Read and reflect on the “Grand Challenges for Social Work” and post a reflection to the course site about one or two of the challenges that resonate with you and your social work goals. How do you see social work research informing our understanding of this challenge and solutions?
Blog Post Rubric
Posts will be due by Friday of the same week they are assigned on Monday. You are expected to respond to your peers posts in a way that enhances our understanding of the subject. Please see the rubric below:
| Criteria | Full Participation Credit | Partial Credit |
|---|---|---|
| Blog Posts | Discussion prompts are answered fully and includes information from the readings, for example: 1. List 1-3 “social worker takeaways” you gained from the reading; or 2. Ask 2 questions you have connecting the reading to social work, or 3. List 1 interesting quote from the reading. | Discussion prompts are sparsely answered with no reference to the readings. |
| Engagement | Over the course of semester, the student has responded to at least 2 other student’s posts. The posts are related to the course texts and discussion content. | Over the course of the semester the student has responded to 1 or fewer student’s posts |
| Response Quality | The student’s responses thoughtfully build upon other’s perspectives and deepen the discussion. The responses include evidence from one of the below categories: 1. The readings 2. Social work practice (internship/work) 3. Professional and self-growth | The student’s responses do not thoughtfully build upon other’s perspectives, nor do they deepen the discussion. The responses do not include evidence from one of the below categories: 1. The readings 2. Social work practice (internship/work) 3. Professional and self-growth |
This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.
One challenge that resonated with me is the “close the health gap” challenge. It amazes me how their is so much involved within the health care system in order for people to be taken care off. Some issues that play a role in health care are race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability status, geography, sexual and gender identity and socioeconomic status. This resonates with my my goals as a social worker because the real question how do we change the mindsets of other to see people for their health issues instead for other identities. A while ago I did research on which race gets less care when it come to health and its stated that people of color dont get the attention they deserve because of their skin color. Not only that, but , they are treated differently. This is something very unfair. I see social work research informing our understanding of this challenge and solution by informing people through statistics how peoples identities whether it race, sex, gender ect , has affected many people in the health care system. The research as well would show possible solutions that can be dont to help people benefit from the health care system just as other do.
Allison I like how you came across on this topic, ” Close the Health Gap” challenge. Also Health Gap and issues is a broad topic that other things resonated. More than 60 million Americans have inadequate access to basic health care. While they endure the effects of poverty and dangerous environment that accelerate higher rates of illness.
Hey Allison, I really agree with what you said about changing the mindsets of other to see people for their health issues instead for other identities. I also think the same thing and I agree that the health system needs to be changed in order to help the individuals that are overlooked.
Hi Allison, I really agree with your idea of closing the health gap. I think everyone should get treated equally in the sense of health issues or something else. Individuals and families of color should get the treatment they need no matter how they identify themselves or their socioeconomic status. I really think the health care system has failed in supporting people of color, people living in poverty, and much more. Due to the stereotypes, they have on these vulnerable populations.
Closing the health gap is a very important issue. Everyone in a society should have the equal opportunity to be as healthy as possible. I believe your issue is especially relevant right now as the Covid-19 Pademic really highlighted issues with the healthcare system. One example of the injustice in the system concerns race as members of minority races are at a higher risk of contracting and dying of covid.
I think your focus on the grand challenge of closing the health gap is way more crucial now than when you posted. With what is happening with the overturning of Roe v. Wade, health care is such an important topic. I really resonate with your goal to change how we look at health care. With this overturning it has become a “religious” issue, with cisgender straight men controlling what a woman can do with her body and encoding it in law. These “pro-life” beliefs do not even follow their own philosophy as they are more concerned with the birth of a child than ensuring the safety of the women and children. Social work research can continue to inform our understanding by looking towards the women in need of abortions who are unable to get them safely.
When I approached Grand Challenge for Social Work I was taught the Grand Challenge to Build Healthy Relationships to End Violence primarily focused on the overlap between child maltreatment and intimate partner violence. This Grand Challenge also recognize that violence extends beyond groups ( gender, race, sex)and, as such is perpetuated by prevailing social norms, structures, and systems. Over the next five years , the network to Build Healthy Relationships to end violence will focus their work to: Scientifically ground the Grand Challenge to inform future research and support other Grand Challenge Goals. In addition, members of the Build Healthy Relationships to End Violence network and their colleagues have secured a $6.5 million grant from The National Institutes of Health to create the Center for innovation in Child Maltreatment Policy, Research and Training (CICM) at Washington University in St. Louis as well as $1 million grant from the National Institute of Justice to study intimate partner violence among youth at the University of Washington.
Hey Jennifer!
I also wrote about how that Grand Challenge really spoke to me. I like that they included child maltreatment in this area, as it is a type of healthy relationship we as Social Workers need to prioritize. I also agree that violence between groups is definitely perpetuated through social stigma, norms, and culture. I enjoyed reading what has occurred over the last five years, as it gave me hope that more productive change is yet to come.
Thanks, I appreciate your feedback and reply !
Last semester I was able to do some research on the importance of ensuring that adoptive and foster care children get the mental health services they need. Now that I have the opportunity to read on the Grand Challenges for Social Work, one that resonated with me and my social work goals is Ensuring Healthy Development for all Youth. Developing and increasing public awareness of the advances and the cost savings of effective preventive interventions which will promote healthy behaviors are so important for all. Mental health conditions can prevent children from reaching their fullest potential. As children grow into adulthood, many adults seeking mental health treatments will reflect on how the mental health issues they dealt with in their childhood impacted their lives and wished they got help sooner. Minorities often suffer from poor mental health outcomes which can be due to multiple factors like not having quality mental health care services available to them. Social Work research plays an important role in ensuring healthy development for all youth because as time goes on, researchers will be able to develop strategies that will help support youth and provide resources that will lead to positive outcomes in adulthood. AASWSW wants to create workforce development strategies to prepare practitioners in health and human service professions for new roles in behavioral health promotion and preventive interventions. I think that puts us one step closer to creating a safe place to talk about tough topics that deserve much attention. I want to shine a light on this topic because many underprivileged youths deserve advocacy for mental health services to ensure healthy development.
Hi Destiny,
I think this is such an important topic, especially in regards to foster/adoptive care. So many children don’t get the care they need, and are often further traumatized in the foster care system. I agree that it’s so important to address mental health issues early and consistently. And with LESS psychotropics medication and more rehabilitative and therapeutic intervention. I’m interested in using nature and animal therapy with children and families from underprivileged communities. Green Chimney’s is a program upstate that uses this model for children with special needs. I would love to see the same model used for children and families involved in the foster care system.
Thanks for bringing this issue to light.
