1. Social Innovation for America’s Renewal: Ideas, Evidence, Action
Grand Challenges for Social Work
Policy Conference
#Up4TheChallenge

2. The Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative
Richard P. Barth, PhD, MSW
Dean, University of Maryland, School of Social Work and President, AASWSW
Washington University in St Louis, MO
September 15, 2016
Good evening, everyone. Thank you for your kind introduction, and for inviting me to NYU to celebrate the end of year reception. Tonight I will discuss Grand Challenges for Social Work and the Opportunity to Create Social Progress, while building Social Work Science and Research Careers.  

3. Overview The How and Why of the Grand Challenges
The Building of the BUZZ
Re-Focusing on Policy
Possible Paths Forward

4. AASWSW
Established in 2009 through combined effort of 6 major social work organizations
6 original members has grown to 99
Intended to offer our nation a scientific resource for scholarship on social matters (as a complement to NAS, NAE, and other Academies)

5. Congress regularly asks AASWSW to lead the work to address social problems!

6. Grand Challenges is the First Major Initiative

7. The Grand Challenges have been led by the Academy but, at least as much, the Grand Challenges have propelled the Academy

8. Science of Social Work
Soon after this, and a discussion at the first summer institute on the Science of Social Work,
work began to create a Grand Challenges Executive Committee –under the auspices of the American Academy for Social Work and Social Welfare.

9. THE SOCIAL IS FUNDAMENTAL
We live in a time when our nation seems strangely distracted from our own deep social needs. Now is the right time for social work to remind us all that “THE SOCIAL IS FUNDAMENTAL.”

10. Modifiable Factors That Influence Health
Here is how the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Studies recently summarized that the “Social is Fundamental” in a $150M FOA, “The largest drivers of health care costs fall outside the clinical care environment: only 20 percent of the modifiable variation in health outcomes is due to clinical care, whereas 40 percent is due to social and economic determinants, 30 percent to health behaviors, and 10 percent to the physical environment. Some 500,000 hospitalizations could be averted annually if the rate of preventable hospitalizations were the same for residents of low- as high-income neighborhoods. We are the singular profession focused on strengthening social relationships in ways that improve the social epidemiology of well-being and that can also address and prevent a much broader range of disparities and inequities.

11. … And Nearly Everything Else
Climate Change
Mental Health
Educational Outcomes
Peace
Longevity
Family Functioning
Crime
Opportunity
Justice
Brain Development

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Since then, many groups have used a “grand challenges” approach, including the National Academy of Engineering (which has provided us with much inspiration and technical assistance), the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the NIH. We know that the White House’s Office on Science and Technology is very interested in Grand Challenges.

13. So, I am sure you are asking by now “what is the intellectual history” of the Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative. Well, for that I refer you to the Academy working paper entitled “IDENTIFYING AND TACKLING GRAND CHALLENGES FOR SOCIAL WORK” or the related 2013 paper in JSSWR that Dean Edwina Uehara is the lead on entitled “GRAND CHALLENGES FOR SOCIAL WORK”.

14. We focused on thinking about which Grand Challenges social work has accepted and tackled in its 100 plus years –even if not explicitly stated as grand challenges. I referenced some of those in the early parts of this talk but I CONFIDENTLY refer you all to the AASWSW Working Papers entitled: Social is Fundamental: Introduction and Context for the Grand Challenges”  and “Grand Accomplishments of Social Work”  which are both INCREDIBLY worth reading.

15. Big, compelling and important
Amenable to analysis, assessment, improvement
Demonstrable progress in a decade
Cross-sector interdisciplinary collaboration
Significant innovation

16. Ensure healthy development for all youth
Create social responses to a changing environment
Close the health gap
Harness technology for social good
Stop family violence
Promote smart decarceration
Advance long and productive lives
Reduce extreme economic inequality
Eradicate social isolation
Build financial capability for all
End homelessness
Achieve equal opportunity and justice
These Grand Challenges contain enormous opportunities to improve life for hundreds of millions of people and to change our field. Indeed, The list of grand challenges, alone, may change the public’s perception of our field.
When I showed this list to my boss, University of Maryland Baltimore President Jay Perman, a pediatric gastrointerologist, and expert on interprofessional education he told me in a flash. “This is GREAT.” I work with social workers in my clinic and am very proud of our school of social work but even I would have trouble explaining to a colleague what social work is about, beyond its work in health care, behavioral health treatment, and in helping people to get the benefits they need. Knowing that social work will be deeply invested in these 12 areas has great meaning for me.” I know that I speak for the Executive Committee in expressing our desire that millions more people—from HS sophomore’s to undergraduate students, to lawyers and teachers who are considering becoming career changers, to donors--will also learn from our selection of Grand Challenges. Now I’d like to take a moment to clarify what the Grand Challenges  are NOT.  

