A Social Work Education Grounded in Human Rights.

In response to a mandate to advance human rights through social work education, this article focuses on the curricular redesign and program evaluation of one MSW Program. The program's specialization focused on advanced social work practice with individuals, families, and communities grounded in social justice and human rights. A pre-experimental one-group posttest-only program evaluation design was implemented. Multiple assessment instruments were used to measure human rights exposure in social work education, as well as a human rights lens and engagement in social work practice among 93 graduating MSW students from a public university with suburban and urban campus locations. How the program applied a human rights-based approach to social work field education will also be discussed. Findings suggest that a human rights exposure in course work and practicum is related to students' practice lens and engagement. The imperative is now to train social work students to address complex social issues through human rights exposure, engagement, and lens as we prepare for a post-pandemic world. Recommendations are provided to strengthen academic leadership and research in this area and empower students to drive a paradigm shift in the profession.

Human rights violations lead clients to seek out social work interventions. Yet, in the USA, the profession has been reluctant to integrate human rights concepts into education and practice (Reichert, 2007). Given its history as a human right profession (Healy, 2008), social work is uniquely qualified to promote human rights, increase engagement and exposure in the classroom, and embed this framework in practice (McPherson & Cheatham, 2015).

The ethical statement of the International Federation of Social Workers (2018) states the “principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversities are central to social work.” Whereas, the US-based National Association of Social Workers (NASW, 2017) does not include human rights in its professional ethical code. Yet, Albrithen and Androff (2014) argued that human rights are embedded within the NASW (2017) Code of Ethics. Their analysis linked all articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR, United Nations [UN], 1948) to the six ethical principles. Social justice, a core value that distinguishes social work, was found to relate to 14 of the 30 UDHR articles (Albrithen & Androff, 2014). This distinct connection between professional values and human rights necessitates the inclusion in social work education.

The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) has been proactive in promoting human rights through its accreditation requirements for US-based social work education programs. In 2008, the CSWE first introduced human rights in its Education Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS). In the 2015 EPAS, CSWE extended the mandate to two competencies (Competencies 3 and 5) (Chiarelli-Helminiak et al., 2018). Since the addition of human rights to social work education accreditation standards, more students have been introduced to human rights concepts; yet, Gatenio Gabel and Mapp (2019) found that 12% of US-based social work programs did not include human rights in their curriculum.

The purpose of this article is to present one program’s attempt to evaluate human rights exposure in social work education, as well as a human rights lens and engagement in practice among graduating MSW students. We stress the imperative to train US-based social work students to address complex social issues through a human rights lens.

Human Rights in Social Work Education and Practice

Concepts that underlie human rights are not new to the profession. Human rights issues, such as racial and gender equality, healthcare, and housing, are at the heart of social work practice (Healy, 2008; Ife, 2008; NASW, 2017; van Wormer, 2006; Wronka, 2008). The right to social services is specified in UDHR Article 25 (United Nations, 1948). Yet, in the USA, human rights are often referred to when addressing international social work issues (Libal & Healy, 2014; Reichert, 2007), emphasizing the need to bridge human rights to domestic practice (Gatenio Gabel & Mapp, 2019).

Adding to the disconnect with human rights is the false micro and macro divide in US-based social work. Androff and McPherson (2014) highlighted that although this unnecessary rift exists, expertise in one dimension of practice does not require blindness to the other. As new models of rights-based social work practice emerge, the incorporation of human rights throughout curricula will help students understand themselves and their clients as right-holders (Reichert, 2007). A human rights-based approach to practice provides an opportunity to bridge the micro/macro gap and reassert the profession’s commitment to social justice (Androff & McPherson, 2014).

CSWE-accredited programs provide competency-based curricula to support students’ learning of key components of social work practice (CSWE, 2015). EPAS Competency 3 explicitly calls for social workers to advance human rights and social, economic, and environmental justice. Competency 3 highlights the need for social workers to foster an inclusive framework for practice, validating every person regardless of position in society (CSWE, 2015), in line with fundamental principles of human rights.