Hey destiny ! I agree with you regarding this concept. I have done my research before on how foster and adoptive kids would be in a better placer once they turned 18 if they would have had better resources for mental health. I as well believe this is crucial to how they turn out when its time for them to leave their fosters of adoptive home. Most kids in the system do realize that they are being mistreated when they are. However, they are never offered the right services to know that it plays a role in their mental health being treated the way they are and its sad to say but as crucial mental health is people don’t just offer the service. I definitely agree with you when you say it is our job to ensure the family and individual gets the help and resources they deserve
Upon reviewing the site, one of the Grand Challenges that really resonated with me and has proven to be a relevant, modern problem, is the “Harness Technology for Social Good”. In this challenge, clinicians and providers see a major accessibility gap in access to the Internet– something that has become vital in 2021. The added stressor of the COVID-19 pandemic has really proven how critical free WiFi is. Countless in-person services, such as therapy, school, or governmental programs (to name a few), were abruptly shut down in 2020 and were then pushed to online platforms, such as Zoom or secure telehealth. This left several vulnerable populations, such as the unhoused, those who fall into lower socioeconomic status, and the elderly, at-risk for losing education, essential services, and mental health access.
Pre-COVID, my internship with STRIVE was a brick & mortar job-readiness program that had to transition to online services and is mainly still operating remotely. A part of the new intake process now is asking “Do you have reliable access to the internet?” to ensure success for the participants, as classes are 8-5 every day for a set number of weeks and there are assignments due on top of that. However, there are plenty of individuals who inquire about obtaining job skills who do not have the privilege of being connected to the Internet. This leaves them excluded and not able to advance their career and/or life goals, which impacts them negatively and isolates them further.
I believe the first solution proposed in “Policy Recommendations for Meeting the Grand Challenge to Harness Technology for Social Good” should essentially be seen as a fundamental right to have. The first solution highlights how there are policies in place to grant Internet ability, but it is severely limiting (such as placing time constraints on the Internet). It proposes to work with Internet broadband providers to “develop programs to assure that underserved populations have reliable and affordable Internet access in their home environments” and how communities must have better “…data systems to monitor their progress on achieving Internet connectivity and digital literacy for all” (Grand Challenges of Social Work). In the recommendation, it further points out how without Internet connectivity, these vulnerable populations are even more at-risk for “falling behind”, thus widening the already alarming service gap they face.
Additionally, and I failed to include this, social work research can aid in making this fundamental access a. actualized reality. Presenting statistics on those who are most affected can be conducted by quantitative community-wide surveys, which can be used to present to policy makers and ISP (Internet Service Providers). These hard and stark results can make waves, resulting in a more connected world for all.
Hi Ashely!
I loved your post. I personally agree that after COVID, the need for technology for all social good has definitely increased. So many individuals struggled with an internet connection, even Professors. We see the benefit of technology in creating programs of awareness, accessibility to therapists and doctors online, information and research, the list goes on. I agree with the paper that it is a fundamental human right and this would help decrease the significant class, economic and social divide in society we see.
I totally agree with your points because personally I know how I struggled with internet connection or even staying on track with school work. When the pandemic first started it was’t really easy transitioning to a remote setting especially for someone that is not comfortable studying.
Hi Ashley,
Yes!! Internet access is one of the immediate needs for all people during the pandemic. As I read your post, I could relate to my personal experience of how I had difficulties with accessibility to the internet during the pandemic. In 2020, I did not have reliable internet access while all my classes and internship were online. The lack of internet access affected my academic performance. I was not able to finish my assignments, get online homework help, and connect with the professors. When I thought about my situation, I could also relate to students who are from low-income families and who live in rural areas. I believe this vulnerable population has a hard time accessing financial, food supports, education, and needed health and behavioral health services. Also, the digital realm has become a necessary space for conducting every day for people to meet their basic needs because all the entitlements like Food Stamps, Public Assistance, Unemployment Insurance applications are processed online. The digital realm assists to ensure family members, friends, and colleagues can sustain professional and social connections from a distance. As social workers, this is one of the basic needs that we must prioritize and advocate for those who can not access the reliable internet.
Ensuring healthy development for youth involves getting the public to understand that an emotionally, mentally, or physically unhealthy childhood will lead to an unhealthy adulthood. Children with behavioral health problems who receive assistance early on will have better tools to be able to handle those issues as adults, being better able to handle stress. Social work research can inform our understanding of this challenges, as well as provide solutions to this challenge by observing the results of behavioral health problems and potential treatments in the long term. This is, of course, one potential means of informing solutions and challenges, and is a long-term option, but it can provide concrete evidence that indicates what treatments work best for behavioral health issues, as well as prove that adults who receive treatment early in their lives for behavioral health issues will have better adulthoods than those who do not receive treatment and are expected to handle their issues on their own.
Ending homelessness is a challenge that seems as though it will require a major restructuring of systems within the United States to achieve, particularly considering current concerns as they relate to potential evictions and homelessness brought on from job loss caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the major issues caused by it. There needs to be an increase in the amount of affordable housing that is available to people, as rent and mortgage costs rise at levels that are disproportionate to the levels of inflation and are often unaffordable to people with minimum wage jobs. Social work research will prove the importance of providing housing for everyone as people who are given housing options are able to integrate themselves into society and better their lives. Being given access to housing will help people to enhance their lives, and the evidence of this can be used to obtain additional funds to create more affordable housing until eventually homelessness is no longer an issue in the United States. While this is a ways off, it is something that can realistically be done.
1. Would childhood behavioral health issues be easier to fix if the stigma against mental health issues ended in the United States?
2. Likewise, would providing housing for homeless people be easier if mental health issues were understood better within American society?
“The Grand Challenge to End Homelessness boldly aspires to ensure that everyone has stable housing in the United States, where approximately 1.5 million people are homeless each year.”
The sheer amount of homelessness in the United States is staggering.
Osasu,
Unfortunately, many children lack the resources needed to effectively deal with their behavioral health. This is one grand challenge I hope to be able to make a difference in one day because it is so important that we help children get the help they need while they are young so that they can effectively grow into adulthood.
I also found the grand challenge of ensuring that children have healthy development to be extremely relevant, as my agency works with youth with a focus on providing support systems to help them reach their full potential. The organization offers many services like mentorship, music production, yoga, and tutoring as positive alternatives with the goal of keeping these children in school and out of prison.
Individuals with Learning/Developmental Differ-abilities make up about 10% of the population of children in the United States (Johnson, 2017, p. 32). Despite the large amount of people that make up this population, these individuals are often stigmatized, with many families leaving them out of decision-making (Mitchell, 2012, p. 1561). With this information, I want to aid the Grand Challenges of “Advancing long and Productive lives” and “Achieving equal opportunity and justice”. by developing an organization with an after-school like program where these individuals (starting at a young age) will be introduced to a myriad of different skills such as baking and money management, etc. Once these individuals age up they will be able to pick their “major” and attend more advanced classes following the subject until they eventually graduate from this program where they will then receive assistance in job searching based on the skills they learned. My hope is that in the future, these individuals will feel more comfortable in transitioning out of highschool.
