An international perspective on policy practice

The point of departure for this volume is that social work is a profession that embodies the values of social justice and human rights, and embraces social change as a means to achieve these values (Hare, 2004). As such, changing social welfare policies is an important, indeed crucial, aim of social work interventions because those policies can facilitate the furthering of these values by changing the environment in which service users live (Cummins at al, 2011). Policy practice is the form of social work practice that focuses on affecting social welfare policies (Jansson, 2008).