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Despite evidence of widespread increasing interest in the arts as mechanisms for personal and social change, social work is conspicuous for its lack of organized conceptual attention to this area. This article argues that there are four potential perspectives that might be adopted as a means of expanding social work science and professional practice: the arts as adjunct to clinical treatment and healing, the arts as the “work” in social work, the arts as tool for social investment, and the arts as driver of political and ideological commitment. An argument is presented for a new vision of the profession in academic environments in which the arts are defined as one of the fundamental pillars. This might lead to reimagining of scholarship, the reconstruction of social work education, and acceleration of social reform.

The social work profession has adopted science and empirical evidence as the means of validating discovery. As the commitment to science has intensified, interest in the use of arts in practice has grown as a counterpoise and an effort to justify other forms of knowledge and human experience. A roundtable was held in summer 2017 to examine whether the arts have a distinctive place in social work practice. It has been acknowledged that the arts have played a role in the history of the profession, however, remained neglected and marginalized in social work education. Roundtable participants argued that creativity, necessary disruption, and transformation have been lost to the field as a result. It is possible that social work education might be reimagined with new underpinnings of science, social innovation, and the arts. It should not be assumed that outcome measurement is not possible; however, measures would have to be rethought.

This paper examines a range of possibilities and offers examples for implementing elements of the Grand Challenges for Social Work Initiative in schools and departments of social work. The intent is to identify how deans, directors, and faculty champions can conceptualize actions and roles that engage students, faculty members, schools, and university systems in grand challenges activities. Because there is no precedent in social work for connecting science, practice, and a universal social agenda such as the grand challenges initiative, these ideas are fledgling and emergent in character rather than prototypic.

The field of social work does not currently have a widely adopted method for expediting innovations into micro- or macropractice. Although it is common in fields such as engineering and business to have formal processes for accelerating scientific advances into consumer markets, few comparable mechanisms exist in the social sciences or social services. Given that beta testing is successfully used to scale innovation in business and engineering, why is there no method for beta testing in social work? Could this be the reason that innovations in social work practice remain decades behind scientific research findings? This article explores reasons for the scarcity of options for scaling innovation in the field of social work and proposes a method for shortening development cycles for social work innovations to ensure that advances reach consumers—and ultimately improve their lives—more quickly.