My idea also tackles the grand challenge of “Achieving equal opportunity and justice” by challenging the stigma that comes with having a learning/developmental differ-ability. The goal of this organization is to work with individuals and families to make the transition into a more independent lifestyle, easier to manage. My hope is that through this program, individuals will be able to show their truest learning potential and deconstruct the stigma brought about them.
Social Work research can majorly impact these grand challenges by giving people with these differ-abilities a stronger voice. This can be done by using a mixture of both qualitative and quantitative research. Qualitative research can investigate the needs of these individuals and their families to structure different programs within an organization. Additionally, qualitative research can show us how the current support systems in place are impacting their lives and give avenues to further update these systems. Quantitative research can show how urgent these needs are as well as allows us to see how programs and support systems are helping individuals in a more mezzo scale.
Johnson, B. (2017). Learning Disabilities in Children: Epidemiology, Risk Factors and Importance of Early Intervention. BMH Medical Journal – ISSN 2348–392X, 4(1), 31-37. Retrieved from https://www.babymhospital.org/BMH_MJ/index.php/BMHMJ/article/view/120
Mitchell W. (2012). Parents’ accounts: Factors considered when deciding how far to involve their son/daughter with learning disabilities in choice-making, Children and Youth Services Review, 34 (8), Pages 1560-1569, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2012.04.009.
Of the grand challenges for social work, building healthy relationships to end violence stands out particularly to me. In the future I hope to work with families in which violence has been a factor in their separation. As the brief on this issue explains, it is necessary to, “Increase support for evidence-based intervention and prevention programs to reduce the structural inequalities that perpetuate interpersonal violence across the lifespan.”
I believe that parents should be given the tools they need in order to raise their families successfully and they should have opportunities to be a part of their children’s lives. Greater funding and resources should be directed towards helping families learn to build strong bonds and helping parents find stability. There is no excuse for domestic violence, but many abusive partners can be remediated and often need a social worker themselves. There are many layers to domestic violence. Often times simply removing an abusive family member does not solve all of the families problems, and often leaves a large hole in the family unit. Finding ways to help families cope with the compounding pressures of life can be invaluable to children and teens.
Social work research is important in helping us understand the cultural fabric of the communities we serve. It’s important to recognize the dominant ideologies within individual communities. It’s equally important to use a critical paradigm to reflect on the the structural inequalities that compound against service users.
Social work research would be helpful in analyzing the types of prevention and intervention services available to families with instances of domestic violence. Helping us better understand in which communities therapeutic intervention would be more effective, and which need better access to job skill training or substance abuse treatment centers.
Hi Heidi,
I agree with you when you indicate that parents should be given the tools they need in order to raise their families. Parents are not given a handbook to treat kids. I believe that even though no one is taught how to take care of kids resources should be given out to families of violence. I say families because like you mentioned there is always a hole let behind when the whole family behind the abuser. Not only does the abuser need help but the family as well.
Grand Challenges For Social Work Reflection
After reviewing the website, the Grand Challenges that stuck out to me were “Build healthy relationships to end violence” as I have always wanted to be an advocate for women, children, and families who are often vulnerable populations to interpersonal violence and domestic abuse. Last year, I worked with my SW advisor and Mt. Sinai’s SAVI program and RAINN, an online sexual assault and abuse victim hotline. The Grand Challenge website highlighted the deep effects and impact violence can have on an individual. I want to also dedicate my work to helping families and partners be united, and to foster healthy relationships. Something that was very important to me was how this work emphasizes how violence can create an unsafe environment for children and deeply affect them, and I personally want to work on intervening in early childhood trauma. The research spoke about creating more trauma-informed service delivery models to reduce violence by 10%. The research showed me the five-year impact showed me the paper publications, initiatives they engaged in, evaluated, directed, and contributed to. It shows a lot of great work is being done and I am excited to join them as a Social Worker dedicated to building and fostering healthy relationships between all people.
Another Grand Challenge that stuck out to me was the “Achieve equal opportunity and justice” as I think this also works with eliminating racism and even helps build healthy relationships. With date supporting the School to Prison Pipeline, we see that many Black students are disproportionately punished in the education system which can isolate and alienate them from their peers, their educators, and the school system as a whole. The research in the paper titled “Increasing Success for African American Children and Youth” also discussed the low graduation rates of African American students. I personally want to work on education reform and “Effective Education” to create equal and equitable opportunities for all students. The paper called for the “a need for innovative strategies involving advocacy for reform in traditional school discipline practices” (16), which I think incorporating Critical Race Theory in the DOE school’s curriculum can help bring awareness and hopefully create positive change. The research I read about discussed reversing the economic segregation of neighborhoods which largely contributes to the school’s funding and resources, and unfair school comparisons. I also read about systemic racism and the lack of opportunities for immigrants and individuals from the Latinx community, which goes along with needing to create fair job opportunities for all and reducing stigma of all communities.
Hi Zaineb!
I applaud your social work dedication and the direction you are going down with your practice. Children (and their future selves) are deeply impacted by their immediate family and surroundings, especially in their early formative years. This Grand Challenge to foster healthy relationships is essential to helping children grow up safely and into healthy adults. Early intervention is crucial in minimizing further trauma. This reminds me of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) that we learned about last year in Human Behavior. Not only can early childhood trauma affect the individual emotionally & psychologically, it can even impact their physical health down the line, putting them at risk for heart attacks and diabetes. This tangible impact makes the “Build Healthy Relationships to End Violence” can also be seen as correlating into one of the other Grand Challenges, which is “Closing the Health Gap”. I really enjoyed reading your post and can tell you are truly passionate about the field!
Zaineb,
I appreciate your dedication and passion for work related to violence and domestic abuse in families. I think that creating healthy relationships within families is a critical first step to consider when you are working on a clinical level. I also have an interest in trauma related work, and I think that connection to domestic abuse is very important and needs great advocates like you! Your passion for this subject is inspiring. I also liked your inclusion regarding equal opportunity and justice. This is definitely a critical aspect in social work practice, and I think that this challenge can be linked with every other challenge listed, and can influence an individual’s ability to access resources that will support them.
Closing the Health Gap is one of Grand Challenges for Social Work, listed under the subsection of individual and family well-being. This Grand Challenge is one that immediately resonated with me as a relevant issue pertaining to my interests in the social work field. As someone interested in working with populations such as the mentally ill and substance dependent, equitably access to health care and social support services is of high importance to me. Presently, I work with this population in a non-clinical capacity, taking on the role of peer-supporter and interventionist. On a regular basis, I find myself frustrated while navigating the current health care system in an effort to advocate for client services. The lack of awareness around social determinants within healthcare, add unnecessary obstacles to those seeking treatment. Until these social determinants are taken into account during the evaluative process, many individuals with continue to receive sub-par care in the best-case scenario, or none at all in the worst case.
