Dr. Katharine Byers leads effort to ensure the future of ISP

Dr. Katharine Byers

       July 22, 2008 - Social work educators attending a conference in Chicago 11 years ago faced a dilemma: attend a meeting to discuss how recent welfare reform changes created a need to change the way students learn about influencing policy or just go out and have fun.

     After all, it was a Friday or Saturday night and it wasn’t like there was nothing else to do in Chicago.

    Even so, some 25 to 30 CSWE members showed up at the meeting called by Robert Schneider, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, recalled Dr. Katharine Byers, director of the BSW program in Bloomington.

      Inspired by Schneider’s passion, she and the others passed around a hat to collect money to help start what has become Influencing State Policy (ISP), an organization that has grown to 1,200 members.

      Now faculty members who have come to depend on ISP for advice and information face a new challenge.

       Schneider, who served as the driving force of ISP, has retired and Dr. Byers has agreed to coordinate an effort to ensure the long-term future of ISP.

     In essence, Dr. Byers is looking to institutionalize the organization that up to now has survived and thrived under the guidance of Schneider. But his decision to retire means the organization needs to rethink how ISP will carry on, she explained.

     One thing that hasn’t changed is the basic need that led to ISP’s creation.

     At the time of the first meeting, Schneider was upset over the lack of response by social workers to the debate surrounding the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. Policy affects practice, thus the voices of social workers needed to be heard on such matters, he strongly believed.

      Because the welfare act shifted responsibilities from the federal to the state level, it opened new opportunities for faculty to show students how they can influence policies, said Dr. Byers.

      Most of the discussion in books being used in classrooms at the time was geared toward national policies and how to influence Congress. “So much of our policy work was oriented toward national policy,” Byers said.

     Now the decisions were being shifted to state legislatures. That meant it would be easier for many students to reach state legislators than having to make a trip to Washington, D.C. to talk with senators or representatives in Congress.

     At the meeting in Chicago, faculty members were enthusiastic about creating an organization to support faculty who are teaching policy “so we can help students learn how to work at the state level,” Byers said.

     The idea was to show students how they could now and later as practitioners let legislators know how legislative decisions could help or hurt the needs of people.

     While the need for ISP was readily accepted, the reason it exists today is because of Schneider, Byers said. “He poured his heart and soul into it,” she said. “He really carried this organization and because of his work it has really grown and blossomed over the years.”

     While policy affects practice, Schneider also said practice can affect policy, Byers said. Students who begin to work at various social service agencies during their practicums begin to see the impact of policy when they try to help clients who may have just a little too much income to qualify for a program. That doesn’t mean they don’t have needs though, Byers explained.

     Seeing such conflicts in their practice can lead the soon-to-be social workers to contact their legislators. In turn, the policy classes are designed both build knowledge and skills related to policy and to lessen the fear factor of going to the State House.

     Among other things ISP has developed a video series on DVD called “Policy Affects Practice,” which includes six programs ranging in length from 20 to 25 minutes on topics ranging from, Making a Difference: Influencing State Policy,” to “Creating Change: Building a Legislative Coalition.”  The programs include interviews with social work practitioners and students engaged in a variety of policy practice activities.

     Helping to reduce the anxiety associated with contacting elected officials is one of the reasons Byers helped organized LEAD or Legislative Education and Advocacy Day in Indiana, when hundreds of social work students from around the state meet together and then go to the State House to hear and speak with legislators. For many of the students it is the first time they have been to the State House.

     By seeing the legislators, the students realize, “Oh, that’s a real person. I could talk to that person, I could e-mail that person, I could write a letter to that person,” Byers said.

      ISP conducts an annual contest for BSW and MSW students that showcase efforts to influence state policy. The organization gives an $1,000 award to a BSW winner and one to an MSW winner.  Winners are frequently teams of students who have collaborated on their advocacy projects.

     To ensure such efforts continue, Byers and a group of faculty have agreed to work together to institutionalize ISP’s operation.

      “I am not going to become Bob,” Byers laughed. But she does expect that over the next couple of years they will create an operating structure that will ensure its presence for years to come.

      For more information about ISP visit its website at www.statepolicy.org.

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