Social Work A Call to Action: A Time for Reflection and Reckoning

The book provides an understanding of the history of Social Work as a movement towards social reform. Graduate schools of social work in recent years have minimized the social reform function in favor of behavioral and clinical interventions. This book encourages social work leaders, Deans of Schools of Social Work and practitioners to more fully appreciate the current needs of their clients requiring a reformist and activist approach. It also suggests models of leadership which will enable our profession to effectively grapple with contemporary issues facing our country. Adaptive leadership is a model which utilizes the skills of all parties in the process to confront difficult and perplexing issues. The Social Work profession in recent years has relied heavily on other professions, particularly law, education and public administration to lead agencies that primarily employ social work practitioners. The authors implore our profession to reintroduce extensive curricula in social planning, executive management and community organization to enable a subset of candidates to assume executive positions upon graduation. The authors also develop a broader curricula referred to as polymathic training to provide the knowledge base of the social work profession coupled with its culture and history to better enable non social work executives to fulfill the mission of the agencies they lead. All proceeds of the book will go towards the NYU scholarship fund for the Adaptive Leadership Institute's Fellowship for social work graduate students.