Teaching Policy Practice: A Hands-On Seminar for Social Workers in Israel

Abstract

The current question in social work discourse is no longer whether all social workers should be trained in policy practice, but how to train them. This article describes a three-semester long seminar in policy practice for social workers studying for their MSW at a university in Israel. The seminar sought to train the participants to integrate direct and policy practice in their daily professional activities. The article presents the findings of a controlled, pre-post, mixed-methods evaluation of the seminar. The findings show that the seminar increased the participants' sense of self-efficacy and their actual involvement in policy practice and that it brought a number of other benefits to them, their workplace, and the relation between the two.

Keywords:

• policy practice
• social work education
• MSW program
• evaluation
• self–efficacy