Shannon R. Lane - Political Social Work

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This new textbook, Political Social Work: Using Power to Create Social Change , is an important milestone that will further institutionalize political social work as an accepted practice in the social work profession. Political social work is fast becoming a critical method needed to advance the professions pursuit of social and economic justice. The knowledge, skills and values social workers bring to the political arena are profoundly needed, particularly in todays caustic climate. Shannon Lane and Suzanne Pritzker have meticulously crafted the missing manual that will help guide the development of political social works curriculum and practice knowledge and skills in future years. Each has been researching political participation and how social workers, in particular, participate in the political arena for nearly 15 years.

Dr. Lane served as a political social worker in the United States Senate, working for then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. She worked with Dr. Nancy A. Humphreys at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work where she earned her Ph.D. and continues to coordinate research with the Nancy A. Humphreys Institute for Political Social Work. She examined the political careers of more than 400 social workers who have sought local, state or federal elected office, the largest number of politically active social work office seekers currently known. Her research is designed to increase the political involvement of social workers and underserved populations, and improve policy and political content within social work education. She has served on the social work faculties of Adelphi University and Sacred Heart University.

Dr. Pritzker earned her Ph.D. at the prestigious George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis, known for its outstanding policy education and practice. She served as a policy advisor for the Virginia Secretary of Education and as an analyst with the Virginia General Assembly. At the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, known for its longstanding commitment to political social work, Dr. Pritzker leads political social work education and programming and directs an intensive state legislative placement for graduate social work students. Her research has largely focused on the civic engagement of young people and finding ways to encourage their active participation in political activity. She sees political engagement as fundamental to the empowerment of communitiesparticularly under-resourced communities that lack political clout.

Combining their knowledge, skills and experience, they make a powerful team. The inaugural edition of this textbook covers political social work from soup to nuts. Political Social Work: Using Power to Create Social Change provides a comprehensive overview of the history of political social work, its various contexts for practice, a thorough review of the many ethical challenges for social workers in the political arena, and a wealth of strategies and techniques that will aid social workers opting to engage in the political arena. Political Social Work: Using Power to Create Social Change will help to elevate political social work to its needed place in the profession and the world of policy and politics.

As the book fully describes, social workers have a long and proud history of political participation in all levels of government. From school boards to local and state legislative bodies, and in many components of the federal government including the Congress, social workers serve in a myriad of roles with various responsibilities. Students who are entertaining the idea of pursuing political social work will find Chap. appealing as it provides a road map for engagement. Following the tradition of Jane Addams, social workers and students will discover that they can not only help those with whom they work navigate the world shaped by policies and politics, but also be change agents to make theirs a more just and equitable society.

If this textbook had existed several years ago, it would had made my path into political social work much smoother. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, the son of a politically active pastor, I was engaged in political activity at an early age. My father, Rev. Dr. Charles E. Lewis, Sr., lost an election in 1964 for a seat on the New York State Assembly to Shirley Chisholm, who would ultimately become the first black woman in Congress. I later worked at the Brooklyn Borough Presidents Office in the 1980s where I met former Congressman Edolphus Ed Towns, a social worker, who was then serving as Brooklyns first black Deputy Borough President. I worked on his successful 1982 Congressional campaign and years later would become his Deputy Chief of Staff and Communications Director and assist him in creating the Congressional Social Work Caucus. During the intervening years, I entered the social work profession and completed a Ph.D. in policy at Columbia University. While on the Hill, I met Dr. Nancy A. Humphreys, who formally introduced me to political social work. At that time, political social work was little discussed outside of the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work, where Bob Fischer and colleagues had developed a political social work specialization, and the University of Connecticut, where Dr. Humphreys had developed the Nancy A. Humphreys Institute for Political Social Work.