a standard of living conditions and lifestyle for its citizens. Programs developed under this model often don’t have the problem of being limited to just low-income families because all programs are aimed for the unity of a society. A limitation of this perspective is that services and programs that come from this perspective do not distinguish the need of one individual from another and can create citizens to rely on governmental help. Skills developed because of the course, areas for future professional growth, and action steps for continued learning and competency development. Throughout this course, we talked about the importance of understanding, advocating, and bettering the current policies in place. Furthermore, I feel that from this course, I have been able to develop the skill of being able to read a client’s case and connect it to policies in place. Case advocacy occurs when a social worker represents the interest of or defends the rights of an individual or family. In the future, I hope to be able to work with case of adolescents that are put into the foster/adoption/group home care agencies due to abuse or other factors. Therefore, case advocacy is a highly important skill to have as a social worker to advocate for a victim within the court setting. I have also developed the skill of being able to advocate for policies on social

issues involving social work. I now will be able to become a social worker and get involved politically. For example, attending a political protest, volunteering for political campaigns, and working/ advocating for votes. To continue my learning as well as keep updated with policy changes, I will pay attention to the news. The news will often tell viewers what is going on in communities and common problems that are manifesting. I will also network and engage with other potential or current social workers to further understand obstacles and policy changes.

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