Publications from ODSW Social Insights: Letters by DSW (Vol 1) | Page 45

Advocacy 2

Dear Students of Social Work,
Recently, I wrote about case and cause advocacy and many have said
that they found the explanation helpful. One person reminded me about
the preface of Harry Specht and Mark Courtney’s book Unfaithful Angels.
Specht had lamented about what he saw as social work’s drift away from
social justice. He wrote, “When I first came to know social workers half a
century ago, they had a mission that was, to me, appealing and significant:
to help poor people, to improve community life, and to solve difficult social
problems. But times have changed. Today, a significant proportion of social
workers are practicing psychotherapy, and doing so privately, with a primarily
middle-class, professional, Caucasian clientele” (p. ix-x).1

The Debate over Case and Cause Advocacy
Specht’s concerns are not new. The debate over the role of case and cause
advocacy in social work stretches back to the profession’s origins in the late
19th century. Much has been written about the differing perspectives of social
work pioneers such as Jane Addams, with her focus on social reform and
political action, and Mary Richmond, with her focus on individual casework.
Furthermore, there is the tension between the micro and macro social work
education emphasis and the call for training students to deepen in social
casework skills with an equal pressure to widen students’ appreciation of the
breath of community work.
All of these are important in social work education but encouraging
involvement in both appro aches from students and practicing professionals
can be challenging. We will all agree too that the following are all roles of a
social worker:

1 Specht, H., & Courtney, M. E. (1995). Unfaithful Angels: How Social Work Has Abandoned its
Mission (pp. ix-x). New York, NY: Simon and Schuster.
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