A human rights lens applied to field practicum encourages the emerging social worker to not only promote individual rights but also to assess structural inequities impacting clients and advocate for justice in community and policy settings (Gatenio Gabel, 2014; McPherson et al., 2017). Learning agreements, commonly individualized, are used to plan learning opportunities, connect field work to the classroom, and serve as a basis for evaluation to ensure core competencies are met (Tapp, 2012). Davis and Reber (2016) found that if social work graduates are to advance human rights, it is important to develop the human rights-related competencies through meaningful learning agreement activities and responsibilities. The authors concluded that as students developed skills, they became better equipped to align with the mission of the profession. While learning agreements provide a connection from education to practice, Field Instructors assigned to supervise students in their practicum play a significant role. McPherson and Libal (2019) found that while social work education has made strides in advancing human rights, field educators and field education have not kept pace.

McPherson and colleagues developed and validated three scales for assessing human rights exposure in social work curricula, the human rights lens, and human rights engagement in social work practice (McPherson & Abell, 2012; McPherson et al., 2017). Assessing human rights exposure and engagement in social work curricula may assist with both explicit and implicit curriculum improvements to better prepare social work students for human rights engagement in practice at multiple levels.

Methodology

The focus of the research was to explore one program’s efforts and results of expanding human rights throughout the MSW curriculum. After an extensive curriculum redesign, a pre-experimental program evaluation was conducted with the purpose of assessing (a) human rights exposure in social work education, (b) a human rights lens, and (c) human rights engagement in social work practice.

Graduate Social Work Education Curriculum Redesign

Change was initiated in 2014–2015 when the graduate social work department’s mission statement was amended to be inclusive of human rights and economic and environmental justice. If a mission statement is the foundation for an organization’s aspirations (Holosko et al., 2015), then the MSW Program set its intentions on human rights.

The curriculum redesign process took place over the next five academic years. First, the MSW Program’s specialization was updated to be inclusive of advanced community practice. Focus on specialized social work practice with individuals, families, and communities was intentional to maintain an advanced generalist orientation in recognition of applying a human rights-based approach to overcome the micro-macro divide (Androff & McPherson, 2014). Next, the MSW Program conceptualized the specialization as an approach to social work that addresses well-being from a trauma-informed, recovery perspective grounded in human rights. As part of refining the curricular focus, conceptualizations of social justice and human rights were developed by the faculty and staff. Then, the MSW Program’s nine specialized competencies were updated to each be inclusive of social justice and human rights. Finally, the Departmental Vision and Program Goals were also revised to include social justice and human rights.

Human rights were integrated across required and elective courses. The MSW Program established a foundation to foster anti-racist, anti-oppressive, and human rights-based practices (Werkmeister Rozas & Garran, 2016) in required generalist courses. A synthesis of human rights practice was furthered through specialized core coursework, including three Specialized Practice courses and an Integrated Seminar. Several electives were also developed with human rights and social justice as the focus.

Learning agreements and end-of-year field evaluations were also revised to align with the curricular changes. In the Specialization Year, the Learning Agreement included three learning goals: one for individuals, one for families, and one for communities, regardless of field setting. At the end of the year, generalist and specialized practicum students were evaluated in all nine competency areas, regardless of internship assignment or setting.

The MSW Program also organized a variety of free Continuing Education events. A human rights speaker series featured leaders in human rights-based approaches to social work practice. Funded by an internal College grant, the series included luncheons, as well as evening public lectures, with the speakers.

Participants

Participants were 93 graduating MSW students enrolled in the specialized social work practice course at both the suburban main campus (n = 59, 4 course sections) and urban campus (n = 34, 3 course sections) of a mid-Atlantic public state university. The Spring 2019 course was the last required core course in the MSW curriculum and a co-requisite with specialized field practicum. Both advanced standing and regular standing students were included in this study. This evaluation was approved by the university’s Institutional Review Board.

Procedure

The design was a pre-experimental one-group posttest-only program evaluation. The human rights scales were administered to students in the last class session. Prior to administration, students were presented with an informed consent form requesting permission to include their responses to the human rights scales in this study. Three students declined resulting in 97% consenting to participate. The surveys were anonymous and took an average of 10 min to complete.

Measures

The program evaluation was used to assess participants’ human rights experiences and attitudes. The human rights assessment included three human rights scales, demographic items, and one open-ended item.

