Why Location Matters When It Comes to Social Mobility

The New York Times (July 22, 2013) reports: "A study finds the odds of rising to another income level are notably low in certain cities, like Atlanta and Charlotte, and much higher in New York and Boston....

"Climbing the income ladder occurs less often in the Southeast and industrial Midwest, the data shows, with the odds notably low in Atlanta, Charlotte, Memphis, Raleigh, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Columbus. By contrast, some of the highest rates occur in the Northeast, Great Plains and West, including in New York, Boston, Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh, Seattle and large swaths of California and Minnesota.

"'Where you grow up matters,' said Nathaniel Hendren, a Harvard economist and one of the study’s authors. 'There is tremendous variation across the U.S. in the extent to which kids can rise out of poverty.'

"All else being equal, upward mobility tended to be higher in metropolitan areas where poor families were more dispersed among mixed-income neighborhoods.

"The researchers concluded that larger tax credits for the poor and higher taxes on the affluent seemed to improve income mobility only slightly. The economists also found only modest or no correlation between mobility and the number of local colleges and their tuition rates or between mobility and the amount of extreme wealth in a region.

"[But] Income mobility was ... higher in areas with more two-parent households, better elementary schools and high schools, and more civic engagement, including membership in religious and community groups.

"Lawrence Katz, a labor economist who did not work on the project, said he was struck by the fact that areas with high levels of income mobility were also those that established high school earliest and have long had strong school systems."

Is a "Competitive" Black Male a "Problem" for Social Services?

Do social services fear the qualities that most empower their clients and colleagues?

Recently I had a conversation with three other Black Americans who are involved in the social services that illustrated how some helping professionals fear the type of behavior that they should actually encourage.

One of the social service professionals worked for the government, another worked for a non-profit, and the third worked in the private sector.

In the course of the conversation I asked whether or not it was their impression that African American males who are “competent and competitive” in Western Pennsylvania tend to be perceived as being “intimidating” and are marginalized in the professional workforce.

I was prepared for the usual round of denials from social service professionals, but what I was not prepared for was the intensity of their reaction to the particular phrase: “competent and competitive”. It was as though the phrase, itself, embodied social dysfunction.

My professional friends jumped all over the word “competitive”, and interpreted it as meaning a poor upbringing leading to bad public behavior.

They hyperventilated about poor work habits, bad attitudes, and not being able to get along with others in the workplace. Mind you, I had used the terms “competent” and “competitive” — and I was clearly referring to professionals like themselves. Yet their reaction was one that would have been appropriate if I had been talking about someone who was ill-mannered, unprepared, and lacked basic social skills. It was as if I had asked why gang members being sidelined by the professional workforce.

Although they were not directly addressing me, at least I hope not, their response was in full lecture mode, “You have to know how to act. You have to know how to dress. You have to know how to get along with people. You have to know how to behave in the workforce.”

Later, I replayed the conversation over and over in my mind and it was clear that the word that set them off was the word “competitive,” and when used to describe the behavior of Black males they saw it as an unqualified negative attribute. Do social service professionals believe that Black males should not be competitive? Would that make them feel more comfortable?

I retold this conversation to a friend and he nodded and confirmed that  the phrase “competent and competitive” sounded odd in reference to Black male professionals. Not that it was problematic, or signaled something that was dysfunctional to him — just that it was odd.

I searched my memory, trying to recall when and where I first picked up that phrase. Suddenly it hit me. I picked it up from a recording of a meeting between Senator Robert F. Kennedy, back in the  late 1960s, and advocates for education reform. Kennedy said that he wanted to see schools that would produce Black graduates who could “deal competently and competitively with their environment.”

In that context, to be competitive did not mean to be bad mannered or poorly socialized, rather it was the very measure of social competence and was essential for getting a foothold in the mainstream of American society. It was a necessary virtue on the road to social equality. To be competitive, in Kennedy’s day, was at the very core of self-esteem.

My frame-of-reference for the term came from Senator Robert F. Kennedy during  a recorded meeting on education reform

I realize that much has changed in the United States since the late 1960s. There is a more negative connotation to “competitive” behavior in anything other than sports. It seems to suggest, to many people, being self-absorbed and being a poor “team player”. The social services are particularly suspicious of competitive types as being ill suited for the “global village” or for membership in a community. Yet, the United States remains a highly competitive society. Even members of dominant groups must compete in order to survive. What chance do minorities have if they are not competitive also?

This sense of competition does not mean the lack of teamwork or community spirit — a basketball team is highly competitive, yet it will never win without cooperation and coordination between its members — but it does mean that one should be able to hold one’s own among others who are holding theirs.

Judging by the intensity of the negative emotional reaction from my colleagues I can’t help but to wonder whether or not many of us have lost sight of this. I can’t help but to wonder whether or not the social services prefer to have what they consider to be “well-adjusted” black males to interact with, as opposed to competent and competitive ones — who might be a little too independent-minded for their comfort.

