Introduction

In social work discourse it is not only practitioners that are called on to engage in policy practice in order to further social justice (Gal & Weiss-Gal, 2013; Jansson, 2014; McBeath, 2016; Reisch, 2016) but also social work scholars (Howard, 2010). As the individuals responsible for educating future social workers, social work faculty members are expected to serve as role models for their students in addressing disadvantage and injustice. Moreover, social work academics can better achieve the social justice goals of the profession because they enjoy the prestige, the knowledge, the autonomy and the employment security that facilitate greater access to the policy-making process.

The importance ascribed to this involvement has generated interest in the participation of social work faculty in policy formulation processes (Karger & Hernández, 2004; MacKinnon, 2009; Weiss-Gal, 2016). The findings of quantitative studies indicate that social work faculty do engage in policy practice (Mary, 2001). Though their overall level of engagement is described as moderate to low (Weiss-Gal & Gal, 2017), it is greater than academics in other disciplines (Landry et al, 2001; Weiss-Gal & Gal, 2019).

Similarly, the factors associated with policy practice have been the subject of scholarly interest. One result of this effort was the formulation of the Policy Practice Engagement (PPE) conceptual framework, which was developed to explain the engagement of social workers in policy practice (Gal & Weiss-Gal, 2015). This framework posits that there are three types of factors related to policy practice engagement by social workers. The first of these is motivation, which underscores individuals’ sense that involvement in policy change is an integral part of their professional role and that they have the knowledge and tools to engage in this. Second, facilitation pertains to the organisational context in which social workers are employed and the degree to which it supports their efforts to engage in policy practice. Finally, opportunity focuses upon the access that social workers have to the institutions in which policy is formulated and to policy-makers in them. A study of social work academics’ engagement in policy in 12 nations found that, despite differences across nations, significant positive relationships were found between faculty involvement in policy and motivational factors such as attitudes towards the social role of academia, the faculty members’ personal roles as social work academics and their sense that they had the personal capacity to engage in policy.