17. Successful GCs Launch at SSWR 2016!

18. Grand Challenges Progress
After the Launch at SSWR, we are generating a BUZZ.
Major Social Work Organizations are on board, and actively supportive (CSWE, GADE, NASW, NADD, NSWM, SSWR).

20. Social Change Through Practice
Initially Practice Focused
Inventing New Interventions
Going to Scale with Existing Interventions

21. Re-Focusing on Policy

22. Where Are We and Where May We Be Going?
The Grand Challenges are NOT grant proposals. We believe that the Grand Challenges will help generate resources to support our work through grants and prizes-- but that is not yet the case.
Nor do all of the working papers that we drew on to select the grand challenges contain precisely articulated measurable outcomes and show an exact link between the past science and the desired outcome with a tightly engineered model that links the parts.
Additionally many of the Grand Challenges do not have highly centralized organizations with pre-determined leadership. To the contrary, at this point, most Grand Challenges will need significant organizational development
They also do not cover every topic of interest to this group in the way that you conceptualize your interests. We believe that there is a grand challenge that everyone can connect their work to but you may have to do some exploring and reframing. We are however confident that there will be multiple ways for you to join in this important effort.

23. Well, we are not where we could be… having dinner at the Beaulieu Vineyard in Napa Valley discussing the finer points of the wine’s finish with a sommelier!

25. Generating Information for Policy Making
Thanks to Dilbert

26. Social Change: Science-to-Policy
Filling Out the Current Evidence-Based Policy Making Framework
Evidence Based Practice Expansion
Analyzing the Strength of Evidence of Solutions in Comparison to the Sizes of the Problems
Articulating the Risk and Resilience Perspective and ROI of programs

27. Address Broad Array of Social Policies
Age friendly communities
Climate change and urban resilience
Unlocking government data to guide prevention
Prison sentencing and solitary confinement
Employment creation and wealth building
Zero tolerance policies in schools

28. This Opportunity
Begin to articulate a policy agenda that captures our profession’s attention (beyond narrower professional interests)
Start strategies to engage elected officials and government agencies
Communicate to engage external audiences, energize practitioners, and inspire new students to study social work

29. Broader Set of Policy Tools
Beyond Advocacy Based on SW Values
Interprofessional coalition building
Integrated practice, research, and policy networks
Social media impact for scientific solutions
Mobilizing social work entities with a new unity of focus

30. That the profession will be unified in recognizing these 12 challenges and in its support for efforts to achieve measurable impact in the next decade!

31. Social Work is credited for lifting a Social Agenda and championing compelling policy changes
Social Work is organized nationally to advocate and influence the policy process
Social Workers are seen as critical to policy making
Social Work Science gains new respect

32. … adopt Grand Challenges
that Corporations…
… adopt Grand Challenges
END HOMELESSNESS

33. Strong National Practice Networks Emerge
BUILDING BLOCKS NOW IN PLACE:
GC Network Leads
Webinars will be scheduled with each Network presenting research and sharing best practices
Thread Through strategy with events at SSWR, CSWE, NASW, GADE, and in regions

34. Campuses and Centers Adopt Grand Challenges

35. Curriculum to Recruit New Students

36. Accelerated Knowledge Building

38. Steps From Imagining to Success
Visualize the Steps to Take
Networks
Policy Development
Policy Action
Communication

39. Networks Differentiation of Roles Mini-Strategic Plans Operations
Integration with Other Organizations

40. Policy Development Expression in Policy Framework Terms
Equity of Purpose and Result
Efficiency of Ideas
Enhancing Liberty
Security & Safety

41. Policy Action Mobilize Rights and Facts Anticipate Next Moves
Build on Existing Platforms (NASW, CSWE, CRISP)
Partner with Influentials

42. Communication
Existing Networks and Tools N

43. The Grand Challenges offer all of us—the opportunity to be involved with something bigger than us at a historic time when the social has never been more fundamental and our profession has never had as much capacity to build on that understanding.

44. Social Innovation for America’s Renewal: Ideas, Evidence, Action
The Potential of the Grand Challenges
Angelo McClain
#Up4TheChallenge