The societal goal described in the Grand Challenges briefing on Closing the Gap is ideal. The goal states a “socially-oriented” healthcare model, focused on prevention and eradication of causal systemic issues contributing to inequitable care. My initial reaction to this solution, and the subsequent 10-year action plan to actualize this goal, is optimism. However, my secondary reaction is a bit more pragmatic. Viewing this Grand Challenge from all of the different vantage points leads me to the conclusion that in order to actualize this ideal goal, more than one Grand Challenge would need to be addressed. First and foremost, in order to have true equitable healthcare for all, we would have to eliminate racism. In addition, reduction of extreme economic inequality, healthy development for youth and creating social responses to a changing environment, could all be argued to be Grand Challenges that contribute to moving the needle towards closing the gap.
I think research could be helpful in Closing the Gap, by designing research studies that exemplify the most impactful social determinates that stagnate progress towards achieving the stated goal. Using this research to inform policy proposals would be incredibly beneficial on a macro level. On a mezzo level, using research on social determinates could be incredibly helpful in informing treatment programs, as well as effective outreach tactics. Lastly, I think more data on the efficacy of policy practices that incorporate forward motion on co-morbid Grand Challenges would be beneficial to the social work community. This research could provide relevant information for professionals on we could expedite our respective forward motion by simultaneously working on these challenges together.
Hi Genna! I enjoyed reading your take on the grand challenge of closing the health gap. You brought up a great point that other factors or grand. challenges would have to be addressed before we as a country can provide equitable health care. I also loved your point about the necessity of creating policies that incorporate comorbidity. I feel like there are labels placed on people that speak about their overlapping issues instead of being taken seriously or are blamed for their state. Research can definitely expedite the progress if grand challenges were simultaneously developed.
When it comes to the Grand Challenges for social work, the one that stood out to me the most was “close the health gap”. The fact that many americas do not have access to health care is concerning. I am so glad that they are working to rebuild health care inability to address inequality in access to health care. Among, race, ethnicity, gender, age, disability status, geography, sexual and gender identity, and socioeconomic status. This topic resonated with me because these are the issues in which, I want to work with in order to make things like health care more accessible to others. I feel that with research we will truly be able to put numbers to these issues and find out where we should start and what kind of programs would need to be put in place to help.
Hi Shanice,
I like how you bringing attention to many American does not have access to health are a concern. One way people did not get access to health care is that there was no one there to help them. Another way is that the health care system has failed them. I am saying this is because the health care system did not prioritize the population because of their identity and status. I also like your approach to doing research and using numbers to reveal the truth where more people come out and help these vulnerable communities.
One Grand Challenge that resonated with me is “Build Healthy Relationships to End Violence” because I want to help children and families who experience physical or emotional abuse. Recently, I attended a meeting was hosted by the University Settlement non-profit organization. The organization focuses on helping children and families who struggle with mental abuse, physical abuse, and lack of resources. In the meeting, I learned possible warning signs and symptoms of violence. I am thinking about what steps I should take to ensure children and family safety. The website has called out attention to how violence can impact children and families negatively throughout their lives. At the same time, I want to help families and their children be united, where the situation can resolve by providing service to help children and families throughout the process. The Grand Challenges website has presented what they contributed in the past five years. They have shown how impactful it can be by providing services in a community to help bring back healthy relationships and end violence.
As I read the Grand Challenges of Social Work, one of the challenges that stood out to me was “End Homelessness”. Homelessness is one of the major problems in America. Grand Challenges aims to ensure that everyone has stable housing although approximately 1.5 million people are homeless each year. Even in 2020, during the pandemic-induced recession, Grand Challenges still protected tenants from the removal from where they live. Grand Challenges’ network members and colleagues have also advocated for Maryland’s Ending Youth Homelessness Act, which brings a grand program to fund housing and supportive services for youth who are at a high risk of homelessness. They have further written and published a series of essays on possible solutions to homelessness to get attention to those 2020 candidates.
According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, approximately 7.2 million affordable housing units are needed for low-income families and 75% of all low-income families pay more than half of their income on rent. Ultimately, these low-income families experience a severe housing cost burden which contributes to homelessness, mental instability, addiction, lack of an adequate income, proper education for their children, and lack of affordable housing. According to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, shelter is a “fundamental physiological need that must be met in order for an individual to attain higher-level needs” (1943). As social workers, homelessness is one of the crises that we have to deal with to be able to attain higher-level needs, such as a job. There are many ways to reduce homelessness, such as by providing housing and service programs like emergency shelters, transitional housing, and permanent supportive housing. Also, we need to limit rents with a reasonable price for low-income individuals and families, have more funding for public housing, and build more affordable housing instead of luxury buildings.
I’m super happy to see someone selected this challenge to highlight. I think a lot more research can and should be done to help battle this challenge. I think too many policies were made and implemented by persons whom may not have experienced homelessness and this created a bigger issue as perspectives are different and policy makers cannot always understand the struggles of service users struggling to find housing. Again, its those in power creating a narrative for those in need of assistance.
From experience, I’ve had situations where agencies placed me in housing that was unsafe for a queer person. Like many others, I chose to remain unhoused at that time because I felt safer on the streets than where I was being sent. Similarly, I turned down supportive housing because it came with rules. Not that I don’t like rules, but the rules were archaic and controlling to an extent. Some programs come with curfews. As a full-time student who was also employed full-time, I either worked late or took late evening classes which meant I would be penalized for not following curfew.
While some understood my reason for not accepting housing, some bolding said i was stupid for not taking it when many others would be happy to get a place to stay.
Also I’d like to note the connection to another grand challenge; “Building financial capability and assets formal”. Nearly half of all American households are financially insecure, without adequate savings to meet basic living expenses for three months. If individuals and families are unable to support their needs and expenses, this can lead to possible rent arrears especially now as many face unemployment as the pandemic ravages the nation. This then leads to eviction and hence homelessness.
Finally, as someone who has struggled with homelessness in the past, I can say that its more than just not having a physical place over your head. Some seem to think that giving someone a roof over their head will end this grand challenge but it’s far from that. Being housed is about location, safety, access to services etc. Also, after being housed, persons need access to jobs and financial support to help remain housed. These types of services need to become more common in a way to close the reoccurring cycle of being unhoused.
Out of all the grand challenges for social work, building healthy relationships to end violence stood out particularly to me. In the future I hope to work with families that have been separated due to some form of violence. It is necessary to, “Increase support for evidence-based intervention and prevention programs to reduce the structural inequalities that perpetuate interpersonal violence across the lifespan.”
