Publications from ODSW Social Insights: Letters by DSW (Vol 1) | Page 41

Advocacy 1

Advocacy is a good skill to develop. It is a skill that we are trained in in the
family, in the school and later in adult life at the workplace. Some may not
call it advocacy but we know that it is about advancing a cause or a theory for
change through raising awareness which may or may not result in action. It is
a skill worth sharpening as a poor skill in advocacy can cause more harm than
good. It can cause tensions that can have destructive repercussions.
One important conceptual misunderstanding about advocacy is that it has to
be contentious and be about giving up of ideological positions. This would
be a wrong starting point for any advocacy work. It is not about being in
agreement and having everyone agree on being the same and agreeing to
the same things. It does however involve listening and being respectful of
differing and divergent views. It is about understanding an issue in great
depth and deliberate thought.

Cause Advocacy
To some extent we can say that case advocacy is about a change for the
individual and cause advocacy is about a change in the system and raising
awareness of a cause. So when does case advocacy moves into cause
advocacy? It happens when the client has experiences that reveal the need
for systems to change. This happens when the larger system of organizational,
community, and societal policies and practices have adversely affected the
functioning of a group of clients. By advocating, practice then helps to inform
policy.
Cause advocacy may be, but is rarely about large systems change through
class action lawsuits and successful policy reform. This can scare most people.
However, case to cause advocacy is and should be in our daily social work
practice with clients, influencing change in the agencies in which we work, the
staff with whom we work, the record keeping we often lament, the training
and professional development offered, and the forms we develop.
Let’s take a seemingly mundane activity of comparing intake forms from
various agencies. Begin to ask why you ask those intake questions and how
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