Steve Burghardt - Macro Practice in Social Work for the 21st Century: Bridging the Macro-Micro Divide

Bridging the Macro-Micro Divide

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Many of those whom I thanked in the first edition remain central to this edition and will be mentioned below. Others have since entered my life and have only added to the value of this work. In particular, this edition is much stronger in integrating more clinical skills so that the text is much more inclusive of both macro and micro skill sets. Over the past 4 years, I have been fortunate to work with a set of people in a year-long foundation practice course. They have expanded my appreciation for and awareness of how clinical work, both with individuals and groups, informs macro practiceand how organizing impacts their clinical, individual, and group work. Robyn Brown-Manning, Carolyn Gelman, Chanda Griffin, Delores Hunter, Kyle McGee, Carmen Morano, Moyosore Paupau-Mickens, Beth Reiman, Judith Trachtenberg, and Norma Uriquen have provided me insights and practice wisdom of enormous value. A special shout-out goes to my long-time friend and collaborator Willie Tolliver, who walks the talk of anti-oppression work as few others do. I also extend thanks to Mary Cavanaugh for her clinical and humane insights outside of the classroom, as well as to my wise friend Evelyn Pederson. Finally, I especially would like to thank Samuel Aymer, whose clinical brilliance and personal openness to the social dynamics embedded in practice have contributed so much to our rich and rewarding conversations on the macromicro mix over the past 3 years. The results of those conversations can be found throughout this edition.

As stated before, it is a fortunate person who loves what he or she does more after 35 years than at the start of that career. I am blessed to be such a person because of the extrordinary group of people who have entered my organizing classes and gone on to work in the rough-and-tumble world where the struggle for social justice is ongoing. Cantankerous, smart as can be, and willing to take on the world, as well as the increasingly older white guy in the front of the room, filled with courage and moments of self-doubt these community organizers have given a richness to my life that I never would have had without them.

Another group of people with whom I have worked and who have added so much are the men and women who toil in the human service organizations that make up those other parts of macro practicethose agency workers, frontline supervisors, managers, and executives who head out each day to work in the trenches with groups others would prefer to forget: the neglected kids in child welfare, the homeless families thrown out of substandard housing, the mentally ill folks others might try to avoid. Their resilience and capacity to carry on each and every day, even as funds fall shortagain and againso others might be able to live with a touch of dignity leaves me humbled at all they do far better than I ever could.

My hope is that this book honors them all.

Others have provided encouragement and support along the way as I completed this new work. Friends who provided the occasional kick in the pants to keep me writing are Mike Fabricant, Kami Franklin, Liz Laboy, Ed Laboy, and Eric Zachary. Silberman School of Social Work colleagues Kristin Ferguson-Colvin, Nancy Giunta, Terry Mizrahi, Associate Dean Andrea Savage, and Dean Jackie Mondros continue to provide encouragement as well. Dr. Mohan Krishna Vinjamuri again used his special mix of analytic brilliance and extraordinary thoroughness to take on the writing of , addressing the Internet and social networking as organizing tools.

One of the two new chapters was written by remarkable young practitioners who have lived their strategic vision, from the classroom we shared and into their life's work. Kristin LeBourveau and Meredith Ledlie-Johnson began discussing how social work had to stretch its definition of the social environment to include the work of environmental activists at a time when most of their classmates and professional colleagues thought little about issues such as community gardens, local food markets, hydrofracking, and climate change. As their own stories attest in , the field is slowly awakening to their vision as Earth grows in perilalong with us who inhabit it.

Finally, the remarkable people who continue to write, compile, and maintain the Community Toolbox deserve special mention. Like macro practitioners everywhere, Stephen Fawcett, Jerry Schultz, and Christina Holt of the University of Kansas have toiled without much notice to create a vibrant and rich Internet resource for organizers that has helped countless practitioners across the United States and beyond. I hope readers of this book will take full advantage of it.

That my best editor of thematic coherency and word choiceas well as pants-kicker par excellencehappens to be my wife, Pat Beresford, is another fortuitous part of my life, for which I give thanks every day. Being backed up by our brood of various Bs (and a few other letters)Lila and Matty and their future 21st century organizer, Desmond; Josh; Lisa and Eric; and Jen and her sweet honeybee, Sara Kayerounds out the fullness of my life.

The family at SAGE Publications is a pretty special group, too. Kassie Graves, editor extraordinaire, continues to be a class act in everything she does, whether signaling encouragement, quietly offering improvements, or kindly yet persistently making sure I complete all that needs to be done. I am blessed to be able now to call her my friend. Elizabeth Luizzi, Amy Schroller, and Megan Granger have provided able assistance in moving the work through its various stages, for which I am most appreciative. I am also again aware of the steady, wise hand of Armand Lauffer on this book. Giving him thanks continues to be a thimble's worth of the debt at play here.