The Importance of Collective Actors for Social Work Policy Practice: Lessons from the German Case

The fact that social workers not only support individuals but also shape policy and work for structural change is receiving increasing academic attention under the heading of social work policy engagement. This debate focuses mainly on the policy practice of individual social workers. In this article we highlight the importance of collective social work actors acting as proxies for the policy practice of individual social workers. We present empirical findings from a research project analysing the extent to which the interests of people experiencing poverty have been taken into account through social work advocacy in selected social policy reform processes in Germany, both at national and local levels. Research methods included discourse analysis, qualitative interviews and document analysis. Our findings highlight that in Germany’s neo-corporatist welfare state model, welfare associations, as hybrid service and advocacy organizations, engage in political discourse and policy-making on behalf of the social workers they employ and the service users they represent. Our analysis reveals different facets of the political interplay between welfare associations as collective actors and social workers as individual actors. By presenting evidence from the German case, we argue that welfare associations are underestimated actors in the theory of social work policy practice.