C. Matthew Hawkins

Ways of Reading Black Unemployment

Image credit: Dailycaller.com

There are many was of "reading" any social issue or problem. Three of the most obvious ways of reading an issue are: (1) that it is individual, (2) that it is environmental, and (3) that it is systemic.

When a social issue is interpreted as being an individual issue the focus is on what an individual has done to create the problem, and how that individual can correct it. This approach focuses on personal values, motivation and personal initiative to develop the skills and resources to alleviate the problem.

When a social issue is interpreted as being environmental the focus tends to be on the surrounding community and the social network that the person has access to. This interpretive approach tends to focus on who one knows, what is in one's social network, and what is happening the community that one is part of. People who are part of a supportive and well-resourced social network are said to have "social capital".

A third method of interpreting a social issue is to focus in the systemic nature of the situation. This approach focuses on larger structural and historical changes that impact both individuals and communities (environments). If a nation, as a whole, has undergone the process of de-industrialization, for example, it matters little how much motivation or experience a person has -- or how well connected they are -- in terms of their ability to hold onto an industrial job. The social system or structure has changed and the individual and his or her social environment will be swept along with that change.

Here are a few examples of how the issue of African American unemployment is framed by different sources reporting on the issue.

In this first clip, from CBS News in 2011, the problem of African American male unemployment is framed as being a problem of not having completed school. The reporter also notes that lack of money to go to college is a factor in being unemployed. At the end of the piece, however, there is an interesting twist -- the reporter says that "In this economy where jobs are scarce even having a real skill is no guarantee of having a job."

This NBC report, the same year, frames the problem as being a bit more complicated. In this report a man is interviewed who has experience but the rules of the game changed on him. Employers used to hire applicants based on their ability to do the job but now they require certification or a credential. A credential does not necessarily prove that an applicant can do the job, nor is it true that an applicant cannot do the job without one. Going to school in order to secure a credential has become a profitable business for colleges, universities, and post-secondary trade schools. At the end of the clip the reporter suggests that the willingness of blacks to work for free might give them a foothold on the job market.

This City Limits report, in 2010, points to a more complicated problem. The person who is the point of focus in this piece has both experience and credentials, still he is unable to get a job.

The following clip presents the most complicated inquiry into the issue yet. This clip was posted by "Aggressive Fruit" in 2009. It includes a wide range of interviewees who discuss racial stereotypes, social and cultural assimilation, the individual "survival instinct" that prevents people from helping others to find jobs, the impact of reduced funding for education, and the lack of a social network that would include potential employers or people who can tip one off to job openings.

This clip identifies systemic factors (an overall weak economy), environmental factors (social networking within a social and cultural environment), and individual factors (personal motivation and attitudes).

For more on this topic see "What are real measures of diversity and inclusion?" in my Current History Journal.

C. Matthew Hawkins

Are Cultural and Systemic Factors Driving Increased Diagnoses for DSM V?

Image Credit: American Psychiatric Association

The fifth version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V) is about to be released. An article in the current issue of Slate, titled "Abnormal is the New Normal"shows the expansion of mental health categories in DSM V. If most people can now be labeled "abnormal" then what can we now say constitutes the "norm"?

Beyond the notion that we have gotten better at detecting mental illness; and somewhat connected to the notion that more of us suffer from mental illness than in the past, this article points to increased pressure at work sites, where many of us are under greater pressure to get more done with fewer co-workers (and less pay and fewer or no benefits). And because we still have a stubbornly high unemployment rate we can easily be replaced, which may add to our anxiety. 

The article also mentions that we have a culture of instant gratification and quick fixes. The expectation that all problems can quickly be resolved and that all wants and desires can instantly be met was not something that people had been led to believe two or three generations ago. 

Some analysts suggest that the mental health profession is over-diagnosing people for mental illness. The categories for mental illness, over the past 50 years, have grown rather impressively. There has also been a loosening of the definition of mental illness, so that more people fall within the existing categories for mental illness than 50 years ago. 

In this vein, there is also an aspect of what is happening that may be sensitive for social service providers to talk about: having more diagnosiible  "mental illnesses" brings more clients to the "helping professions" and more customers to the pharmaceutical companies -- it is good business to medicalize, and pathologize behavior that was once considered within the realm of the "normal". The article points out the requirement to have a diagnosed illness before treatment can be covered by insurance companies. A person must also have a diagnosible "problem" before they can qualify for disability benefits from the government. 

All of these macro and systemic factors may be driving the sharp increase in the statistics on mental illness over the past half century. What do you think?

Three Big Themes for Studying Urban Environments

Image Credit: Philadelphia Foundation

In my Squidoo webpage on Human Behavior in the Urban Environment I have identified a series of questions under the sub-heading “What Type of Intervention in Urban Environments?” These questions identify some of the major themes for thinking and writing about the city. It could be useful to simplify these themes by clustering them together, creating three mega-categories: (1) Professionals and Institutions; (2) Deviancy, Tolerance and Social Integration; and (3) Demographics, Resources and Public Space.

Each cluster suggests a series of interrelated questions one can use as a guide, or to generate ideas, when writing about the urban environment.

