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Here's what the AASWSW website says about the Grand Challenge Initiative:
"The Grand Challenges for Social Work represent a dynamic social agenda, focused on improving individual and family well-being, strengthening the social fabric, and helping create a more just society. Explore each of the 12 Grand Challenges for Social Work below:"
Ensure healthy development for all youth
Close the health gap
Stop family violence
Advance long and productive lives
Eradicate social isolation
End homelessness
Create social responses to a changing environment
Harness technology for social good
Promote smart decarceration
Reduce extreme economic inequality
Build financial capability for all
Achieve equal opportunity and justice
Download MP3 [35:50]
Bio
(from his faculty profile at UMB)Richard P. Barth, Ph.D. is the President, American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare and Dean and Professor of the University of Maryland School of Social Work. He has previously served as a chaired professor at the University of North Carolina and the University of California at Berkeley. His AB, MSW, and PHD are from Brown University and UC Berkeley, respectively.
His 12 books (all co-authored ore edited except the first) Preventing Adolescent Abuse (1992), From Child Abuse to Permanency Planning: Pathways Through Child Welfare Services (1992), Families Living with Drugs and HIV (1993), The Tender Years: Toward Developmentally-Sensitive Child Welfare Services (1998), The Child Welfare Challenge (1992, 2000, 2008), Beyond Common Sense: Child Welfare, Child-Well-Being, and the Evidence for Policy Reform (2006), and How Foster Care Works: International Perspectives (2010). He has also authored more than 200 book chapters and articles which are frequently cited.
He was the 1986 winner of the Frank Breul Prize for Excellence in Child Welfare Scholarship from the University of Chicago; a Fulbright Scholar in 1990 (Sweden) and 2006 (Australia); the 1998 recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Research from the National Association of Social Workers; the 2005 winner of the Flynn Prize for Research; and the 2007 winner of the Peter Forsythe Award for Child Welfare Leadership from the American Public Human Services Association, and winner of the Distinguished Achievement Award by the Society for Social Work and Research. He is a Fellow and President of the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare. He currently sits on numerous national research advisory boards including those of the Durham Family Initiative, the California Evidence Based Practice Clearinghouse, and the Prevention and Family Recover Initiative.
He has directed more than 50 studies and perhaps, most significantly, served as Principal Investigator of Berkeley’s Child Welfare Research Center from 1990 to 1996 and as Co-Principal Investigator of the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, the first national study of child welfare services in the US. He has served as a lecturer and consultant to universities and governments in many states and countries. He has been honored to testify before Congressional and state government sub-committees.
Transcript
IntroductionIn 1900, a mathematician named David Hilbert identified 23 unsolved math problems he thought the field of mathematics should focus on in the 20th century [http://www2.clarku.edu/~djoyce/hilbert/]. The problems he identified were complex, and in his estimation, solvable. In a lecture delivered before the International Congress of Mathematicians at Paris in 1900, he said, “a mathematical problem should be difficult in order to entice us, yet not completely inaccessible, lest it mock at our efforts. It should be to us a guide post on the mazy paths to hidden truths, and ultimately a reminder of our pleasure in the successful solution.” The idea that Grand Challenges should be difficult yet solvable has become a cornerstone of all subsequent Grand Challenge initiatives. The impact of Hilbert’s “Grand Challenge” for the field of mathematics cannot be underestimated. And since it worked out so well for Hilbert to give a talk on problems he hasn’t solved, the next time I’m asked to give a talk I’m just going to list a bunch of things I haven’t gotten done. I’ve got way more than 23 on my list. Epic keynote. Call me if you’re interested. Operators are standing by.
So, fast forward to 2003, when the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation revived the idea of the Grand Challenge, identifying 14 Grand Challenges in Global Health. There have been several subsequent Grand Challenge initiatives, including the 14 Grand Challenges proposed by the National Academy of Engineering in 2008.
