Explaining Social Workers’ Policy Practice: The Role of Skills, Organisation, and Education

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: According to the IFSW/IASSW global definition of social work, social workers have a general commitment to promoting social justice. One potential approach to fulfilling this commitment is engaging in activities that challenge, alter, and shape policy. Despite the increasing academic discussion regarding social workers’ engagement in policy, research in this field is still in its early stages. In particular, we still know little about the factors that influence social workers’ decisions to participate in policy activities. This study drew on the Policy Engagement Conceptual Framework to fill this gap. More precisely, we addressed the following research question: What factors influence social workers’ policy practice?

METHODS: We examined the factors influencing policy practice among social workers in Germany (n = 1917) and Switzerland (n = 1770) using a quantitative survey design. IBM SPSS Statistics version 28 was used to analyze the data. To address our research question, we employed a stepwise hierarchical regression analysis and conducted mediation analysis using Model 4 of the PROCESS macro for SPSS.

RESULTS: Our key findings revealed that social workers’ policy practice is directly associated with the national political system, organizational support, affiliation with professional and political networks, and policy skills. Although we found no significant direct effect of policy education on policy practice, mediation analysis revealed that policy skills significantly mediate the relationship between policy education and policy practice.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: The connection between policy training as part of social work education and social workers’ actual engagement in policy practice has so far only received very limited attention. Our findings therefore contribute novel insights into the mechanisms of policy practice and show how social work education can further stimulate this type of professional activity in preparing future social workers for their role in addressing not only individual, but also structural issues.