Introduction

Most social workers are employed in organisations. This seemingly trivial observation has considerable relevance to an understanding of the engagement of social workers in policy and is central to the discussion on, what we term, ‘facilitation’. Unless they are self-employed, the actual engagement of social workers in diverse policy routes will depend to a large extent on the degree to which their place of occupation, specifically, the organisational context that has a predominant impact upon them, is willing to facilitate their policy engagement (see Figure 5.1). As such, the focus of this chapter is on the impact of the organisational context in which social workers undertake their professional work on their policy engagement as citizens and professionals.

An initial example of the impact of facilitation can be found in the research on the factors associated with at least one of the policy routes: policy practice. It is very clear in showing that one of the most important factors linked to this type of practice is the support that social workers get from their workplace (McLaughlin, 2009; Lustig-Gants and Weiss-Gal, 2015; Gewirtz-Meydan et al, 2016: Weiss-Gal, 2017a; Nouman et al, 2019; Weiss-Gal and Gal, 2020; Gilboa and Weiss-Gal, 2022). The findings on the engagement of hospital social workers in policy practice illustrate this well. Data from different countries (Canada, Israel and the US) and covering social workers in hospitals in diverse sectors (state, local and non-profit) reveal that support for involvement in policy-related activities offered by the hospital itself or, more strongly, by the specific department in which the social workers work is crucial in encouraging engagement in policy-related activities aimed at influencing the hospital's policies and those of other organisations or state bodies (Herbert and Levin, 1996; Jansson et al, 2016; Sommerfeld and Weiss-Gal, 2018). Organisational support for policy engagement in a hospital setting can facilitate not only the policy practice of social workers, but also that of an additional helping profession, specifically, nurses (Bar Yosef et al, 2020).

Organisational support is not only relevant to explaining policy practice; it can also encourage social workers to engage in additional policy routes. It can take the form of support for the voluntary political participation of social workers (Douglas, 2008). An example of this is the support (albeit discreet) that some social workers in Israel received from their organisations