The story of how the Grand Challenge concept came to social work begins the way of many social work stories– with food and friends. One spring day in 2011, three social work deans, Rick Barth, the University of Maryland Baltimore, Eddie Uehara, from the University of Washington, and Marilyn Flynn, of the University of Southern California met for lunch. Here’s Dean Barth: [GC lunch clip]. The next summer, in August 2011, and I’m quoting from one of the Grand Challenge papers (Identifying and Tackling Grand Challenges for Social Work), “a small group of social work faculty, deans, and leaders of national social work organizations gathered together at the IslandWood Conference Center on Bainbridge Island, Washington, to grapple with social work’s role in shaping 21st century society… By the end of the day, participants were in agreement that the creation of a grand challenges for social work initiative might both galvanize the profession and create transdisciplinary communities of innovators who work together on to accomplish shared and compelling societal goals.” (Uehara et al, 2015, p. 3).
If it isn’t obvious by now, today’s social work podcast is about the Grand Challenge Initiative for Social Work. You might be thinking, “I deal with grand challenges every day. Suicide, relapse, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, IPV, neglect… yeah, I got it. ” Yes, you do. And I’m pretty sure that today’s guest, Dr. Richard Barth, the president of the AASWSW and Dean and Professor of UMB SSW and everyone else involved in the initiative hopes that when you hear what the 12 grand challenges are, you think “oh yeah, those are my challenges too.”
So, what does the AASWSW say about the Grand Challenges? According to the website, it is a
“groundbreaking initiative to champion social progress powered by science. It’s a call to action for all of us to work together to tackle our nation’s toughest social problems. For more than a century, social workers have been transforming our society. Social work interventions doubled the number of babies who survived in the early twentieth century, helped millions out of poverty from the Great Depression to today, and assisted people with mental illness through de-institutionalization, aftercare, treatment, and advocacy.
Today our society faces serious, interrelated, and large-scale challenges—violence, substance abuse, environmental degradation, injustice, isolation, and inequality. We need social workers’ unique blend of scientific knowledge and caring practice more than ever.”
There are 12 Grand Challenges for Social Work organized under three broad areas:
- Individual and family well-being,
- A stronger social fabric, and
- A just society that fights exclusion and marginalization, creates a sense of belonging, promotes trust, and offers pathways for social and economic progress.
The 12 Grand Challenges are:
Here's the video that the AASWSW created to explain the Grand Challenge Initiative:
I've thought a lot about the Grand Challenges Initiative. Remember that one called “Harness Technology for Social Good"? I coauthored one of the two papers for that Grand Challenge with Stephanie Berzin from Boston College and Chitat Chan from Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Because of my involvement with the Grand Challenge paper, I've had a lot of conversations with current and future scholars about the idea of Grand Challenges, and the specific papers that have been written as part of the current initiative. Here are my totally non-scientific poll results of what people think about the initiative: A couple of folks have been really excited about the Grand Challenges. Most have been skeptical. Since we'll be hearing from one of the most vocal proponents of the Grand Challenge initiative in today's episode, I wanted to mention some of the criticisms.
- Lots of folks I've talked to have questioned how the topics were chosen. The most frequent critique is that they are biased towards the research agendas of the Academy fellows, rather than a reflection of the scholarship of the profession as a whole.
- The Grand Challenges don't map on to most people's areas of research or practice. For example, I specialize in working with suicidal youth. My research could fit under ensuring healthy development for all youth, closing the health gap, eradicating social isolation, harnessing technology, and reducing extreme economic inequality. So if I wanted to do what the website says and “join the grand challenges for social work” would I join all of them?
- The Grand Challenges seem to be written for and by scholars. The Grand Challenges would have looked different if they had been developed by practitioners or educators.
- What if the Grand Challenge isn’t coming up with new solutions to problems, but rather to overcoming barriers to implementing existing problems?
- People are concerned that the 10 year time frame is arbitrary and is more likely to fail than succeed. What happens if in 10 years nothing has changed - or if it has it won't have anything to do with the Grand Challenge Imitative? According to a 2014 article in the Economist [http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21623581-gates-foundations-grand-challenges-global-health-programme-decade-old], after 10 years and $1 billion dollars none of the projects funded under the Gates Foundation’s “Grand Challenges” banner has yet made a significant contribution to saving lives and improving health in the developing world.
Here's what people like about the Grand Challenge initiative:
- It could be a unifying project for social work scholars, policy makers, educators and practitioners.