I believe that parents should be given tools that they need in order to raise their families successfully. They should also have the opportunity to be a part of their kid’s lives because they matter. We should increase funding and also resources should be directed at helping parents learn to build bonds with their kid’s and also helping them find the stability that they need. Finding ways to help families cope with the compounding pressures of life can be invaluable to children and teens.
Social work research is important in helping us understand the cultural fabric of the communities we serve. It’s important to recognize the dominant ideologies within individual communities. It’s also important to use a critical paradigm to reflect on the the structural inequalities that compound against service users. Social work research would be helpful in analyzing the types of prevention and intervention services available to families with instances of violence. It would be helping us to better understand in which communities would therapeutic intervention be more effective, and which one would need better access to job skill training or substance abuse treatment centers.
After reviewing the Grand Challenges for Social Work, I feel as if I connected with one specific challenge listed, “ensure healthy development for youth.” I have a passion for child welfare, and also an interest in learning more about mental health, and the psychology regarding mental disorders among children. I have extensive personal experience regarding this topic of mental disorders, and would like to learn nature vs. nurture on a deeper level. Although genetics plays a role in the development of disorders, I would like to learn more about what is not inevitable, so that I can have a better understanding of how to be an adequate source of support and a tool in the prevention process. While reading the brief summary about this challenge, I noticed that it is mentioned that strong evidence shows us how to prevent these mental, emotional or behavioral problems early on that may gradually worsen in children’s lives. I am interested in this power of prevention that is discussed in the Grand Challenges for Social Work, and it makes me eager to learn and research more about this relevant challenge so that I can know how to help to the best of my ability. By social work research, we can learn more about causes and contributions to any unhealthy habits that may disrupt the development for youth, and what may prevent them from becoming successful and healthy adults. This research will inform us to aid in the prevention process, and also teach us to be a sufficient influence for youth to create this healthy development in all aspects of their lives.
While reading through the Grand Challenges for Social Work the challenge that resonated the most with me was Ending Homelessness. This is because one of my goals in my future career as a social worker is to work on a housing policy that would promote child welfare. In the past, I have researched the ways children are harmed by housing polices: criminal background checks keep families from living together or lead exposure leads to long-term health issues. The website stated that the challenge of ending homelessness is to expand on proven approaches, develop new service innovations and technologies, and adopt policies that promote affordable housing and basic income security. Housing is just not a social work issue and it can be addressed at a micro/meso/macro level. Social workers could aid in this challenge by researching the ways in which families and children are effected by the current housing policies, form an understanding of the needs for unique populations (children, single men, LGBTQ youth, disabled adults) and work in conjunction with housing authorities, housing developers, and communities to create just housing.
Julia,
Thank you for sharing and voicing concern about this topic. I agree that housing is not just a social work issue but expands to micro/macro/mezzo. From my personal experience/social work practice I can also agree that children are deeply harmed by housing policies. I work with youth in a group home, in foster care/ housing and during my time here I quickly learned that no one is fighting for these kids, the system is holding them down and they continue in a never ending loop in foster care leading to long term health ad mental health issues. It concerns me, one of my tasks as a staff is to conduct AWOC reports (Away without consent) and this is needed when a resident goes missing for 24 hours. When I fill out a missing persons report and call the police as soon as they hear they reside in a group home they stop caring and take hours (sometimes up to a day) to collect the report and conduct an investigation. I believe research can help provide evidence needed for this population to receive funding and housing policy reforms. You mentioned you would like to work in housing in the future, I wonder what your thoughts are on this?
Two challenges that resonated with me were ensuring healthy development for youth and building healthy relationships to end violence. Ensuring healthy development for youth involve addressing mental, behavioral, and emotional problems before they emerge. Building healthy relationships to end violence deals with reducing violence and strengthening our mental health, physical health, as well as our communities. I feel like these two challenges are very related to each other as violence has a traumatic impact on people and can impact us throughout our life course especially if they are unaddressed which is common. This trauma can create mental, behavioral, and emotional problems which can damage youth’s ability to become healthy and productive adults. Social work research can play a role in our understanding of this issue and possible solutions by providing the data to raise awareness for these challenges as well as showing the effectiveness of the programs being used to prevent violence or treat these health problems.
I took an interest in these two challenges because they are what my internship is trying to address. I am placed at Life Camp Ince and they are a frontline gun violence prevention and intervention team that aims to communities safer. Life Camp provides programs and services to youth and families that were impacted by gun violence to stay in school and out of the criminal justice system. These programs reinforce self-esteem and respect for life to help prevent violence and heal people heal from violence.
Trigger warning: sexual abuse
The first grand challenge that stuck out to me was “Build Healthy Relationships That End Violence”. I spoke to a social worker recently who just graduated their MSW program. She is now involved in a program that works with sexual offenders. Her work involves providing therapy sessions to people who have been convicted of sexual violence. As a survivor myself, I was immediately conflicted with my feelings about this but after speaking with her I realized how vital this service is as it helps prevent recidivism. She explained that so many of these offenders have been violated themselves. I learned a lot during this conversation and I think it’s a good example of how building healthy relationships can help end violence. She informed me that most sex offenders identify has male, I have not done my own research on these numbers. However, if this is true, research should be done on whether or not men are being raised to be able to build healthy relationships. I think research is key to examining how to prevent inter-personal violence.
Trigger warning over
The other grand challenge that resonated with me is “End Homelessness”. I believe housing is a human right and there is no excuse to not be able to house everyone. What is lacking is the political will to address this problem. I think research should be aimed at community organizing to generate collective demands for housing for all. I also think research aimed at preventing homelessness would be helpful to know what services to provide to families and individuals who are at risk for losing their housing.
Hi Caitlyn,
I really like your honesty in your post. I’m sorry to hear you were victimized in this way. It says a lot that you can engage in this topic in a thoughtful manner and find new ways of approaching it. I agree that it’s hard at first to imagine working with offenders. It seems unfair in a way to focus of them rather than on the victims but you seemed to touch on the real challenge. To stop the cycle of abuse and assault you need heal people. Offenders were victims first and until we can help them heal, more victims will be created.
It’s similar to what I was reading in Heidi’s post about working with abusers. She was saying how just taking abusers out of the home doesn’t solve much. It may relieve the current crisis but without more follow up and healing of both the abuser and the abused there is a distinct chance that the cycle will only multiple. The abused will most likely find another abusive relationship if they aren’t healed and the abuser will also mostly recreate an abusive situation in their next relationship if the root causes aren’t addressed and healed. So often its the hardest work that is the most vital.
When I first started reading these challenges I had a sort of cynical initial response. It all seemed very high minded and great sounding but unachievable and maybe a little preaching to the choir, mainly just other social workers. I often find the ideals laudable but struggle with how to actualize the big ideas. I alway long for actionable steps.