Human Rights Exposure in Social Work Scale

The 11-item scale assessed participants’ exposure to human rights principles in social work (McPherson & Abell, 2012). Exposure included reading the UDHR, education covering human rights violations occurring in the USA, and being aware of the UN’s role in monitoring international human rights. Participants rated items on a 7-pt Likert scale, with 7 representing strong exposure to human rights principles in social work. A summary score was created with a range 11–77 due to good internal consistency at posttest (ɑ = 0.80).

Human Rights Engagement in Social Work Scale

The 25-item scale examined human rights idea endorsement (e.g., Everyone has the right to reasonable working hours and periodic holidays with pay), relevance of human rights to the social work profession (e.g., Social workers should promote the human right to health care), and application of human rights in their own practice (e.g., I help my clients by educating them about their human rights) (McPherson & Abell, 2012). The items were assessed by a 7-pt Likert scale. The scale demonstrated strong internal consistency (ɑ = 0.93); therefore, a summary score was used with a range from 25 to 175 with 175 as strong human rights engagement.

Human Rights Lens in Social Work Scale

The 11-item scale (ɑ = 0.88) was composed of two subscales (McPherson et al., 2017). Both subscales used a 7-pt Likert scale. In the 6-item Social Problems as Rights Violations subscale, participants were asked to rate their level of agreement whether lack of access to medical care, poverty, and other issues were violations of human rights. This subscale demonstrated adequate internal consistency (ɑ = 0.77) with a summary score range of 6–42 with 42 as strongly viewing social problems as rights violations. The 5-item Clients as Experiencing Rights Violations subscale (ɑ = 0.89) examined participants’ view of clients’ problems and needs as related to human rights violations and less of individual failure or pathology. The subscale summary score ranged from 5 to 35 with 35 a strong view of clients experiencing human rights violations.

Demographics and Open-Ended Item

Individual-level characteristics included campus location, age group, gender, race/ethnicity, and number of years worked in social work or related fields. One open-ended question on the survey asked participants to provide examples of how the MSW program engaged them in the development of social work practice from a human rights and social justice lens.

Analysis

Descriptive statistics were computed using SPSS in which categorical variables were summarized with n (%) and continuously treated variables such as human rights scale summary scores were summarized with M ± SD. In addition, our goal was to expect 80% or more student participants to favorably rate exposure, lens, and engagement as measured by the aggregate response options. In this sample, Cronbach’s alphas assessed scale internal consistency and Pearson correlations examined construct validity across human rights scales. Independent t tests and one-way ANOVAs were computed to examine statistical differences in human rights scale scores by categorized campus location. The qualitative responses to the open-ended question were reviewed by two authors, coded for themes with differences being resolved through discussion with a third author, and summed to elucidate how the program integrated human rights exposure and engagement into the explicit and implicit MSW curriculum.

Results

Demographics

Of the 93-consenting graduating MSW student participants, 63% were enrolled at the state university’s suburban campus and 37% on the urban campus. The majority were female (84%) and non-Hispanic Black (24%) or non-Hispanic White (66%). Two-thirds of participants were aged 25–34 years old, while 16% were aged 21–24 and the remainder were 35 or older (19%). Respondents, on average, reported 4.7 years (SD = 5.3) of social work or related human services practice experience (excluding practicum) with a range of 0 to 25 years. See Table 1. Participants reflected the demographics of graduate social work students during the 2018–2019 academic year (West Chester University, 2018). The 93 participants represented 33% of the MSW student body who were more likely to be enrolled at the suburban campus (56%) and identify as female (84%). The total MSW student body was more racially diverse than the graduating class with 51% identifying as non-Hispanic White and 35% identifying as non-Hispanic Black.

