The Mission of Social Work Revisited: An Agenda for the 1990s

The forces that affect the social work profession, including the “industrial” takeover of social welfare, the expansion of the private agency, and the change in clientele served by social workers, as well as a change in the motivators of social work students, have contributed to a growing conservativism in social work. In addition, a dominant middle-class America, filled with its own problems, seems to be capturing more of social work's resources. The result has been a drift in the mission of social work and a weakening of the advocacy or political component in social work education and practice. The advocacy role proposed in this article is the clinical activist model. In the model, the clinician's role is that of data gatherer and analyst, in addition to therapist. The client becomes the centerpiece of change, revealing to the clinician the types of systemwide changes or reforms that are needed. The structural changes necessary to implement this model are discussed briefly.