But as I read it through I got the sense that it was a really good project. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed by the work and all the intersecting needs, disparities and challenges. I started to see smart people laying out a really clear, thoughtful roadmap. I felt they were realistic in that it would take time to implement change and a commitment. It wasn’t just a grand gesture but a grand plan that was trying to be realistic in what it was going to take to transform these big, societal needs.
The one challenge that really stood out to me was there simple title; End Homelessness. I felt that there is finally a renewed energy and urgency to address this issue all over the country. It has gotten so bad in so many places that it can’t be ignored any longer, mainly cause it’s impacting the quality of everyone’s lives now, not just the disadvantaged.
The four points were thoughtful, urgent, and were based on experience. The one I most resonated with was #2-“Shift funds form transitional emergency programs to lasting solutions such as rental vouchers and permanent supportive housing for those with disabilities. So much of our current system of emergency housing is corrupt and is making rich landlords richer while keeping homeless and marginally housed folks in a constant state of crisis and instability. Just getting folks off the streets isn’t enough. We need to build stability for the homeless and for communities.
By building these well researched ideas into the fabric of our work and our policies is really how sustainable change is going to happen. We can’t let the media soundbite and appearance of change and action be enough.
After going over the Grand Challenges of social work, one that resonated with me is “End Homelessness”. I have always been interested in helping the homeless ever since middle school. I often attend midnight runs, volunteer at soup kitchens, and have packed hundreds of bags of food, drinks, and hygiene necessities to hand out with a little note of happiness. Homelessness has severe, long lasting negative effects on the health and well being of those experiencing it. “During the course of a year, nearly 1.5 million Americans experience homelessness for at least one night.” This statistic makes me feel pain for those affected, however it pushes me to do everything in my power to help. As a social worker, one of my goals/passions is to work at the community level to help those affected gain access to affordable housing and subsidies that go with. I do believe that social work research would help inform my practice and understanding behind the deeper root of this problem as integrating data from schools, healthcare institutions, and sources around the community would help show the interconnectedness and risks that come with homelessness.
Hello Chloe,
I can relate with you a lot in terms of the Grand Challenge ”End Homeless”. I really feel very sad when I saw a lot of homeless people in the streets. When I was pursuing my associates degree, we went to an event to give out food and supplies to homeless. The way I felt that day, I was just speechless. I even cried when I went home and told my best friend how this experience was. I just felt that there’s no need to not help as many homeless as we can if we can find the resources. The excuse certain people use is that ”homeless are drug consumers” which I think it’s really unfair because even if some of them do, they deserve a better life and to get help from someone. They face many health and mental issues which if we help them, I am sure there would not be homeless in the streets.
The ‘Grand Challenge’ that I read on was ‘Reversing Extreme Inequality’ due to the fact that I really do not know much about the economy, related policies, and the reason for such wealth and income disparity in the United States. This reading has deepened my understanding of how gender, race, and accessibility to work (be it remote or in person) deeply affects the gaping inequality in this country. A particularly interesting quote from the reading gave me a clear sense of exactly how capitalism has a hand in the gap. The authors wrote “Both older research and more recent work in economics show that the nature of capital is to concentrate; unless intervention prevents it, owners of capital will accrue a greater and greater share of a society’s production over time” and this highlights the excessive nature of this type of economy. The top 1% owns more than half of the wealth in the nation, capturing 55% of the income growth. In the past two decades, business owners are gaining a higher and higher income, while half of americans have seen a minimal (if at all) increase in wages. I’m not necessarily talking about moms and pops, im talking about people like Jeff Bezos or the CEO of Walmart. There are incentives for property owners and people with retirement savings such as tax deductions. There are incentives for middle and high earning parents like tax credits via the Child and Dependent Care Credit, that slightly offsets the cost of childcare. There are endless examples of how there are policies in place to help those that are well off, keeping them at the top. This makes it clear that the government isn’t too keen on helping the 80% of people at the bottom of the economies wealth. If that doesn’t highlight the excessive nature of capitalism, I don’t know what does.
There are more issues I learned about, of course. Many people at the bottom of the economic ladder have actually seen a decrease in wages in this country. This is due to the increase in cost of living. The median net worth of white families is 10% to 20% higher than the median net worth of Hispanic and African American households. Much of this is due to generational wealth and the rampantt racism in this nation. In addition, people living in poverty or who are low income do not have the same access to child care as higher income households and wealthy families do. This puts mothers and single parents in quite the predicament. How can a person work if they do not have access to good quality care for their child, or if the simply cannot afford it. I highlight that this affects mothers more. do the th wage gap between men and women. During the pandemic we saw the sacrifice that women across the nation had to make to care for their children while schooling was remote. This left many people unable to afford essentials like housing, food, clothing, and an increasing essential in the information age, wifi. This disrupted and continues to negatively impact children’s education and health. In my internship at a high school, I have seen the effects of this disparity within children first hand, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many families cannot afford wifi and electronics for their children to attend school virtually. School funding was low, but managed to provide support to families by providing routers and laptops. Many schools are not as fortunate to help as much of the student population.
I think the plans that social workers, policy makers, researchers and practitioners have in place to aid this grand challenge in the next decade is essential to reducing and reversing wealth and income inequality. Particularly, the plans to expand child care opportunities to low income families and stabilizing hours for workers by creating a set minimum hours a person can work, varying by careers and jobs. It has happened to me where I have been sent home in past jobs because it was not busy that day. The research that has been presented in this reading has been essential to expose the cracks within our government. Research shall continue to be essential to overturn policies implemented to maintain and/or widen the economic inequality. Through policy change based on this research is the only way to build a better government that serves the needs of all, not to continue to accommodate those that are already comfortable.
The Grand Challenges Impact Report was insightful to read. Seeing such pressing social issues highlighted through a scientific lens was both educational and motivating. One of the challenges identified in the report that resonated with me in particular is “Ensuring Healthy Development for Youth.”
The Grand Challenge of Ensuring Healthy Development for Youth directly reflects my social work goals due to the nature of the conflict itself. I am passionate about youth development and it is the reason I returned to school. In my current placement I am learning new ways to achieve these goals; many of which I have not been previously exposed to. The report reflects this work, and urges that “behavioral health problems in childhood and adolescence often have lifelong repercussions on physical, emotional, and financial well-being.” The majority of the work that I have participated in recognizes this fact, and works to rehabilitate many conditions which influence it. While I have witnessed great progress through such forms of intervention, there is a piece missing that is not often acknowledged. Clinical support is often provided in response to difficult situations experienced by clients. Due to this, preventative services are not always the norm. I appreciated that the report made me consider preventative strategies, and offered many methods of implementation. The reminder that prevention is just as (if not more) significant as aftercare is a huge takeaway that I gained from the reading. Routine behavioral and mental health assessments are vastly overlooked throughout American society. Seeing advocates fight for change is inspiring. In addition to this, I was impressed that the coalition is actively doing policy work to accomplish change. If integrative services are introduced on a macro level, preventative action will become more prominent within the lives of youth.
