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The article discusses what the author refers to as the dangers of social justice advocacy as of 2019, and it mentions data regarding an increase in hate groups, hate crimes, and anti-Muslim groups in America in the wake of businessman Donald Trump's 2016 U.S. presidential election victory. A rise in college campus hate crimes is assessed, along with white supremacist propaganda, violence against social workers and social work students who protest, and protection from online harassment.

The Children's Safety Network has identified teenage dating violence (TDV) as a public health problem and called for effective prevention programs to address the issue. This study used resource dependence theory to examine factors that relate to domestic violence shelters' in-school efforts to prevent TDV. A national survey was sent to domestic violence shelters asking them to provide information on their TDV prevention efforts in schools. Seventy-seven percent of agencies indicated that they provide TDV programming within schools. Shelters' engagement in community awareness campaigns predicted their TDV prevention efforts in schools. Shelters' advocacy efforts, shelter size, and state law requiring TDV programming in the schools did not predict shelters' TDV prevention efforts in schools. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for school-based practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The National Association of Social Workers' (NASW's) Code of Ethics urges social workers to engage in political action. However, little recent research has been conducted to examine whether social workers support this admonition and the extent to which they actually engage in politics. The authors gathered data from a survey of social workers in Austin, Texas, to address three questions. First, because keeping informed about government and political news is an important basis for action, the authors asked what sources of knowledge social workers use. Second, they asked what the respondents believe are appropriate political behaviors for other social workers and NASW. Third, they asked for self-reports regarding respondents' own political behaviors. Results indicate that social workers use the Internet and traditional media services to stay informed; expect other social workers and NASW to be active; and are, overall, more active than the general public in many types of political activities. The comparisons made between expectations for others and their own behaviors are interesting in their complex outcomes. Social workers should strive for higher levels of adherence to the code's urgings on political activity. Implications for future work are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reports on a decline in funding and an increased demand for services which many nonprofit organizations are encountering in 2012. A discussion of the role that affiliate marketing, the use of online donations and memberships and using information products can play in helping nonprofit organizations meet their fundraising goals is presented.

Because social policy making continues to devolve to the state level, social workers should understand how advocacy and policy making occur at that level. Interest groups active in the human services arena were surveyed and data were used to test a model of interest group effectiveness in four states. The independent variables were amount of resources invested, strategy used, relationships with key actors, use of coalitions, and policy positions taken. Results indicate that the model explains low to middling amounts of the variation in group effectiveness. Results also show that the model fits different states to different degrees, indicating that social workers need to approach advocacy in different ways to achieve maximum effectiveness in altering state policy. Implications for altering state policy are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses rules for evaluating human services programs. Evaluation is a vital enterprise for social programs. Well-done evaluations are helpful for program administrators, program workers, clients, policymakers, and the public at large in whose name the program is conducted. Evaluations are only of use if they provide ad- equate information, but many are based on designs that are not properly rigorous. A study of 2,231 outcome evaluations published during a 10-year period indicated that over two-thirds used no comparison group and that more than a third were post test-only case studies. Some of the blame for this situation can be laid at the feet of evaluators who do not know how to do a better job, but this part of the problem is probably fading. Most program administrators have access to competent evaluators through faculty of local universities or independent consultants. The article offers a few rules of evaluation practice wisdom that have been honed through years of consulting and teaching courses about evaluation. Although presented in a lighthearted way, these rules, if followed, would result in more rigorous and useful evaluations.