![]() “An increasing number of students are choosing the macro concentration.” “Macro social work is poised for resurgence, as evidenced on college campuses,” the article read. With the focused awareness on injustices in our society today, many wonder how things could ever change - and who’s actually working to change them.Īn April 2016 issue of Social Work Today noted that new students in social work are aiming higher in the chain of influence than clinical practice usually allows. He points to issues like racism, economic injustice, mass incarceration and educational apartheid to illustrate the kinds of problems a macro social worker might work to change. “Macro-level social work has the ability to change the narrative through social policy and social justice and push the conversation forward,” Lassiter says. ![]() This means you could be helping large numbers of individuals avoid the aftermath of larger, community-wide issues altogether. Working in macro social work offers you the opportunity to make an impact on the high-level issues that can lead to problems at the personal, family and community levels. If I wanted to find resources to assist a low-income school and I was able to obtain these resources, then I completed my task,” she explained. “If I advocated for a bill to pass and the bill was passed, then my goal was accomplished. I wanted to work in the community, making changes.”īrice went on to write that macro social work meant advocating change and raising awareness about community problems. “I knew I wanted to focus on advocacy, grant and policy writing, program development and community outreach,” wrote macro social worker Stacy Brice in The New Social Worker. If you think of clinical practice as social work that aims to work within systems to protect and heal the individual, you can think of macro social work as work that aims to change and heal the systems. One of the many functions of macro social work is that it seeks to change policy. Social work as a whole is concerned with people and the structures influencing them. Macro social work isn’t, by any means, disconnected from the rest of the field. The organization maintains that social work engages people and structures to address life challenges and enhance wellbeing. The International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) defines social work as a field that promotes social change and development, social cohesion and the empowerment and liberation of people. Macro social work might be just the focus you are looking for. If you are curious about the field of social work and specifically drawn to the type of work that engages whole communities, policy-making levels and systemic problems, look no further. This is what’s referred to as macro social work. Many social workers see the rippling chain of effects that damage individual lives and attempt to address the problem higher up the funnel. “How could I find a way to speak truth to power, affirm the people’s worth, and use my life as a vehicle to alleviate the suffering of others?” “I wanted to find ways to speak back to the scars and suffering of humanity,” says Chad Dion Lassiter, professor, social worker and president of Black Men at Penn. But it can at times also be about addressing the structures within which the individuals operate in hopes of alleviating community-wide burdens. Much of social work practice is centered around micro-practice, which addresses the individual. While this picture is certainly plentiful in the field, it is far from a comprehensive view of all the opportunities that await social work hopefuls. When most people think of a social worker, they likely picture a passionate person with a pile of case files, working one-on-one with clients who need assistance.
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