Executive Orders and the Trump Administration: A Guide for Social Workers.

With the election of Donald Trump, policies antithetical to our clients' well-being, in areas as diverse as criminal justice, the environment, health care, and immigration, are being proposed at a rapid rate. Many of these policies are being transmitted through executive orders (EOs), a mechanism for exercising executive power less familiar to social workers. This article analyzes EOs issued by the Trump administration during its first five months, describing their purpose, content, and potential for policy change. Strategies for resistance and points of intervention for social workers and other advocates are also identified.

Advocacy and argumentation in the public arena: a guide for social workers.

Whether translating research findings for public consumption, or arguing for a policy position that reflects social work values, social workers engaged in cause advocacy need rhetorical skills. The author draws from the disciplines of linguistics, logic, and communications and provides a framework for making arguments in the public arena. The structure and components of arguments are analyzed, and strategies for choosing persuasive empirical evidence and using values to support an argument are described. The use and misuses of language are discussed. Excerpts from published op-ed pieces are used for illustration.

Principled negotiation: a new tool for case advocacy.

Many methods of social work practice, including brokering, case advocacy, and cause advocacy, require the social worker to engage in negotiations to resolve disputes. This article demonstrates how principled negotiation, a form of negotiating developed out of the Harvard Negotiation Project at Harvard University and used widely in the business and legal world, can be an effective tool in social work practice. Principled negotiation is especially consonant with the value base of social work because it strives for the just and mutually beneficial resolution of conflicts while acknowledging the value and importance of ongoing relationships. A case example applying the rules of principled negotiation is described in the context of case advocacy. Its application to other social work practice methods is also examined.

TANF: what went wrong and what to do next.

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, widely heralded as the "end to welfare as we know it," is in its sixth year of implementation. According to many, the welfare debate has been settled, and both legislators and the public have proclaimed the program a success. This article examines the accumulated data on the effect of welfare reform, which shows, contrary to popular opinion, the goal of self-sufficiency remains elusive for many, and poor women and their families are being hurt, not helped, by TANF. It is argued that the booming economy and consequent expanding labor market have led to the perceived success of TANF and that the optimism expressed about dwindling welfare rolls is misplaced. The failure of TANF to adequately address obstacles to self-sufficiency in the workplace threatens to create an even worse welfare problem in the future. During the TANF evaluation period, social workers are urged to take a more active role in urging TANF modifications.

Managed care and the judicial system: another avenue for reform?

Over the past several years the judiciary has become a major venue for challenging managed care. This article examines the present and potential effect of such litigation, focusing on the recent Supreme Court decision in Pegram v. Herdrich and class action litigation-filed under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The author concludes that although court-based reforms are a necessary and pragmatic response to managed care, they can result in only incremental changes. Litigation also cannot resolve the larger conflicts that result when a social welfare service such as health care is provided through a corporate model. Social workers need to look beyond the "next best" reform of managed care and advocate for more fundamental solutions to the inequities and inefficiencies in the provision of health care.