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From April 2002 NASW NEWS Aiming for Economic Security
The social work profession is in a unique position to champion a movement to reduce poverty and promote economic security—to go beyond the current debate for welfare reform—and advance well-documented programs that promote economic self-sufficiency across the life span. There is a difference today from the 1960s, when NASW first established a priority to end poverty. We can do more than just offer the ideological argument that it is morally wrong for the richest country in the world to allow millions of Americans to struggle in times of need. We have the facts! Researchers from social work and other disciplines have demonstrated what it takes to get people out of poverty and to keep people from falling into it. We know that it takes a combination of education, support, resources and opportunity. We know that it also takes a well-structured system guided by professionals with commitment and competence. Social workers care about this issue because it is consonant with social work values, which include the promotion of social and economic justice and our values of helping people take full advantage of their potential. If we want to help create healthy people and healthy communities, basic human needs must first be met. Our values of self-determination and informed choice impel us to support options for clients that include a range of educational benefits, meaningful job advancement, child care coverage, medical insurance, asset building and the domestic arrangements necessary for self-sufficiency. They also propel us to oppose narrow, ideologically based government mandates, restrictions and coercive policies and to continue using facts to dispel the age-old myths about who is on welfare and why. Another reason we care is, we are the profession that can best reclaim and reshape a professionalized public welfare (I prefer the term "public support") system that brings out the best in the workers and the clients, not the worst. Social workers know how to structure the environments, culture and policies that facilitate opportunity rather than stifle growth. Beyond expressing our concerns, we have to be participants in framing the issue and setting the goals. We have to be at the table. In order to be effective in the campaign now under way to shape the reauthorization of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, including Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, we need our legislative, policy, practice and research arms to work in concert. And we need to help refocus the debate from ending dependency to creating opportunities and from one based on moral imperatives to one guided by practical solutions. Most social work constituencies are economically insecure, especially when one adds the real or potential loss of jobs, Social Security, pensions and health benefits to the equation of economic jeopardy. Because most people can identify with one or more of these risk factors, social workers can help the public identify with the poor rather than view them as the "other." To strengthen and expand NASW's plan for welfare reauthorization, I have appointed a Blue Ribbon Panel on Economic Security [story in this News]. It includes a diverse group of NASW experts from across the country steeped in knowledge and experience with welfare programs and policies. Its role will be to enhance social work's voice and visibility on economic security issues. It will support our welfare reform efforts, which are based on arguments of both what works and what's right. In reality, the two coincide. And along with NASW's efforts, we need the activism of every social worker. If we have that, we will not only be heard but, more important, listened to. For NASW's welfare reform position— www.socialworkers.org/advocacy/positions/tanf.htm; NASW welfare priorities— www.socialworkers.org/advocacy/positions/welfare.htm To contact Terry Mizrahi: president@naswdc.org Back to NASW NEWS Contents
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