Barriers in Social Workers' Engagement in Social Action

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE As human service professionals, social workers have been educated not only to meet individual client’s needs but also to engage in social action to improve social conditions that are closely related to individual and community welfare. Despite the social work profession’s attention on the activist role, the discrepancy between expected roles and actual implementation has been acknowledged, specifically in social action engagement. Busy schedules, high workloads, or the lack of information regarding where to join or how to effectively engage in social action may hinder social workers’ engagement in social cation. Social workers’ activism may be also hindered as the numbers of government departments or government-funded agencies have increased. However, there are few studies empirically examining barriers for social action among social workers. This study aimed to examine relationship between the number of perceived barriers and social workers’ engagement in social action.

METHODS The study sample was drawn from the NASW list in three mid-Atlantic States in east coast of the U.S., using disproportionate stratified random sampling. A total of 750 surveys were mailed out in 2015, and 188 NASW members replied to the survey (25.3% response rate). This study used 186 survey respondents excluding two respondents who did not answer any items on the social action scale. Respondent’s engagement in social action was assessed with seven items indicating how frequently the respondents participated in different types of social action activities such as volunteering for political causes, meeting with elected officials to advocate for social issues, utilizing social media platforms to engage with others regarding social issues. A check list was used to measure perceived barriers to social action (yes or no): protecting a professional reputation, having a busy schedule, being prohibited or deterred by employer, lack of travel time and/or resources, possibility of being arrested, not knowing where or how to join in social action, and not being interested in social action. Then multiple regression examining the relationship between the number of barriers and social workers’ engagement in social action was conducted using a complex sample module.

RESULTS The most frequently endorsed barrier for social action was a belief that social workers should not take action that differs from explicitly stated agency policy and busy schedule and lack of resources. The regression results showed that, social action engagement decreased as the number of perceived barriers for social action increased at marginal level, controlling for demographic and other practice characteristics. In addition, mazzo and macro level practice social workers had significantly more social action engagement than micro level social workers.  

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS Social workers’ poor working conditions, lack of knowledge, and organizational constraints may cumulatively leave social workers with little energy/motivation to practice social action. Thus, reducing heavy workload and reimbursing expenses that are incurred to participate in social action,as a part of fringe benefits,can help social workers pursue an activist role in practice. In addition, we need to educate social work students to be better prepared for engagement and social action.