- It could be a way to bring scholars from other professions to the social work table. Dr. Barth will talk more about this, but I will say that I have been more intentional about seeking out and engaging with physicists, computer programmers, etc since I started working on the technology Grand Challenge paper.
- It could help to focus a profession that is known as a Jack or Jacqueline of all trades. Because of my involvement on the technology paper, I have had more of an interest in identifying and documenting exactly what the role of technology is in social work, and what social work's role should be in developing and using technology. I've had conversations with social work scholars, practitioners and educators around the world about what the next steps are. I know this wouldn't have happened without the Grand Challenge Initiative.
- It could make it easier to market social work. I'll be the first to admit that the phrase "Harness Technology for Social Good" is a much better headline than "We do lots of stuff with technology so that people have better lives."
I was very glad to have the opportunity to talk with Dr. Richard Barth about the Grand Challenge Initiative. This is the point in the introduction where I usually give a brief bio of my guest, but Dr. Barth’s accomplishments are so extensive that his short bio is an entire page long. To learn more about his zillions of awards, publications, and achievements, please check out the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare website. Dr. Barth and I spoke at the January 2016 Society for Social Work and Research conference in Washington, DC. The conference theme was Grand Challenges. I was at the conference to record interviews for the podcast and to present one of the two working papers for the Grand Challenge of Harnessing Technology for Social Good. There were tons of events having to do with the GC. There are a couple of times in the interview when he mentions some upcoming conference events having to do with the GCs. I was there. They happened.
In today’s interview I asked Dr. Barth if there was a plan to bring practitioners, educators and policy makers on board with the Grand Challenge initiatives – he said they were already on board. I asked him to walk us through a Grand Challenge topic – he picked the challenge of Ensuring Healthy Development for All Youth. I asked him if he hopes the Grand Challenge Initiative will make more funding available to the profession – he said that he hopes for more resources, not just funding. I asked him if he thought doctoral students should hitch their wagons to the Grand Challenges. He was very diplomatic, but basically said “yes.” I asked him about the challenges coordinating between the major social work organizations, NASW which represents practitioners, CSWE which represents educators, and SSWR which represents researchers. He said he’s never seen organizations working together so closely as they have with the Grand Challenges. I asked him if there were topics that people would be surprised to find out were not Grand Challenge topics. He said, there were several and then explained why. As an author of a Grand Challenge paper, I know that we were asked to conceptualize what could be accomplished in the next 10 years. So I asked Dr. Barth what he hoped he would be able to say at the 10 year anniversary event of the Grand Challenges.
And now, without further ado, on to episode 103 of the Social Work Podcast: The Grand Challenges for Social Work: Interview with Dr. Richard P. Barth.
Interview
[00:14:10]
Jonathan Singer: Rick, thank you so much for being here on the Social
Work Podcast, talking with us about the Grand Challenge Initiative. The Grand
Challenge papers seem to be written to other scholars. Is there an idea for
incorporating, integrating, or bringing together educators, students, and
practitioners?
[00:14:31]
Richard P. Barth: One of the key concepts of the Grand Challenges is
that they will help us communicate what social work cares about. Social work
cares about a lot of things, but there are sometimes too many dimensions, and
they can be overwhelming to people.
So, just a story about that. I presented the 12 Grand Challenges to my boss, Dr. Jay Perlman, at the University of Maryland, who is a pediatrician, a gastroenterologist. He works with social workers in his clinic, and he is an interprofessional education specialist. When I gave it to him, he said, “This is fantastic.” He said, “As much as I know that social workers help me in the clinic, and you do a lot in terms of behavioral health care, and you’re great at getting people Medicare, Medicaid, and what they need out of those services, I didn’t know that you were really committed to these twelve ideas.”
One of the things that I hope the Grand Challenges will do, in terms of bridging across all the levels that you mentioned—scholars, students, practitioners, policymakers—is that it will help us create some commonly accepted areas that we understand. These are areas where there is developing expertise, places where we have great confidence, and places where we can make a difference. They also tell people that we do work beyond health and behavioral health care and income assistance programs, and that we are working in areas that they care about, their family members care about, and the community cares about.
We hope that this will bring interest to the profession—from everyone from a tenth grader to a foundation executive who’s looking for a new approach, a new way to go, and a new partner who can help him or her solve problems that they really care about. The goal is that we hope there will be conferences—these have already started in some cases—that will give people the opportunity to meet around specific, achievable goals.
