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Reviewing the major accomplishments and achievements discussed throughout this volume, this chapter highlights the many successes of the Grand Challenges for Social Work through the efforts of each network and their many supporters. Arriving at the mid-way mark of the initiative during a global health pandemic and a national awakening to the ongoing systemic racism that permeates society, the Grand Challenges initiative stood with the social work field and national allied organizations to advocate for policy and practice change to address the inequities illuminated by the dual and intersecting pandemics. Progress in building a network-based organizational structure offers an example for other transformative efforts. As the Grand Challenges move forward, the initiative will increase efforts to advance innovative interventions, scientific research and educational opportunities in the field of social work to address the Grand Challenges for our society.

This chapter reflects on the process and progress that brought the Grand Challenges for Social Work to the midway mark of an ambitious ten-year initiative. Critical partnerships and support enabled the initiative to expand its reach and impact on the field. Responding to early critiques of the original selection and development of the Grand Challenges, the initiative added the Grand Challenge to Eliminate Racism and strategically examines the intersection of gender inequality with each challenge by mainstreaming gender throughout the GCSW. Progress in education, policy, and research is chronicled. The chapter outlines the initiative's vision and goals for the remaining five years of the original timeline through interdisciplinary innovation and collaboration to tackle some of society's grandest challenges.

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.

The Grand Challenges for Social Work (GCSW) focuses on big, important and compelling problems for all of American society. Sponsored by the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare, the 12 Grand Challenges address issues of healthy youth development, the health gap, family violence, long and productive lives, social isolation, homelessness, changing climate environments, technology for social good, smart decarceration, economic inequity, financial capacity, and equal opportunity and justice. GCSW is designed to promote scientific and transformative innovation in social work, engage the social work profession in strengthening the ties among social work organizations, foster transdisciplinary research, create greater acknowledgement of social work science within the discipline and by other and related disciplines, and expand the student pipeline into the social work profession.

Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) has generally been perceived as a tool for educational institutions, primarily at the primary and second levels. Since the late 1970s, applications of this teaching method have increased to a limited extent in post-secondary institutions and have expanded in private industry. But, in government and human service organizations, there has been little gain in the rise of CAI for staff orientation, development, or performance evaluation. Professional administrators remain focused in database or spreadsheet applications, although there is widening acceptance of some direct service uses. The A. cites the reasons for limited CAI implementation by human service agencies -limited sofware ; high cost of software ; limited attention and resources given to inservice training ; and bias among social welfare professionals against impersonal modes of intervention with human being. The A. describes and appraises new trends that open possibilities for more extensive adoption of CAI in the near future

This study examines the general patterns of computer use and response to computer-assisted instruction by 701 older adults aged forty-five to seventy, in three major metropolitan areas. Findings support the expectation that older people can be enthusiastic computer users irrespective of education or other socio-economic variables. The results raise interesting questions about the negative bias which may be introduced by classroom instructors as mediators of instructional technology.

This paper describes the use of computer-based lessons as an adjunct to classroom teaching for a course in social policy, and shows how the computer was used to meet the common problems of such a course. Six programs were used by more than 350 students. Lesson content is summarized, and the impact on students reviewed. In a one-year trial we found increased student satisfaction with course continuity, and succesful individualization of teaching. Unresolved problems remain—principally technical difficulties and the inadequate development of either a theory or data base for effective policy analysis.