Professionals and Institutions: What are some of the underlying ideas and assumptions behind different anti-poverty initiatives? What are some of the roles of professionals and non-professionals in community intervention and problem-solving? How do these roles come into conflict with each other? How might communities and social institutions be made more humane and responsive to human needs? What are some of images, in the public mind, concerning the intimacy or impersonality of social life in the city?

Deviancy, Tolerance and Social Integration: How are populations stigmatized in the social environment? What are the limits of tolerance for social deviancy, and how is tolerance and intolerance expressed? How do communities place formal or informal sanctions against deviant behavior? How do deviant populations cope with community sanctions? What are some of the images of the urban environment, in the public mind, concerning social deviance?

Demographics, Resources and Public Space: What are some of the tensions that arise concerning diversity and assimilation in urban environments? How might population diversity be correlated to increases or decreases in property value? How is public space used and contested by different demographic groups (this can be cultural, generational, racial/ethnic, gendered, etc.)? How does the diversity of a population affect, and how is it affected by, scarcity or abundance of social resources?

These clusters of themes, and associated questions, should help you to think about how you can observe and write about urban environments. You may think of your own clusters of themes that work better for you than the ones I have here. Give it a try and see what you come up with.

Social Workers as Change Agents

As social workers, we often define ourselves as being "agents of change", yet this role often comes with a level of frustration. As we try to function as change agents in society we invariably encounter resistance. If people, or social service agencies, or larger social systems wanted to change they would have done so long before we arrived on the scene. So the nature of our job is to try to get people to make changes that at least a part of them resists. No wonder so many social workers get burnt out.

Presumably "the light bulb" is either the client or the social system that affects the client. If the light bulb is the client, then the above statement could be empowering, even though the social worker in this is image is looking rather peeved. If social workers acknowledge that they can't change the client against his or her will, then this would be a basic acknowledgment of the right of the client to self-determination.

But why the petulant look on the social worker's face?

On the other hand, maybe the child in the image is not the social worker. Maybe the child is the social worker's perception of the client. In that case, the image suggests a paternalistic attitude on the part of the social worker. The social worker thinks the client is an obstinate child, who doesn't know what is good for him or her. This paternalistic attitude toward the client may contribute to clients' reluctance to trust social workers.

But maybe the image is of a whole social system that needs to be changed. Some social workers focus mostly on trying to change larger social systems and the agencies that deliver social services. They do this in an attempt to make those social systems, or those agencies, more responsive to the needs of the client. If "the light bulb" is the social agency or system, and it resists changing in order to meet client needs, this can also be a source of frustration for the social worker.

In any case, to say "the light bulb has to want to change," suggests that if the light bulb doesn't want to change then the social worker can wash his or her hands of the whole thing. There is nothing more to be done. Blame the client or blame the system; but the social worker is absolved from any responsibility for the intractable problems the client faces. The social worker cannot be effective until the client, or the system, wants the worker to be effective.

Can this be right?

If the only time the social worker can be effective is when the light bulb wants to change, what do we need a social worker for in the first place? If the social worker accepts credit for clients, systems, and agencies that already want to change then what is the value-added from having a social worker?

Doesn't value come from scarcity -- the kind of scarcity that occurs when one is able to confront, and overcome, some type of difficulty that would discourage most people before the task was completed? Isn't it  the difficulty of the task that makes the social worker's intervention valuable?

So, why is the "light bulb", whether it is a social system, a social service agency, a group, a family, or an individual, reluctant to change, when they know that change would probably be beneficial in the long run?

Maybe anthropologists can help us out on this.

Mary Catherine Bateson, in Peripheral Visions, writes about the narratives we create about our lives. We simultaneously create narratives of continuity and discontinuity; it all depends on the lens we use as we reflect on the course of our lives. We can note the series of events in our lives, many of which were unexpected, that seem to have led us to where we are today -- as if this were our destiny. On the other hand, we can point to the many fits and starts, dead-ends and new beginnings we have had, which suggest that our lives are compilations of random events which appear to be going nowhere.

One the one hand, our lives seem to unfold in ways we never would have anticipated when we were children, teenagers, or young adults. Yet other elements of our lives seem stubbornly familiar and unchanging.

The interesting thing about narratives of discontinuity is that they often engender a sense of fragmentation, which can be unsettling, disorienting and frightening. They can make us feel as though our lives are no longer under our control, if they ever were. We can feel adrift; at the mercy of the winds, the river current, or blind fate.

Why are people resistant to change? Bateson suggests that people fear the loss of the sense of security and groundedness. When social workers ask people to change, we are also asking them to give something up -- something that may be very important to them, even if it is only a memory, or a way of understanding reality. We are asking them to let go of something that is familiar in order to embrace something that has not yet proven itself. Even under the most dysfunctional circumstances, few people are willing to take the risk of change without serious reservations.

