Teaching Students the Task Force Approach: A Policy-Practice Course

Abstract

In contemporary society, task forces are commonly used to deal with community-based social problems. Task forces develop, change, and implement policies at all levels of government, and within all types of organizations, including the public, private, and nonprofit sectors. Unfortunately, social work educators have not been involved in teaching the policy-practice skills of working on a task force. This article discusses existing literature on task forces. Gersick's (1988) model of task group development is used to structure the teaching of the task force approach. An advanced policy course on homelessness is used as an illustration, and a recommendation is made for adjusting educational requirements to cross-reference courses in the social work curriculum that teach substantive topics and, at the same time, use innovative methods to teach group skills.