Social Welfare Policy and Advocacy

Bruce S. Jansson (MA, University of Chicago and Harvard University; PhD, University of Chicago) is the Driscoll/Clevenger professor of social policy in the School of Social Work at the University of Southern California (USC). He joined the USC faculty in 1973 after working in Michigan as a community organizer and planner for tenant rights. He also has served as the Moses distinguished research professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) Graduate Center. His scholarly interests focus on advancing case advocacy and policy advocacy in social work, as well as examining the history and practice of social welfare policy. He invented the term "policy practice" in the 1984 release of The Theory and Practice of Social Policy, which was succeeded by other titles, including Becoming an Effective Policy Advocate (1999, 2003, 2008, 2011, and 2014). Policy practice has since emerged as a recognized intervention, with the Council on Social Work Education now requiring social work schools to teach policy practice.