Table 1

Participant characteristics

	Total sample (n = 93)
Demographics	n	Valid %
Age group (year)   21–24   25–34   35–44   45+	14 57 6 11	15.9 64.8 6.8 12.5
Race/Ethnicity   Non-Hispanic Black   Non-Hispanic White   Hispanic   Multiracial   Other	21 59 3 3 3	23.6 66.3 3.4 3.4 3.4
Gender   Female   Male   Other	75 11 3	84.3 12.4 3.4
Campus location   Suburban   Urban	59 34	63.4 36.6
No. of years worked in social work or related human services field, excluding practicum, in years, M (SD)	4.7 (5.3)	Range 0–25

Human Rights Scales Results

Aligned with past results (McPherson & Abell, 2012; McPherson et al., 2017), the human rights scales demonstrated strong internal consistency with Cronbach’s ɑ coefficients 0.80 or higher with exception of the Human Rights Lens Subscale on Social Problems as Rights Violations computing slightly lower with a Cronbach’s ɑ = 0.77. Pearson correlations exhibited the expected positive associations among the human rights scale summary scores, suggesting construct validity. Human rights scales did not statistically differ by suburban versus urban campus location, p ≥ 0.05; therefore, all results are reported by total sample. See Table 2.

Table 2

Participants’ human rights exposure, engagement, and lens in social work

Human rights scales	M	SD	Scale range	No. of scale items	No. of scale items meeting program goal
Exposure	63.6	8.9	11–77	11	7
Engagement	159.5	14.4	25–175	25	25
Lens	66.2	8.8	11–77	11	9
Social problems as rights violations	36.4	4.8	6–42	6	5
Clients experiencing rights violations	29.8	5.0	5–35	5	4

On the Human Rights Exposure in Social Work scale, participants demonstrated moderate-to-high exposure to human rights principles, M = 64.2, SD = 8.4, and met the 80% agreement benchmark for 7 of the 11 items. For example, approximately 97% of participants agreed that social work was a good way to learn about human rights, 89% agreed their education covered human rights violations in the USA, and 84% agreed they learned about human rights issues in their work.

Participants demonstrated an overall strong Human Rights Engagement scale score, M = 160.5, SD = 14.3, meeting the 80% benchmark for all 25 items, with 20 of the items above a 90% level of agreement. Some examples include: “I advocate for my clients’ right to high-quality accessible health care” (95%), “When I work with clients, I acknowledge their inherent human dignity” (96%), and “Social workers should partner with their clients in the effort to access and uphold human rights” (95%).

Overall, respondents demonstrated a strong human rights lens in social work, M = 66.2, SD = 8.8. The Social Problems as Rights Violations subscale met the 80% benchmark for 5 of the 6 items and demonstrated strong average agreement, M = 36.4, SD = 4.8. The reversal item was the one item falling below the 80% benchmark at 74% agreement, “A community's lack of adequate employment is not a human rights issue.” Clients as Experiencing Rights Violations subscale showed moderate-to-strong average agreement, M = 29.8, SD = 5.0 with 4 of the 5 items meeting the 80% benchmark. The item with only 74% agreement was “The problems I address in my social work practice tend to be violations of my clients’ human rights.”

Feedback on Preparedness to Practice from a Human Rights and Social Justice Lens

Sixty-eight percent of respondents (n = 63) answered the open-ended question. The qualitative data revealed four themes that contributed to students’ preparedness to practice from a human rights and social justice lens: (a) academic coursework, (b) field work, (c) co-curricular events and activities, and (d) general comments about increased awareness of human rights and social justice.

Academic coursework included specific core generalist and specialized courses and recently developed electives (i.e., Human Rights in Philadelphia, Human Rights Exploration, Radical Social Justice, and Social Media and Social Movements).1 One participant described how human rights flowed across core classes with the UDHR applied within the Social Welfare Policies and Services course, critical thinking of oppression during current and historical times within the Dialectic of Oppression and Liberation course, and inspired community action in the Specialized Practice with Communities class. Another participant noted human rights and social justice were “weaved into the curriculum, with a strong emphasis on politics.” One student noted how “studying abroad to discuss human rights internationally helped me to learn about other countries and how to bring that approach to my social work practice.” See Table 3 for curricular examples.

