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NEARLY ALL SOCIAL WORKERS are aware of the profession's long history of advocacy (Kutchins & Kutchins, 1978) and of early social workers' intense involvement with social reform. Social work advocacy fell dormant for several decades, however, until the 1960s when the War on Poverty encouraged community organizing and social action (Gilbert & Specht, 1976). Although the resurgence of advocacy in the 1960s was short-lived, a revival of advocacy seems to be occurring today. Although social work's role in this recent resurgence is small, effective advocacy organizations are likely to have social workers playing key leadership or staff roles (Reisch, 1986).
Social workers receive encouragement from various sources to act as advocates for their clients. The ethics codes of the National Association of Social Workers, the National Association of Black Social Workers, and Radical Social Service Workers promote ethical commitment to the welfare of clients (Galper, 1975). Moreover, advocacy is exhorted throughout the professional literature, including most of the practice texts used by schools of social work (see Austin, Kopp, & Smith, 1986; Compton & Gallaway, 1984; Germain & Gitterman, 1980; Hepworth & Larsen, 1986; Hollis, 1981; Pincus & Minahan, 1973; Whittaker & Tracy, 1989; Zastrow, 1989). Although much has been written about the value of advocacy and its importance as an aspect of social workers' professional responsibility (Taylor, 1987), many of these discussions treat advocacy more as an attitude than as a distinct area of practice with specific skills based on a clear conceptual framework. One wonders whether advocacy is "more honored in rhetoric than in practice" (Patti, 1974, p. 542).
Despite the importance of advocacy in the social work profession and the fact that advocacy is a core practice activity distinguishing social work from other professions (Sosin & Caulum, 1983), we know very little about the extent and nature of social workers' advocacy practice (McGowan, 1987). An exploratory study (Epstein, 1981) surveyed self-defined advocates but did not examine advocacy involvement among social workers in general. Consequently, little evidence supports assertions that social workers are active and effective while performing advocacy roles and functions. How many social workers are involved in advocacy? When they do perform advocacy functions, what are the nature, context, and target of their interventions?
No agreed-upon definition of advocacy exists (Epstein,...