We often fear the unknown and the unfamiliar, despite it's potential to give us a new start. We may fear the outcome if we stand still and just allow things to continue to happen to us, but at least we can feel as though we did not bring disaster on ourselves -- something outside of us did it, even though it occurred as a result of our own inaction. If we take the risk of inaction, the risk is based on what other people and things might do to us. If we take the risk of change, the risk is something we incur of our own choosing.

It takes a leap of faith to initiate change. But, as Bateson points out in Peripheral Visions, when we ask people -- or systems -- to change, we should realize that we are asking them to take a big risk. We should not take the suggestion of risk lightly. We should ask ourselves, what I am asking this individual, or this system, to give up that might provide a sense of familiarity and continuity? Why might it be frightening for this individual, or people in this system, to initiate change?

If we want to be effective social workers we have to understand that this means we must be agents of change; and as agents of change we will automatically engender opposition, and we should not be surprised, or petulant, when we find that the light bulb does not want to change, and tries to hold onto the status quo in subtle or not-so-subtle ways.

It is the nature of our job to encounter resistance to change; therefore, we should not be cavalier in the changes we propose, and we should not take suggestions of change lightly. We must begin by spending time trying to understand what our clients and their systems value about the status quo, and what they fear about the discontinuities we are suggesting to them. We must try to fully understand how they perceive what we are proposing as being disruptive of their lives. I would even go so far as to suggest that we must be empathetic toward their fear of disruption. If we can't develop that empathy, we have no business trying to encourage them to change.

Our job engenders resistance. If it were any other way, we wouldn't be needed in the first place.

The Logic Behind Community Organizing...

What is the logic behind community organizing, in relation to other human service initiatives?

I think this photograph sums the logic up best:

Image Credit: The Other 98% (on Facebook)

The first response, "If you give me a fish," signifies the charitable impulse. The social worker responds to the immediate needs of the client, to resolve the immediate crisis, but does not have the time, resources, or -- perhaps -- the inclination to do more for the client. Perhaps resolving the immediate crisis will be enough, it may provide the client with the breathing room needed to recover, so that the client can then take things into his or her own hands. But the problem may actually be deeper, in which case....

The second response, "If you teach me to fish," signifies intervention that teaches the client how to avoid future crises, or to respond to crises on his or her own, once they arise. This mode of social work practice is based on the assumption that if the client's behavior (or culture) can be changed their circumstances will improve. But what if the problem is bigger than the behavior, knowledge-base, or culture of a group or individual?

The third response, "If you teach me to organize," signifies intervention based on the assessment that the problem is structural and systemic at its core. Often problems, while having cultural or behavioral components to them, become intractable because of the disparity of social, political, and economic power -- and the way the "rules of the game" have been drawn up to protect the powerful. This requires development of skills that will shift the distribution of power (or access to information in order to make the system work for the vulnerable). Frequently this entails establishing cultural capital by linking with the interests and activities of others.

It is always helpful to be able to identify the underlying assumptions behind any particular mode of intervention. Michael Jacoby Brown contrasts and compares different methods of social intervention in the following video:

In this video Brown discusses the underlying assumptions behind the basic methods of social intervention. These methods are service, advocacy, mobilization, and activism; then he distinguishes between those modes of intervention and community organizing. This helps to draw out the fundamental methods and principles of community organizing and what its objectives entail.

How does organizing, as a form of intervention, distinguish itself from the other modes of intervention?

What are the attributes and parts of this thing we call "organizing"?

What are the assumptions that underlie the selection of community organizing as one's mode of intervention?

What assumptions underlie the selection of each of the other modes of intervention?

What is essential, in order for community organizing, or an organization, to be effective?

Person-in-Social Environment: A Core Social Work Concept

One of the things a successful student discovers when they study any academic discipline is that it is important to master the basics and the core concepts of that discipline before moving on to more complex matters. There is a reciprocal relationship between the two; mastering the basics makes more complex concepts even more comprehensible, and complex and specialized concepts provide one's understanding of basic and core concepts with greater depth, nuance and meaning.

There are a number of core concepts that beginning social workers should grasp: social workers are agents of change, not only in regard to client populations, but also in regard to agencies that serve those clients and overall public policy; social workers must learn to respect the self-determination of the client; and social workers must develop cultural competency, which enables them to see themselves, and their clients, as enculturated beings.

Perhaps one of the most essential concepts that social work students must grasp is the notion of client as a "person-in-a-social-environment."

The client is simultaneously a member of multiple social networks that help to form and shape that client's identity. The client is also a participant in, and impacted by, political systems, economic systems, and cultural systems that constitute the social ecology in which the client "swims". The client does not exist in an air-tight bubble; rather, the client lives within a societal context.

If a social worker is to be effective in his or her practice the social worker must be able to analyze the client's relationship to that larger societal context.

Most social workers don't have difficulty recognizing that if they have a client who has difficulty holding down a job the social worker should be particularly attentive when the client provides hints of potentially underlying reasons for their spotty work history, especially if this entails substance abuse or uncontrollable bursts of anger.

In a situation such as this one, most social workers can readily understand that in order to improve the likelihood that their client will be able to hold down a job it will be necessary to work on breaking the client's physiological or psychological addiction, or to work with the client on anger management.