Table 3

Curricular examples related to CSWE (2015) Competencies 3 and 5

Course	Assignment	Learning objective
Generalist Practice II	Group Co-facilitation	Employ critical thinking, reflection, and self-reflection to understand privilege and oppression, manage personal values, and maintain professional standards
Social Welfare Policies and Services	Policy Analysis	Critically assess the key strengths/weaknesses of the policy, current administration’s impact on the policy/social issue, and propose two research-informed recommendations for future advocacy efforts that will further realize the human rights principles
Generalist Field Practicum I and II	Final Field Evaluation	Provide a vignette example of engaging in practice that advances social, economic, and environmental justice or promotes human rights in practicum
Specialized Practice with Communities	Community Capacity Photo Voice	Identify a community empowerment project and employ the Photo Voice technique to visually document capacity building activities with particular attention to groups who are under-or mis-represented by the main stream media
Specialized Practice with Individuals, Families, and Communities	Crisis Simulation	Create a policy/implementation plan to improve disaster preparedness and response on the municipal/state/federal levels as well as better address human rights violations and social injustices that are magnified in a community trauma/disaster
	ACT Photo Elicitation Project	Critically analyze ACT in relation to the photo elicitation project and by addressing applicability of ACT for work with individuals or families from oppressed or marginalized groups, for work with individuals’ recovery and resiliency process, and for taking into consideration the social determinants of health and structural barriers to wellness
Specialized Field Practicum I and II	Final Field Evaluation	Site supervisor evaluation of student performance in field based on nine core competencies

Several students noted how their field placement helped them prepare to practice from a human rights or social justice lens. Some comments include the following:

• “I was exposed to a diverse community, different from my own in my field placement.”

• “Gave real world examples of human rights being violated and allowed [in the] field experience to see first-hand how clients’ human rights were being violated.”

• “MSW program has granted me an opportunity to view individuals in a person-in-environment perspective that allows me to assess that individual based on risk factors, protective factors, and human rights and social justice aspects that may be influencing their current issues.”

Co-curricular experiences consisted of attendance at Social Work Day at the United Nations in New York, Congressional Research Institute for Social Work (CRISP) Student Advocacy on the Hill in Washington, D.C., local protests, and fundraisers/walks. One student expressed participation in the federally funded Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training program “allowed additional exposure to work and advocate with medically underserved populations.”

Discussion

The MSW Program is on the forefront of integrating human rights throughout its implicit and explicit curriculum. The curriculum redesign resulted in revisions to the mission, vision, specialization description, and program goals centered around internally conceptualized definitions of social justice and human rights. Holosko and colleagues (2015) found only five of the top 50 ranked schools of social work included human rights in their mission statement.

While the pre-experimental design does not allow for extrapolation of the data to say that the programmatic changes were the cause of the students’ perceptions, the research is presented as an example of how social work programs can expand human rights content and test the effects. An integration across required coursework eliminated human rights-content being relegated to macro or international social work courses. Participants indicated high exposure to human rights principles, with 97% noting that the social work field promoted the knowledge of human rights and 89% highlighting their social work education provided insight into human rights violations in the US. Participants of this study demonstrated strong scores on the Human Rights Engagement scale, while also showcasing specific academic coursework that provided knowledge and insight into this topic. The specific electives mentioned were united in the emphasis of social work advocacy skills necessary for the realization of social justice and human rights (Williams et al., 2018). These results validated that the MSW program is on the right path to integrating human rights as a means of fostering competent, social justice-oriented social workers who respond to contemporary needs. The results of this study were consistent with previous research and further validate the three human rights scales (McPherson & Abell, 2012; McPherson et al., 2017). We recommend future research expand this area of study and test the effects of social work education as an ideal and critical space to educate and promote human rights, shaping the framework used by future social workers.

Limitations

Due to the lack of a pretest or comparison group, the pre-experimental nature of this program evaluation offered limitations in the ability to attribute results to our specific curricular modifications. This study, however, offers an exploratory snapshot of students’ human rights exposure, engagement, and lens at the time of their graduation to inform a more rigorous evaluation using a pretest. Respondent burden was another limitation as the survey was distributed at the end of semester. The three human rights scales were paired with other program assessments inclusive of specialized curriculum assessment, graduating student exit survey, and student survey of field practicum site. Participants completed the assessments in the last practice class to maximize response rate. The study relied on self-selecting participants but given the response rate, the results could reasonably be generalizable to the MSW student body to inform ongoing program improvements.

