Policy Practice and Social Work: The Who, Why, & What

A presentation at Heritage University in September 2026 by Jacob Campbell and is tagged with Heritage University, Featured Speaker

A green clipboard with yellow notepad displays a numbered list prompt asking students to brainstorm and write down jobs they think social workers perform. The slide title reads 'Who Are Social Workers: What kinds of roles do practitioners play?' with accompanying text: 'When you hear about social work as a profession, what jobs do you think they do? Write down as many as you can think of.' A purple note at bottom offers a 'Prize for MOST unique ideas.'

A presentation slide titled 'Direct Social Work Practice' displays nine service practice areas arranged in a circle with colorful icons: Work with Immigrants, Housing or Financial Services, Hospital and Health Services, Mental Health Services, Disability Services, Chemical and Substance Abuse Services, Child, Youth, and Family Services, Child Welfare, and School Social Work.

A 14-year-old has missed 20 days of school this year. Slide directs viewers to 'go stand in the corner where you think the actual problem is,' presenting a diagram suggesting root causes exist beyond the student: The Family, Classroom, The School, or The Rules.

A presentation slide titled 'The Parable of the River' with subtitle 'A Why for Policy Practice' displayed on the left in bold black text. The right side features an illustrated landscape with orange mountains, a winding blue river flowing downward, and a small golden basket icon at the river's base, symbolizing intervention or rescue in policy context.

A colorful slide diagram defining Policy Practice across four sections: a green section on the left defines policy practice as 'efforts to change policies in legislative, agency, and community settings' with a Policy Advocacy subsection; the top pink section titled 'What Policy Practitioners and Policy Advocates Seek to Change' features a concentric circle target graphic and lists twelve policy types (Regulations, Needs-Meeting, Opportunity-Enhancing, Social Service, Referral and Linkage, Civil Rights, Equality-Enhancing, Asset Accumulation, Infrastructure Development, Economic Development, Budget-Changing, and Protective Policies); an orange box states policy aims to 'help relatively powerless groups improve their resources and opportunities'; and a yellow section below identifies Policy Practice 'As a Discipline and What We Might Target' citing Popple & Leighninger, 2014.

Slide presenting the question 'What questions or comments do you have?' alongside a Che Guevara 1965 quote about revolutionary change guided by love, paired with a photograph of raised hands at a crowded event bathed in warm lighting.

Dr. Jacob Campbell

7 slides

Description

This presentation is a part of Policy Day . The goal is to give students, faculty, or community members insight into how public policy is developed and how professionals can help shape the higher-level decisions that affect people’s lives. I am joining professionals from other fields to come and present an introduction to policy practice from a social worker perspective. We will do this by reviewing who social workers are and what we do. Then we will explore why social workers focus on policy practice. Finally, we will consider some of the elements of policy practice.