But it is also important for the social worker to look at the situation from another angle: in a social environment where many jobs have been phased out and unemployment, or underemployment is stubbornly high, or even rising, it should not be surprising that these conditions tend to exacerbate any preexisting tendency toward substance abuse or uncontrollable outbursts of anger. Sheer frustration over being caught in the trap of unemployment, or underemployment, can bring behavioral problems to the fore, or even make those problems worse.

The client's behavior may make it more difficult for the client to find a steady job, but the lack of available steady jobs may make it more likely that the client will develop behavioral problems. The social worker must be knowledgeable enough about the social context of the client's situation in order to be an effective helping professional.

The same is true when one is problem-solving and searching for solutions. The presenting problem, which brings the client to the social worker in the first place, may be triggered by an outburst of anger, or a bout of substance abuse that the client was unable to conceal -- or it may be the client's persistent concern about long-term unemployment or underemployment.

In order to effect a solution, the social worker must be able to identify both formal and informal social networks that have weight in the client's life -- or that could potentially play a positive role toward mitigating the problem.

Sometimes being engaged in productive labor, or volunteer work, can give a client a sense of self-esteem, and help the client to form an identity that will enable them to exert more control over their behavior. Likewise, having friends who serve as sounding boards, a listening ear, or who can offer advice, may provide  outlets to reduce or control problematic behavior.

The same can be said for group recreational activities or faith-based communities. The challenge for the social worker will be to identify social networks that are significant and have meaning in the client's life; social networks that provide a useful counter-balance against negative influences, and that may be enlisted as resources to address problematic behavior directly, or conditions -- such as unemployment -- that might exacerbate those problems.

Social work is a profession that draws its knowledge base from both sociological and psychological literature. At the core of social work values, knowledge and skills, therefore, is the ability to understand one's client as a social being, and to be able to see one's client as one who impacts, and is impacted by social conditions. The social worker should be able to see the client as a person who exists within a social context.

C. Matthew Hawkins

A Key Function of Entry-Level Social Work Counseling

Image Credit: Donna Garcia Associates, Inc.

One of the questions that frequently comes up in class is this: "On the one hand, social workers are expected to respect the self-determination of the client, but on the other hand, what clients want for themselves may not be things that are in their best interest -- such as a tendency to satisfy short-term gratification at the expense of long-term growth and stability, or the inability to remove oneself from psychologically abusive relationships."

One of the most essential functions that social workers have, in their professional practice, is the function of being a good listener. Being a good listener does not just involve an activity of the ear, it also involves the activity of the mind. The social worker should not just be passive listener, but an active one; a listener who asks open-ended questions, and picks up on phrases, non-verbal facial expressions and gestures, and other clues that help to emphasize what is most important about what the client has said, and help to reveal what is often left unspoken.

There are several reasons why it is essential that the social worker learn to be a good listener. For one thing, we live in an age where everyone wants to be heard, and few people want to listen. Few of us get the chance to sound out the situations we are struggling with before we are interrupted by the person we are talking to as they smother us with their "advice."

Even if the advice is sound, and, perhaps, "research-based", we won't really know whether or not the advice is appropriate if we haven't taken the time to thoroughly hear the client out so that we can grasp the essence of the situation, and the contextual issues that are related to it -- making the situation, and its solutions, unique to the client.

But even more to the point, part of the process of honoring the right of the client to self-determination is to create space, and create an environment, in which clients can discover constructive conclusions for themselves. It is important to give the client a chance to do the very thing that they frequently do not have the opportunity to do -- which is to transform vague thoughts and feelings into specific and concrete words, and to turn fragments of assorted impressions into recognizable patterns and identifiable relationships.

Part of our role, in consulting with a client, is not to give the client the answer, but to listen, ask probing follow-up questions, and create an opportunity for them to make discoveries -- to have epiphanies -- and, from there, to work out solutions for themselves. You want them to discover patterns and solutions that cannot just be handed to them.

"But", some students may object, "what if you work for a government agency where you are not paid to have the client sound out their situation, and you don't have the time to work with them toward an epiphany? What then?"

Basically, you're screwed in that situation.

But seriously, even when there are legal or administrative mandates for what must come out of the session, an effective practitioner will take the time to give something in order to get something from the client. The practitioner cannot expect the client to listen to, or respect what the practitioner is saying, if the practitioner does not first demonstrate the willingness to listen to, and respect what the client is saying.

The interaction has to go both ways.

In order for the governmental or institutional mandate to be understood, the representative of that government or institution -- which would be you, the social worker -- must engage the client and establish trust. The representative of that government or institution must demonstrate the capacity to understand the client, his or her perspective on things, and his or her situation.

So whether your interaction with the client is the result of the client coming to you voluntarily or involuntarily, active listening is an indispensable part of your role as a social worker, in order to be an effective practitioner.

The social worker has to hear the client out; understand how the client sees the world and why the client's perspective makes sense to the client -- and the social worker must probe for insights into the client's formal and informal social networks and overall situation -- in order for the social worker to effective as a "helping professional."

