What is macro community practice, and what does it have to do with politics? Anyone who follows me on twitter knows that I often engage in political discussions with my @swhelpercom twitter account. Most people outside of social work are often glad to see a social worker engaged in the conversation because these discussions involve Medicare, Social Security, Mental Health and Welfare programs. They view us as the experts in these areas because we are the implementers and providers within those programs.
Social workers are the largest provider of mental health services in the United States, yet we are not at the table when experts are gathered by the government to reform these various systems. Who is the blame for social workers being absent from the policy making table which will overwhelmingly affect our ability to provide services to the people we serve? Macro community practice by definition is instituting programs and policies to increase the outcomes of the service community. Macro community practice focuses on using program evaluation and evidence based practices to gather essential data to identify areas for improvement.
Unfortunately, many social workers in both the US and abroad do not believe social workers should engage in politics. On several occasions, I have been told by other social workers that its inappropriate for me to engage in political conversations or advocate from a political point-of-view because social work is not political or it must be engaged in a nonpartisan way. Social Work is a profession much like teaching and law enforcement in the respect that our jobs are intrinsically linked to government funding.
Our Human Services system is in desperate need of reform, resources, and funding. However, is it reasonable to expect politicians with no human service or social work experience to see these systems as a priority especially without a union to protect our interest?
Recently, I had a brief conversation with a social carer in the United Kingdom (UK) on twitter, and I responded in a 140 characters of course. My main point in the conversation is that legislative policy dictates practice, and we must have advocates in public offices who are sympathetic to the plight of social workers/social carers in order to get system changes that are supportive to social workers.
I don’t know a single social worker who won’t agree that the system is broken and changes are needed to improve the quality of services to clients, work conditions, and pay for social workers. Macro community practice is designed to look at system changes that will impact service delivery at all levels. However, macro community practice is not a concept that should be viewed from the top down rather than the inside out. No matter our specialty or the demographics we serve, micro/direct practice should never be separated from macro practice.
For a macro community practitioner to be effective we must challenge systematic oppression as well as oppressive policy and laws creating barriers and limiting our clients ability to improve their outcomes. When can still help one client at a time, but how we vote and who will put in office will determine the fate of our profession.
I have attached below a pdf from University of Texas on the expanding areas and opportunities for macro community practice.
[gview file=”http://www.utexas.edu/ssw/dl/files/dccs/handouts/macrosw.pdf”]