[16:35]
Jonathan Singer: Can you talk a little bit about one of the Grand
Challenges, how it’s conceptualized, and kind of where it’s going?
[16:44]
Richard P. Barth: One of the Grand Challenges that is perhaps the most
developed at this point is the challenge of ensuring healthy development for
all youth. Each of the Grand Challenges has a working paper that provides
underlying background, goals, and evidence that we might be able to achieve or
reduce something in a measurable way over the next decade.
The paper is called Unleashing the Power of Prevention. It has been led by two social work faculty members, David Hawkins and Jeffrey Jenson. There are forty signatures on this paper. It crosses many schools of social work and includes people outside of social work—pediatricians, counselors, and other researchers. It has now been published online by the Institute of Medicine as a paper in support of some of their work.
It basically challenges all of us to think about the fact that we have thirty years of research and more than fifty evidence-based practices related to reducing risk behavior in youth and preventing problems that, if they were allowed to develop, would be extraordinarily difficult and expensive to reduce and would lead to a lot of suffering.
So the paper focuses on prevention of youth behaviors, but it has a broader goal, which is to communicate to social work—and to everyone outside of social work—that social work is not only for deep-end problems. Social work has great capacity to reach into communities and schools, to assist families at the early end of problems, to understand the role that public health has, and to be the implementers, in many ways, of a public-health model that we are calling, in this effort, the power of prevention.
They have goals for public policy. For example, they propose that twenty-five states, in the next decade, would develop centers of excellence around the power of prevention. These centers would coordinate high-quality, evidence-based interventions in their states to make sure there was an array of these services, figure out which of those services would best be situated in which communities because of the risk patterns in those communities, and further develop an entire approach to prevention that would be institutionalized statewide.
The idea is that whatever else happened in government, whatever other trends there were, the science around the power of prevention and the capability to deliver these prevention programs would be maintained.
[19:34]
Jonathan Singer: So that sounds aspirational—twenty-five centers of
excellence. Are these Grand Challenges, at the moment, laying out a vision for
how the world could be, and is this really charting it for social work over the
next ten years?
[19:50]
Richard P. Barth: The Grand Challenges are definitely visionary. The
leadership who worked on the position papers committed to identifying progress
that we could make in the next decade.
Now, I must say that all of the papers—including the one that I work on—as clear as they might be, still have a lot of work ahead to identify what some manageable goals are and what path we could take to get there for a good portion of the Grand Challenges. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be done.
We’re hoping that we can go to a lot of the research in the profession, work with the current special-interest groups that are part of social work research, the specialty practice sections that are part of the National Association of Social Workers, and the tracks and commissions that are part of the infrastructure of social work education. We want to bring those people together to work on these problems with us and to create a clear working plan of where we think we need to be, and by when, in order to make progress.
We think that having those kinds of plans will help us bring resources from foundations, government agencies, and others who can see where they would fit into this plan to increase social justice and reduce inequality.
[21:12]
Jonathan Singer: So a goal of all of this has to do with funding. Is
there precedence that foundations or other funding agencies—maybe at the
federal level—look favorably at Grand Challenges and initiatives?
[21:28]
Richard P. Barth: The Grand Challenges have definitely had the goal of
increasing resources for the profession. I wouldn’t characterize it as narrowly
as funding. I think it involves a range of partnerships.
Some listeners might have seen commercials that the National Academy of Engineers and some energy companies put together around becoming an engineer and why you would want to become an engineer. The idea came out of the Grand Challenges, but the resources came from elsewhere.
We think that there are partners like that. Certainly, the Gates Foundation has a history of funding its own Grand Challenges. There are other organizations that we hope will give us the opportunity to compete for prizes, sponsor pilot work, or fund infrastructure for the Grand Challenges.
We don’t yet have a clear set of those organizations in mind, because we’re really focused at this point on developing the plans and developing the message about the Grand Challenges—making it clear that people will know that we’re confident, that we can accomplish them, that we have a robust plan, and that we have the scientific expertise. And when we need other ideas, we’ve got the right partners in place to be able to accomplish these goals.
