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Social Welfare Policy and Services

Resources that you can use when seeking information on current and historical social welfare policies, issues, and services in the U.S.

What Are The Current Issues?

Social Work Speaks: National Association of Social Workers Policy Statements: 2021-2023.
12th edition. Washington, D.C., 2021.
Statements designed to guide policy advocacy and legal action. Each statement includes background information, a statement of issues, the policy statement, its legislative history, and a list of references.
NASW Advocacy.
National Association of Social Workers key current legislative issues and positions.
Encyclopedia of Social Work
New York, National Association of Social Workers and Oxford University Press.
Almost always a good place to begin your research. Over 700 lengthy signed articles with bibliographies on topics felt to be of particular relevance to social work; 200 brief biographies of key figures in the history of social work; and links to related social work resources. Many articles include a historical overview. Rutgers-restricted Access

How We Got Here

The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Social Policy
New York, Oxford University Press, 2014.
"A survey of the American welfare state. It offers an historical overview of U.S. social policy from the colonial era to the present, a discussion of available theoretical perspectives on it, an analysis of social programmes, and on overview of the U.S. welfare state's consequences for poverty, inequality, and citizenship."
"A Multicultural Chronology of Welfare Policy and Social Work in the United States,"
Anthony M. Platt and Jenifer L. Cooreman. Social Justice 28(1), Spring 2001, 91-137.
"This chronology is designed to introduce future social workers to significant events, policies, people, and publications in the history of welfare policy and social work in the United States...Issues of race and racism, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality are central to the chronology's perspective." Includes a extensive bibliography. Rutgers-restricted Access

Encyclopedia of Social Welfare History in North America.
John M. Herrick and Paul H. Stuart (eds.). Thousand Oakes, California: Sage Publications, 2005.
180 essays, most signed, on the people, topics, and organizations that were important to the development of social welfare policies, services, and institutions in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Available? Rutgers-restricted Access

The Programs

2018 Green Book. Biennial publication of data as well as the history and description of the social and economic programs including Social Security, employment, welfare, child support, the elderly, and families with children, under the jurisdiction of the House Committee on Ways and Means.

The View From the White House

The Biden Agenda
The Biden Administration's priorities on the social and political issues facing the U.S

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