C. Matthew Hawkins

Are Social Workers Agents of Social Change or are they Guardians of the Status Quo?

Image credit: Career Guidance.com

It's the kind of question that has bedeviled social workers since the profession began; a student raised it once again: Aren't social workers just guardians and agents of the status quo?

The first thing a social work student is supposed to  learn is that social workers are agents of change. This change should not just be focused on the client, but also on the institutions and agencies that ostensibly serve the client; and it extends to social policy as well.

Today, however, many students believe that the only value of a social work program has for them is to teach them research-based techniques for social work practice. They don't often appreciate the fundamental purpose for learning those techniques, which is to become agents of change. It doesn't seem to register with them that part of their job is to critique their work site in order to make it more responsive to their clients' needs.

In today's tight job market and budgetary constraints, too many students say they just want to keep their heads down and not make waves. They say that their primary concern is be boosters for the agency rather than advocates for the client. No wonder social workers are being accused of being guardians of the status quo.

One hears social workers emphasize  "coping skills," but much less time and energy is devoted to developing strategies to empower the client to change their social or institutional environment. Many well-intentioned social workers believe that the best way they can help their client is by helping them to adapt to their circumstances. They are careful not to legitimize clients' dissatisfaction with impersonal, dehumanizing and bureaucratic systems that clients are forced to interact with. Many social workers, today, also seem reluctant to use their values, knowledge and skills to promote institutional or agency change, and changes in public policy.

It reminds me of G. K. Chesterton's observation nearly a century ago when he said that some people are like the bad tailor who, when the sleeve of a coat was too short for the customer's arm, decided to cut off the man's arm rather than lengthen the sleeve. When the cuffs of the man's trousers were too high the tailor wanted to cut off the man's leg rather than lengthen his pants.. When the man's head did not fit his hat the tailor tried to box in the man's head. Chesterton concluded that people like that attempted to tailor the man to fit the suit rather than the suit to fit the man.

A social worker should constantly assess how their agency fits the culture of its clients in its outreach efforts and delivery of services. Rather than merely being guardians and boosters of the status quo, social workers must be prepared to thoughtfully and factually critique the status quo.

I know of a social worker who works in a school in a working class neighborhood. This worker refuses to work beyond 5 PM, or to attend community meetings in the evening, yet she believes that the parents of the children she works with are unmotivated to help their children because they never visit the school and they never respond to the questionnaires she sends home with the students.

I know of a community social worker who holds meetings to plan the development of the business district in a distressed neighborhood at 2 in the afternoon. She always gets a low turnout from small business owners in the neighborhood, and concludes that they don't care about the neighborhood's future. It never occurred to her to go to their shops and talk with them, one-on-one. "I invite them to town meetings, but they never show up," she says.

If she took the time to visit them one-on-one she would find out that, at 2 O'clock in the afternoon, business owners are in the middle of their day. They can't find anyone to watch their store when the planning meetings are held. If she would hold the meetings early in the day, before businesses open; or later in the day, when the kids are out of school and can watch the store, she would get a much better turnout.

Guardians of the status quo tend to assume that that the client, alone, is the one who has to make the adjustment. They often complain that the social system itself is too big for them to even be able to wrap their minds around and understand it, much less develop strategies for changing it. They reason that it is better to teach clients to cope with the existing conditions rather than to try to effect social or institutional change.

This is not a new phenomenon. When I was researching the history of the Urban League, during the 1920s, I came across a caseworker's notes where she was frustrated with a women's club that refused to focus on the home economics lessons that  the social worker thought was important. She took this as evidence of the ignorance and backwardness of these Southern migrant women, who simply didn't understand what the purpose of a women's club is, she thought. Instead, these "backward" women wanted to use the club to organize their neighbors to confront the city about using the ditch behind their houses to dump garbage. Clearly, these women needed to be adjusted.

Many social workers that I have come across have had valuable skills to offer their clients and constituents, but it is important that they understand that their clients and constituents have needs and priorities of their own, and these are often legitimate. People don't exist to serve social policies, bureaucracies and institutions; rather,  bureaucracies, institutions and social policies should serve people.

When the sleeves and the pant legs are too short we should try to tailor the suit to fit the person, not the person to fit the suit. Coping and adaptation to existing circumstances should not be our default reaction to every ill-fit between between communities and the institutions and policies that are ostensibly there to serve them. Social workers should not only look for ways to change the client; they should also be alert for the possibility that the agencies and institutions may also have to be adjusted in order to better serve human needs. The social workers, who have had the greatest impact on society and the profession, were not contented to merely process paperwork. They took note of how the system they were in functioned, and they actively worked to change it.

