“Financial capability and asset building” is the theme of the 60th anniversary issue of Social Work. Articles by several researchers at the Center for Social Development (CSD) were published in the October 2016 issue of the flagship journal of the National Association of Social Workers.
Why financial capability and asset building in social work?
“The simple reason is that financial troubles often underlie the issues that bring people into care, counseling, clinics, courts, and shelters,” according to “Celebrating Six Decades of Social Work and Advancing Financial Capability in Asset Development,” the editorial that opens the special issue. “Finances and economics are fundamental to social justice and human rights and to the welfare of individuals, families, communities, and society as a whole.”
Margaret S. Sherraden, Julie Birkenmaier and Gena G. McClendon are among the authors. Sherraden and Birkenmaier are faculty directors of CSD’s Financial Capability initiative, and McClendon is project director. (To see CSD’s Financial Capability publications, please click here.)
With Sherraden’s direction, CSD was the lead organizer of the special issue.
The issue also draws from CSD’s SEED for Oklahoma Kids (SEED OK) research, “Improved Financial Capability Can Reduce Material Hardship among Mothers,” by Jin Huang, Yunju Nam, Michael Sherraden and Margaret Clancy. At CSD, Huang is a faculty director, Nam is a faculty associate, Sherraden is director, and Clancy is policy director. (To see CSD’s SEED OK publications, please click here.)
Original versions of some articles in the special issue of Social Work were presented in May 2015 during the Financial Capability & Asset Building Convening in St. Louis, hosted by CSD at Washington University in St. Louis and the University of Maryland School of School work. These include: “Financial Capability in Early Social Work Practice: Lessons for Today,” by Paul H. Stuart; and “Growing Financial Assets for Foster Youth: Expanded Child Welfare Responsibilities, Policy Conflict, and Caseworker Role Tension,” by Clark M. Peters, Margaret S. Sherraden and Ann Marie Kuchinski.