Learn more about this text by browsing through the following:
- Social Policy for Effective Practice: A Strengths Approach, Fifth Edition
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by Rosemary K. Chapin and Melinda K. Lewis
Instructor Resources Prepared by Melinda Lewis LMSW, University of Kansas Request a complimentary examination copy »
Dr. Rosemary Kennedy Chapin is an award-winning teacher and researcher, possessing extensive
program development experience in the social policy arena. After receiving her
PhD, she worked as a research/policy analyst for the Minnesota Department of
Human Services, where she was involved in crafting numerous long-term care
reform initiatives. In 1989, she joined the faculty at the University of
Kansas, where she established the Center for Research on Aging and Disability
Options (CRADO). CRADO’s mission is improving social service practice and
policy for older adults and people with disabilities, particularly those with
low incomes. . Her social policy research and strengths-based training
initiatives can be viewed at www.crado.ku.edu.
Dr. Chapin retired from the University of Kansas in 2018. A prolific author,
she is renowned for her work on the strengths perspective, home-and
community-based supports and services, and social policy. In 1995, she
reformulated basic strengths principles to guide policy practice in an article
published in the journal, Social Work
(Chapin, 1995). This textbook grew out of that foundational strengths policy
practice scholarship. Many of her other research publications have helped shape
Medicaid long-term care policy reform. Dr. Chapin has been recognized by many
groups at both the state and federal levels for her years of cutting-edge
research and advocacy. In 2016, NASW chose her to join the ranks of pioneers in
social work honored by the profession. If you would like to learn more about
the work of past and present leaders in the field, including Dr. Chapin, do a
web search for NASW Social Work Pioneers. She has also
been singled out for her pioneering policy practice work by the national
organization Influencing Social Policy. Dr. Chapin and
her husband have three children and live in Lawrence, Kansas.
Melinda
K. Lewis is an Associate Professor of Practice in
the School of Social Welfare at the University of Kansas and Associate Director
of the School’s Center on Community Engagement and Collaboration. The
instructors’ materials for this text were informed by her teaching of
foundation and advanced-level MSW social policy and policy practice courses,
and she also has years of experiencing advising students and field agencies on
policy analysis and policy practice. Melinda spent more than a decade
consulting to nonprofit organizations in fields such as safety-net health care,
violence prevention, community economic development, immigrant rights, child
welfare, and early childhood education. Her practice aims to enhance their
strategic communications, advocacy strategy development and execution, and
evaluation of social change efforts. Before joining the KU faculty, she worked
on policy advocacy and community organizing at the local, state, and federal
levels, in pursuit of economic justice and human rights. From 2012-2018, she
was Assistant Director of the Center on Assets, Education, and Inclusion, based
at the University of Michigan. She co-authored three books examining various
aspects of the relationship between wealth inequality and children’s
educational outcomes. The most recent, Making
Education Work for the Poor: The Potential of Children’s Savings Accounts (2018,
with Dr. Willie Elliott), makes the case for financing higher education from
universal assets rather than dependence on student debt.