Two of the Grand Challenges that resonate with me and my social work goals are the following: ‘’Eliminate racism’’ and ‘’Ensure healthy development for youth’’. For ‘’eliminate racism’’, there’s still a lot of changes that need to be made. There has always been racism in the world, which never ended even though many people think it ended when “slavery” was over, which didn’t really either ended. From a person who has Black descent, I understand the struggles we go through. As a social worker, I would like to focus on undocumented and immigrant students since I know the issues we face when coming to a country who’s not “ours”. This is one of my goals when perusing my career as a social worker once I graduate. I would like to focus on eliminating racism because this should’ve ended long ago when slavery “ended”. Unfortunately, racism brings many mental issues for those who experience it. Racism prevents many people to pursue their dreams because they feel left out and their value goes down. From my own experience, this is something that stopped me from accomplishing many things when I came to this country, but then I realized that I shouldn’t let this to affect my future. This is why I would like to focus on people of color because I understand and have felt the way they feel when experiencing racism. In the other hand, the other challenge that resonate with me and my social work goal is “ensure healthy development for youth”. This is something that definitely goes with my goal because as a young lady who has gone through many hard situations in my life, I know the effect that can make health problems. Youth need treatment for all of this and we should focus on this because the issues that we go through being so young and not understanding certain things about life, it can make our lives harder. There are many ways in which we can help the youth community so that we prevent or reduce racial and socioeconomic disparities. As social workers, there are many ways in which we can help reduce these challenges through research. Research help us to inform or misinform the correct information we need in order to improve our community understanding of certain challenges we face nowadays. That’s why it’s really important to do research when trying to show certain examples about how we can improve our society.
“The Grand Challenges for Social Work” steps are interesting in addressing how social work can better heal broken systems and heal violence in relationships. The challenges include systemic injustices –– “Just Society”— in addition to more micro-level challenges that are taken to the larger macro level: “Individual and Family Relationships.” I found ‘building healthy relationships to end violence’ within this section to be a challenge I would like to prioritize in my personal social work practice. When thinking about “Grand” steps to be taken to heal social fabrics, I find it overwhelming especially in terms of research to attempt to think about all of these steps at once. I know that in my limited amount of time working and reserve of energy, it is important for me to focus on a Challenge I understand and would be able to
^work on. This is why building healthy relationships to end violence speaks to me as someone interested in working with queer and trans folks, as relationships are a really important part of queerphobia and conversely in community-building.
A take-away I learned from the reading on this section was the focus on three different categories: resources for individuals, especially children at risk; support in terms of healthy relationship building; trauma-informed service as well as service to care for trauma. These are important ways of thinking about how to best address and better support healthy relationships in a community. In terms of gender-based violence, I wonder:
-how trauma-informed services can come to include different times of trauma from oppressive behavior such as racial trauma, heterosexist and misogynist violence, etc.?
-how can I strengthen communities’ preexisting healthy relationships so they are stronger and healthier? Many communities, even if they are communities are seperated into distinct families even though they are part of a whole.
One of the challenges that resonate with me is building financial capability and assets for all. My choice is informed by life experiences I have encountered due to financial inequity in the U.S. As an African American immigrant male living in New York City, I have struggled to attain financial stability and save money for my future. I find myself living from paycheck to the next in most cases due to the considerable expenses I must meet, with minimal savings. I struggle to pay for my tuition fee, housing, and other essential overheads.
These compounded problems have been integral in informing my social work goals. I have realized that income wealth inequity, compounded by the financialization of everyday life, has increased financial vulnerability among minority groups residing in the U.S (Birkenmaier et al. 6). As a future social worker, my goal is to engage like-minded institutions and individuals in devising ways to assist the economically vulnerable population residing in the U.S. I aspire to help this vulnerable population build their financial ability and accrue assets to sustain their wellbeing.
I believe social work research will be integral in understanding the challenges and solutions regarding building financial capability and assets for all. Research into the issue will provide adequate statistics concerning the adversely affected population. With these statistics, social service organizations can plan their resources in terms of social workers’ recruitment and materials necessary to assist the affected communities (Huang et al.). In the same vein, social work research will aid in identifying key areas where the minority populations are affected financially. Social work organizations can advocate for changes with these statistics, including lobbying for wage increment for the vulnerable population.
Works Cited
Birkenmaier, Julie, et al. “The role of social work in financial capability: Shaping curricular approaches.” Financial capability and asset development. Oxford University Press, 2013.
Huang, Jin, et al. “Policy recommendations for meeting the grand challenge to build financial capability and assets for all.” (2017).
Dear community,
Thank you to all who contributed to our class blog. I enjoyed reading about your passions and plans to address the grand challenges that our profession is committed to improving through research, policy, and practice. As we move forward in this course, it will be helpful to continue thinking about these challenges and how you might craft a research study to build evidence in the service of our collective liberation from housing precarity, interpersonal violence, health disparities, and economic insecurity among other injustices. Keeping the grand challenges in heart and mind will help us stay focused on building knowledge – in solidarity – with the goal of dismantling our nation’s toughest social problems.
A few general patterns emerged from your collective posts that I would like to highlight. First, many of you acknowledged the interconnectedness of these social problems and the myriad ways that they coalesce through each other. For example, we cannot abolish homelessness without building financial capital and reducing economic inequality. Furthermore, interventions that support healthy youth development may also support long and healthy lives. Social workers need to apply a critical perspective that is attentive to the intersectional nature of these challenges and develop intersectional activisms – supported by both qualitative and quantitative research – that combat them. This also requires an understanding that our lives (and the lives of our clients and communities) are always entangled with power structures that lead to inequities and disparities among people.
I want to encourage you all to be critical consumers of this information and to feel comfortable challenging its authority. Where are the gaps in these grand challenges? What is missing or overlooked? Where are the points of tension? How does hegemony seep in? For example, the challenge “build healthy relationships to end violence” oftentimes focused on children and families without given adequate attention to chosen families comprised of people who are not biologically nor legally related. We need to make explicit an expansive definition of “family” inclusive of queer kinships in our work in this area. Also, what about elder abuse? According to the National Council on Aging (2021) approximately one in ten older Americans are abused each year. Elder abuse is often invisible and silent and is inadequately addressed. How might we raise the visibility of elder abuse within our profession and develop interventions to abolish it?
