Identifying Grand Challenges Facing Social Work in the Next Decade: Maximizing Social Policy Engagement

In 2012, the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare launched an initiative to identify “ambitious yet achievable goals for society” that can guide the direction of social work in the next decade and help build concerted efforts to confront emerging social problems. We describe the development of the Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative, including a model for achieving far-reaching impact on deeply significant problems, and outline strategies for maximizing policy involvement in this endeavor through social work education, community engagement, legislative advocacy, and national initiative involvement. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Policy Conference 2.0 held in Austin, Texas on May 29–31, 2014.