C. Matthew Hawkins
Also of interest: What is the public image of social work?

Essential Knowledge for Social Work Studies

Cinday Waszak Geary Photography

I often run into students who feel overwhelmed during their first semester studying social work; they ask, "How am I supposed to memorize all of this information?" Actually, you should not try to memorize a whole lot of information. A student will be much better off if he or she focuses on understanding a few key points about social work. What are those key points? They are:

• Social Work history
• Social Work problem solving stages
• The arenas for social work practice
• And the social work code of ethics

That's it. But some students will say, "That's still too much." Let's try to break each of these areas down:

Social Work History

The reason we study social work history is so that we can understand the importance of the three systemic levels of social work practice: the micro system, the mezzo system, and the macro system. Social workers think in terms of social systems, but these systems occur on different levels of the organization of society. The details of social work history should help you to understand how these three systemic levels emerged, and how they are interdependent in good social work practice. When you study the history of social work, focus on what that history tells you about the emergence of social work practice and intervention on the micro, mezzo, and macro level and you will be fine.

Social Work Problem-Solving Stages

Well, what about social work problem solving? What your professors want you know about social work problem solving is that it is a continuous process of engagement, assessment, planning, intervention, evaluation, and termination. This process is pretty much the same, whether you are working with a micro system, a mezzo system, or a macro system. First you have to engage the client or constituency -- you have to listen to them. More than listening, you have to actually hear them -- which is not always the same thing as merely listening. You want to try to get a sense of who your clients are and the social environment they are part of, and is part of them.

Assessment and Planning

Once you have engaged the client, and gotten a sense of their social context, you are in a better position to assess the situation and plan an intervention. You want the client to be actively involved in assessment and planning because this empowers them and it enables them to become invested in the intervention that will follow. There will be dissonance, and you and the client will work at cross-purposes, if you assess the client's situation one way, but the client assesses the situation differently and you don't work together to resolve these differences.

Evaluation and Termination

Part of the planning stage of this process includes establishing agreement on how the intervention will be implemented and evaluated for its effectiveness, and at what point your engagement will be terminated. You and the client will have to think about how you will measure the effectiveness of the problem-solving approach that you both are implementing. You have to agree on a point of termination because you want to be able to establish closure -- you don't want the end of the intervention to come abruptly, which can trigger feelings of abandonment and betrayal.

A living and dynamic process

Above all, it is important to understand that this process is, well, a process. It does not have to advance in a linear fashion. There will be plenty of times when you have to double back, re-engage the client, re-assess the situation (especially as it is constantly changing), and re-plan the intervention. This doubling-back process occurs as situations develop that are unexpected -- sometimes unexpectedly good, other times they may be unexpectedly bad -- but you should always be prepared to adjust your assessment and your plans because life is full of contingencies.

Arenas of Social Work Intervention

As we have already noted, social work simultaneously takes place on multiple levels, but intervention is primarily with individuals, families, groups, communities, and/or organizational systems. The individual, family, and group levels of social work practice are fairly familiar to most people entering social work practice, because these levels mirror psychological intervention and counseling.

Individuals and Families

Social workers, who provide service for individuals, will quickly learn that the emotional and psychological dimensions of individuals are inseparable from their experiences in relation to their family -- regardless of whether their family ties are strong or weak. A client will be as much impacted by the survival mechanisms they had to develop, to compensate for a lack of kinship support, as they are if they have strong kinship ties that are effective in transmitting family values, behavior, and perspectives onto their children.

Group work 

Group work is often important because individuals may have experiences that they do not, or cannot share with other family members. Sometimes they will find more support with people outside of the family, who have had similar challenges and experiences. Problem-solving with groups can counter the effects of feeling alone in the world and enable group members to learn from, and support, each other.

Communities and Organizational Systems

When most people think of social work, they think of the medical and psychological models that are used in the profession. The part of the field that tends to be under-emphasized, and under-appreciated, grew out of the tradition of sociology. This aspect of social work engages communities and organizations -- it emerged from early practices of surveying social conditions concerning public health, housing conditions, poverty and associated problem, and race and ethnic relations. Social work on the community and organizational level has also involved consolidating or coordinating service delivery make sure the multiple dimensions of human needs are being met, within a community. Social work on the community and organizational level also focuses on advocacy and public policy.

Social Work Ethics

Social work ethics provide the intellectual software for the profession. The study of ethics is a branch of philosophy; it does not simply consist of mandates for the social worker to memorize and follow, but presents the worker with dilemmas which have to be wrestled with. For example, social workers have an ethical responsibility to promote the self-actualization of the individual; but we also have an ethical responsibility to protect sub-cultures from being steamrolled forced to resemble the dominant culture. What happens, then, when a subculture may be perceived as suppressing the self-actualization of individuals within it because this is a part of their traditional values?

The line between being a stalwart defender of individual rights and being a cultural imperialist is not very clear. Social work ethics present us with dilemmas to be considered, rather than directives to be memorized and implemented uncritically. Social work is a values-driven profession, and social work values are expressions of a set of cultural and historical assumptions. Social work does not stand outside of history and outside of culture; it reflects historical conditions and cultural expression. Social workers must always be self-reflective and must be able to critique the cultural stance of the social work profession itself. They must also be prepared to recognize, and grapple with, the ethical paradoxes that methods of intervention will present to them more frequently than we like to admit.