[22:55]
Jonathan Singer: If you were to give advice to the next generation of
doctoral students, knowing what you know about the Grand Challenges and this
vision, what would your advice be for thinking about their scholarly careers
within this framework?
[23:13]
Richard P. Barth: Doctoral students have enormous curiosity and lots of
energy, but like the rest of us, there are only twenty-four hours in the day. I
would suggest that they spend some of that curiosity and energy looking at the Grand
Challenges that seem to be in areas that they’re interested in.
Meeting some of the people who are working on these papers and who are involved in the growing infrastructure around each of the Grand Challenges. Signing up on the website to get more information for each of the Grand Challenges they’re interested in. And thinking about the opportunity they would have not only to draw on the expertise of their own faculty, but to possibly become part of a national team that works on a problem that brings in the best expertise that the field has, regardless of what university those experts are affiliated with.
And to think about how they can play a part in contributing to that Grand Challenge, or at least in staying closely affiliated with the Grand Challenge to learn some of the methods that can be used to accelerate high-quality science and important service and policy interventions.
[24:29]
Jonathan Singer: But you wouldn’t advise them to narrowly focus their
research interests based on the twelve Grand Challenges, would you? I mean, if
there happens to be overlap, fine—but how important would this be for emerging
scholars to align what they’re doing with these Grand Challenges?
[24:48]
Richard P. Barth: When we designed the Grand Challenges, we hoped that
every Grand Challenge would have an attractiveness to everyone in our
professional community. I would think it would be informative to at least stay
connected and stay aware of what’s going on with some of the Grand Challenges.
If there’s a conference on a Grand Challenge that has an interest allied with yours, then think about going to that. An example would be that we don’t have a Grand Challenge on foster care, but many doctoral students are interested in child welfare services. However, we do have Grand Challenges on homelessness, on promoting youth development, and on financial capability.
There are intersections between what kids in foster care need—especially when they are leaving foster care—and financial capability, homelessness, emotional regulation, and a lot of the kinds of topics that are addressed in these Grand Challenges. I would look to the Grand Challenges as an opportunity to find another thread to follow that might be interwoven with the topic you’re most passionate about.
[26:14]
Jonathan Singer: Earlier you mentioned coordinating with the different
national organizations—NASW especially, the practice sections of NASW, of
course. How much buy-in do these organizations have initially, and how does one
go about collaborating between organizations that have historically had some
difficulty playing well together in the sandbox?
[26:43]
Richard P. Barth: The Grand Challenges themselves have been talked about
now for almost forty years. I can’t say that we got out to every NASW chapter
meeting or presented frequently to all organizations, but we have made
presentations and asked for input at Council on Social Work Education meetings
for three years, the Society for Social Work Research meetings for three years,
a couple of NASW Pioneer meetings, and recently at the sixtieth anniversary
celebration held by NASW.
We’ve talked with NASW leadership, with Angela McLane, and with CSWE President Darla Coffey. In fact, they will be in a video about the Grand Challenges that I will encourage all of you to look at on the website. So they are very excited about this as well. I would say that in my more than thirty-five years in the profession, I have never seen so many professional organizations working so closely together on any particular area. I hope that will be sustained, but it’s very promising so far.
[27:51]
Jonathan Singer: So you mentioned that there’s no Grand Challenge on
foster care. You mentioned that some of the issues that are associated with
foster care are kind of covered in other Grand Challenges. Are there other
topics that people would be surprised to know are not a Grand Challenge?
[28:11]
Richard P. Barth: Yes, there are, and that comes up fairly often. Some
of the Grand Challenges that are not there might surprise people. For example,
eliminating severe poverty, or reducing poverty in general, or reducing child
poverty. That is a topic close to many people’s hearts, and they realize the
impact of poverty on our society. About half the children in public schools in
this country are in poverty, and poverty levels are dramatic.
The question of how to address poverty is a difficult one. We had a number of different papers that talked about how challenging it is, but they didn’t really find a way to identify measurable outcomes that seemed achievable through specific kinds of interventions. That doesn’t mean that it can’t be done, but those papers—and a lot of that work—are now nested under a Grand Challenge called Equal Opportunity for All.