With gratitude for you and your ideas,
Austin
Reference
National Council on Aging. (2021). Get the facts on elder abuse. https://www.ncoa.org/article/get-the-facts-on-elder-abuse
The Grand Challenge that resonated with me the most was “Ensure Healthy Development for Youth.” I truly believe research could contribute in the preventative work for behavioral health in young and adolescent people. The specific point that stuck out to me the most in this grand challenge was increasing public awareness. It made me want to think of ways we could engage parents, caretakers, siblings, and children on behavioral health and child development. Television comes to mind and like I said in Blog 1, my goal is to provide research for children’s television shows. I think it’s important to look at children with patience and compassion. This grand challenge also believes in creating workforce development strategies. I think proper training in childcare is necessary for healthy behavioral development; there needs to be a more uniform way of looking at children and working with them instead of care takers projecting their own beliefs onto a child. And finally, developing a data system would be a great resource to have for those in childcare service to have to support claims, teaching techniques, debunk discipline styles, and to ultimately look at what works. I support this grand challenge because I believe in healthier and happier humans.
HI Marie you have very good ideas and plans ahead. The Grand Challenge “Ensure Healthy Development for Youth.” , also may focus on research about children with disabilities . The feelings , frustration or behavior these children are perceived. Sometimes children with speech delays may feel hopeless because of the frustration that they are not capable to express their feelings .
As I read the “Grand Challenges of Social Work” I deeply resonated with the issue, extreme inequality. An interesting section I pulled out was “Extreme economic inequality has become a common characteristic of American society. The top 1% owns nearly half of the total wealth in the U.S, while one in five children live in poverty. “ This quote stuck with me because I believe America should care about income inequality because it threatens the building blocks of this nation. If we don’t solve income inequality our equal opportunity will be endangered along with our economy and our democracy. One thing important this section mentions is to reduce the role of income and wealth in the education system on the primary, secondary, and postsecondary education levels. For too many Americans, high-quality education is unaffordable and unattainable. Every High-quality education should be available to all, from elementary school to college. Investing in education will increase equal opportunity. The article also mentions we also need to Budget reforms that remove tax policies that privilege capital earnings over labor income. After reading this article I did my own research and found out America should strongly consider is to raise estate tax on the rich to reduce inherited wealth. The estate tax in the United States is a tax on the transfer of the estate of a deceased person. When a wealthy person dies they are most likely to pass down their properties to their children. If they leave it to your children, then you are creating a perpetual division of wealth in our country and increased inequality. It is an issue if one family owns more wealth than the bottom 130 million Americans. It is not okay because we are living in a time where childhood poverty is at its peak. Wealth should be distributed equally among all americans and if we don’t put an estate tax the 1% will continue to inherit more wealth then the bottom 90%. It is a vicious cycle that helps the generations of rich people stay obnoxiously rich and widen the gap between the rich and the poor. This is. exactly why research is important, without research we won’t have the statistics from the 90% of Americans that need the change. Research is essential to our action plans, to create new policies and reform existing policies/laws. It is the backbone to ur fight in ending racial inequality.
Violence is one of the grand challenges in social work. For instance, family violence significantly and disproportionately affects women and children (Kulkarni, Barth & Messing, 2016). When families conflict, women’s rights are utmost violated with consequences such as battery, homelessness, or poverty. The social work research shows interesting violence findings at the family level by indicating that policies that address family violence focus on social control and approaches in the criminal justice system (Kulkarni, Barth & Messing, 2016). However, such violence is more likely to affect children and women emotionally and cause them lifelong trauma. I feel that the efforts to address family violence so far are inadequate. Social work researchers must end family violence by recommending policy initiatives that cater to violence’s socio-economic and emotional consequences. For instance, Kulkarni, Barth & Messing (2016) informs us of the appropriate policy recommendations to tackle family violence, include: increasing federal financial backing to programs that reduce gender violence and structural challenges; linking data sources to identify opportunities for prevention of harm to children during domestic violence, and; increased funding for research on evidence-based causes of family violence and enhanced family safety. My view is that with such recommendations, it is easier to tame family violence than focusing on the incarceration of offenders or social control.
Violence may also manifest based on racial profiling. Grand Challenges for Social Work (2021) highlights that the plan to eliminate racism started in 2020, with one of its aims being to eradicate the systemic violence experienced by Black people. For instance, my experience is that Black people are more likely to be incarcerated for petty crimes than their White counterparts, harassed by the police, and subjected to gun violence and killings by law enforcement. They are also more suspected of drug abuse and highly likely to be accused of rape and gun violence. Black neighborhoods experience police wrath at the slightest provocation. Black teenagers are more likely to be shot by police on the slightest suspicion of violence, drug abuse, or carrying of guns. Such incidences lead to racial inequality and promote discrimination against Black people. The policies and systems in White-dominated countries tend to be unjust to racial minorities, which execrates incidences of racial violence as Black poor and other minority groups are left out in mutually inclusive socio-economic programs that can better their lives.
In my opinion, social work research is integral to combating violence in our society. The investigation into social issues leading to violence has revealed a great deal of information and understanding of the source of violence and gives recommendations for resolving it. For instance, the Grand Challenge for Social Work is an online database that offers credible family and racial violence research. It explores gender-based violence and the delicate nature of racial discrimination and racial violence among the Black community. I perceive social research as insightful in unraveling the policy failures in combating violence. For instance, gender-based violence is tackled by the criminal justice system and the police. Such an approach fails to consider the evidence-based causes of violence at the family or community level. Social research has become integral in giving helpful information on the need to have evidence-based systems and practical solutions to tackle violence in our communities. It also provides essential information on the need for increased funding by the federal government and the need for a data-based system to document violence for afflicted victims to help prevent the recurrence of violence at the family or community level. Social research also challenges the white hegemony and calls for just policies and welfare programs that benefit all people affected by similar violence-related incidences. In a nutshell, social work research is indispensable in developing an evidence-based system to prevent violence in our society and ensure gender and racial equality for all.
References
Grand Challenges for Social Work. (2021, January 21). Progress and Plans for the Grand challenges: An Impact report of Year 5 of the 10-Year Initiative. Baltimore, MD: The University of Maryland, School of Social Work. https://view.pagetiger.com/grand-challenges-impact-report-2021
Kulkarni, S. J., Barth, R. P., & Messing, J. T. (2016, September). Policy recommendations for meeting the Grand Challenge to Stop Family Violence (Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative Policy Brief No. 3). Cleveland, OH: American Academy of Social Work & Social Welfare.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1794&context=csd_research
Though all of the grand challenges stand out, the two that resonate with me most are 1, to safely reduce our incarcerated population, and 2, strengthening financial security. Currently, in my life, both of the grand challenges align with me. I am a child of a parent who was incarcerated for 10 years and I recognize the effects of this challenge for myself as the child and also for the parent, my father. Strengthening financial security is so important to the overall well-being of vulnerable populations. Social work research can help to improve preventative interventions of these structural inequalities. Identifying preventative measures can reduce adverse outcomes such as poverty which leads to additional challenges such as incarceration and so much more.