The Essentials to Social Work Studies

These are the essentials to studying social work. If you are able to discuss how intervention in micro, mezzo, and macro systems emerged out of the history of social work practice; if you can distinguish between the stages of engagement, assessment, planning, intervention, evaluation, and termination; if you can contrast and compare arenas of intervention, such as the individual, families, groups, communities, and organizational systems; and if you analyze, synthesize, interpret and evaluate social work ethics and decision-making frameworks -- with appreciation for the ethical dilemmas they present -- then you find that you will not be burdened with having to memorize a whole lot of information that seems "academic" and impractical.

C. Matthew Hawkins

How Do Others See Us? The Image of Social Workers

Image credit: University of Tennessee at Martin

During our last class session an international student raised the question, "What does the general public think about social workers?" This is an important question, not only because it forces us to stand back and consider how we are perceived by American society, also because it prods us to consider some of the tensions between the values social work espouses (collectivism, interdependence, and process-orientation) and some of the essentials of American mythology and ideology (individualism, independence, and task-orientation).

We would like to believe, of course, that society values us and that our clients and constituents think the world of us. The fact of the matter is that many of our clients come to us involuntarily, due to a court order or as part of the requirement to get services from a public or private agency. These clients will see social workers as being agents of a bureaucracy or institution that they might, at best, feel ambivalent about. If a person sees a social worker involuntarily, the worker will have a harder time establishing themselves as a trusted resource, who can help the client to negotiate a complicated system.

Even when the client's encounter with the social worker is voluntary, they may resent the "middle class" social worker, who doesn't live in the neighborhood and is not from the community, but is being paid to work with, or deliver services to, people less income and fewer social resources. Then, of course, there are those who criticize social work when it is funded by government programs, because these people believe in a limited government. They would see the social worker as being part of an over-expanded social welfare state.

It is important for social workers to understand that all of the resistance they are getting from clients, and not all of the opposition that they get from the general public, is generated out of ignorance or mean-spiritedness. If social workers are to continue to be effective in working with clients and influencing public policy it is important for us to understand the legitimate concerns and criticism that -- or the misperceptions and misunderstanding -- that others have of social workers.

One way to get a handle on how social workers are perceived is to think about how we are depicted in mass  media. When was the last time you read a reference to a social worker in a novel, or saw a social worker depicted as a character on television or in a movie? What was the character like? What was the social work character "type"? How do you think the audience responded to this character?

What was the gender of the social worker? What was the social worker's age? What was the race or ethnicity of the social worker? What was the social work character's personality like? What motivated the social worker? How did other characters in the story respond to him or her?

Let's talk about this.

See also: Social Workers in an age of alienation

C. Matthew Hawkins

What Brings You to Social Work?

Image credit: college online.com

During the first class session for the generalist practice skills course (and we will do the same in the Social Welfare course) we considered the essential question for those who are entering or continuing a career in social work: "What is it that brings me into the social work profession to begin with?"

I think this is an important question because it helps us to think about what we are contributing to the social work profession. Really, the question is twofold: What were your prior experiences, before entering the profession?" and "What do you hope to do with the professional skills you are in the process of developing?"

Previous experiences may be of an emotional or psychological nature, such as depression, alcoholism, spousal abuse, etc. They may also include experiences of a more communal or social nature, such as poverty, discrimination, dislocation (immigration, refugee status, homelessness following a natural disaster, etc.), or alienation from one's community and social environment.

It is clear that there is not really a line that divides emotional and psychological experiences from social and community experiences. Being dislocated, as a result of flooding, is certainly a personal disaster, but it is also likely shared by a community of neighbors who have also been displaced by the flooding. Discrimination on the basis of race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, or socio-economic class is certainly personally painful, but it is also the result of social ideas about these categories -- in fact, the categories themselves are socially constructed.

One of the themes we will explore during the semester is the dynamic interaction between personal problems (and strengths) and the social environment. This is one of the essential characteristics of the way that social workers think. Our objective, as instructors, should be to teach you how to think within the profession. What tools of analysis and methods of assessment, intervention, and evaluation do social workers use?

Your first assignment is to think about what brings you into the profession. Of course, you should avoid any specific references that would violate the confidentiality of others or that would disclose personal information that you would prefer to keep confidential. You should draw on those parts of your experiences that you feel comfortable sharing with the public.

I also want to point out that not all experiences have to be negative -- some people will come to the social work profession because of positive experiences they have had with social workers. One often thinks about social work in terms of how the profession empowers clients, but the other side of the experience is how the profession empowers the social worker. One of the students asked the rest of the class, "Are you mostly becoming a social worker to empower other people or are you becoming a social worker to empower yourself?" Actually this is a good question; what is the individual social worker getting out of the deal and should they feel guilty about it?

I actually have more to say about that here, but first you should think about your own answers to this question.

So, this is our first question, to inaugurate the course: What is it that brings you to the social work profession? What experiences have you had that make you want to become a social worker? What vision do you have for the future that will involve skills you hope to develop in social social work classes?

C. Matthew Hawkins