Another issue that has been raised is that there isn’t one on equity for women—anything that specifically addresses women’s rights as a Grand Challenge. That is a topic many people have worked on in this field for a very long time, and we were aware of that. But again, there wasn’t a working paper that clearly indicated how we might proceed, with the exception of a paper written about stigma.
The stigma paper addressed stigma related to mental illness, sexual orientation, women’s rights, and other issues. So there is a strategy there. There are issues relating to stigma that we know we can address and that have some promise for intervention. That’s not to say that reducing stigma addresses the entire issue, or the full range of causes relating to inequality and unfairness and the treatment of women, or that issues related to the African American education pipeline—which is one of the position papers under Equal Opportunity for All—address all issues relating to historical racism.
But we had to make some choices, and we made choices around more specific areas where social workers have a history of accomplishment and a promise of being able to intervene more effectively if we can bolster our science related to it and increase the commitment and focus of the profession around these issues.
[31:20]
Jonathan Singer: So is there room for a thirteenth or fourteenth Grand
Challenge? If somebody hears this and says, “Oh, wait—one of the things that’s
lacking is more clarity of vision for something that needs to be achieved in
the next years,” and they submit something— is there a possibility? Or is it
really that there are twelve, and everything will now be assumed under those
twelve?
[31:27]
Richard P. Barth: The Grand Challenge executive committee is pretty
clear at this time that there will be twelve Grand Challenges. Additional
working papers are certainly welcome, and they should identify which of the Grand
Challenges they would be associated with, and whether they could really make a
difference to the Grand Challenge initiative. I am sure that we would find a
way to incorporate them into what is still quite a wide-open structure.
[31:56]
Jonathan Singer: So imagine it’s 2025 and you’re invited to give a talk
commemorating the ten-year anniversary of the Grand Challenge initiative. What
do you hope that you will be able to say about how the field has advanced in
ten years?
[32:13]
Richard P. Barth: I hope that for each of the twelve Grand Challenges
there would be very clear and measurable goals that have been identified, and
that for most of them—if not all of them—there would be substantial progress
toward addressing those goals.
It may be that we won’t have the resources to measure all of that impact, which is an expensive enterprise, but I would hope that we would at least have the theories in place, the interventions in place, training programs that are beginning to prepare people to do innovative work, collaborations across disciplines—which will be a critical effort—funders who are interested in what we’re doing and are committed to developing these Grand Challenges.
And very importantly, I would hope that there would be enough work across the Grand Challenges to share new innovations in research methods and intervention development, technology, surveying and sampling, measuring outcomes, and using social media to communicate those outcomes. So that the entire enterprise of social work would be lifted up in terms of what people expect of us—knowing that they could expect strong, well-evaluated, reasoned analysis and clear communication resulting from any investment they make in social work.
[33:46]
Jonathan Singer: So in addition to being able to look back and see what
was achieved, it also sounds like not just that there is good for the greater
society, but also that there’s a benefit to social work—people are able to see
social work as making valuable contributions to society, maybe in ways that
they never imagined.
[34:07]
Richard P. Barth: Absolutely. We would certainly hope that there would
be students who are now in eighth grade who would then be attracted to social
work as a profession. They would see that the opportunities are great, that
this is incredibly exciting and promising work to do.
We would hope that they would choose this path over other possible paths, and that people who are thinking about changing careers would give very high regard to becoming part of the Grand Challenge of social work by joining the profession. The effect would be an invigorated, well-resourced profession that is recruiting the best talent and creating work that is interesting and rewarding enough to retain great social workers over long periods of time, while enhancing the well-being of society.
[35:04]
Jonathan Singer: Rick, thank you so much for talking with us today on
the Social Work Podcast about the Grand Challenge initiative.
[35:11]
Richard P. Barth: It’s a great privilege to have the chance to
communicate about the Grand Challenges. I hope that this brings some of the
excitement to your listeners that it has brought to my life.
Transcription generously donated by Raashida M. Edwards, LCSW.
APA (6th ed) citation for this podcast:
Singer, J. B. (Producer). (2016, March 28). #103 - The Grand Challenges for Social Work: Interview with Dr. Richard P. Barth [Audio Podcast]. Social Work Podcast. Retrieved from http://www.socialworkpodcast.com/2016/03/grand-challenges.html
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