This article does not include self-assessment of learning agreement goals relevant to CSWE EPAS or field instructor-reported student demonstration of competencies. The research focused on students’ human rights exposure, engagement, and lens, and while it could be extrapolated that human rights engagement is akin to practice skills, more in-depth research is necessary. Implications for future studies include collecting relevant learning agreement goals, tasks completed, and the subsequent evaluation of human rights-based practice observed at the field practicum sites. This article serves as an important step towards investigating human rights within field education but additional research is necessary.

Practical Implications for Social Work Education

The field of human rights-based social work education and practice is a relatively new endeavor (Chiarelli-Helminiak et al., 2018; Steen, & Mathiesen, 2005). As with any paradigm shift, change will occur over time as stakeholder groups are influenced. Social workers whose primary practice setting is within the academy have a sphere of influence among their students, alumni, and field instructors. Social work teacher-scholars are called upon to reflect on our role as educators and the mandates of our professional values and ethics.

Recognizing that not all social work education programs will endeavor to redesign their entire curriculum to focus on human rights, small changes will have a big impact. Programmatic commitment to integrating human rights throughout curriculum, i.e., through a common syllabi model, is necessary so human rights content is not faculty-specific (Chiarelli-Helminiak et al., 2018; Gatenio Gabel & Mapp, 2019). A new lens is necessary to teach micro-level social work as to not situate human rights only in macro practice (McPherson, 2015). Individual and family-focused practice courses can facilitate integration of the human rights-lens to case management and clinical practice (Berthold, 2015). Assignment rubrics can be used to measure students’ application of human rights at all practice levels. Through the accreditation process, CSWE must require programs to specify how human rights are being integrated. It is recommended that CSWE produce a curricular guide focused on integrating social justice and human rights, like recent publications.2 New curricular materials will break down the knowledge barrier preventing the infusion of human rights throughout social work education (Chiarelli-Helminiak et al., 2018).

Integration of human rights-based approaches requires forging relationships with field educators. Learning Agreements with goals specific to human rights across practice settings is one tool to facilitate an educational partnership. Final evaluations and self-assessments can be utilized to assess whether the students’ skills emulate a human rights-based approach to practice. While field directors and faculty are ideal liaisons to field instructors to build synergies necessary to overcome the limits of the Western human rights definition (Steen et al., 2016); social work programs must also provide continuing education in this area (Gatenio Gabel & Mapp, 2019; Mapp et al., 2019).

McPherson and Libal (2019) cited the MSW Program as an exemplar for its series of workshops on human rights practice in a range of settings. Cultivating field instructors is necessary as Steen and colleagues (2016) noted, “as social work students strive to apply what they learned in the classroom, they often encounter resistance to the full realization of social work ideals.” Programs must also be intentional about including a human rights orientation in field instructor training and offering additional continuing education focused on human rights and social justice to propel sustainable change.

Faculty training is also necessary as Chiarelli-Helminiak and colleagues (2018) found educators’ knowledge was a challenge that prevented the full integration of human rights in social work curricula. Buy-in from course developers of required coursework across the curriculum will lead to integration into readings, activities, and assignments (Congress, 2014). Garran and colleagues (2014) provide a social justice faculty professional development model that could be modified to facilitate human rights pedagogy. Ongoing support is necessary for faculty to build their knowledge base and confidence in human rights contributing to the paradigm shift.

Finally, students must be empowered to drive the paradigm shift in the profession. Social work faculty across the USA can cite examples of resistance to change in the field, i.e., use of preferred pronouns and culturally relevant evidence-based practices. As the next generation of leaders, students must be instilled with confidence to shift perspective in the field. Field directors and faculty are ideal mentors to role play with students how to have conversations with their field instructors about applying human rights in their agency. Longitudinal evaluation is necessary to compare students’ application of Competencies 3 and 5 between generalist and specialized field experiences as well as current practitioners’ human rights orientation (McPherson & Abell, 2012).

Paradigm shifts take time, yet, that is what is necessary as the profession moves from a needs-based to rights-based approach (Gatenio Gabel, 2015). We anticipate future researchers will find that a shift towards human rights practices has become more prevalent due to social work curricular changes, the COVID-19 pandemic, and protests to address racial injustices.

Conclusion

In 2020, the campaign for the realization of human rights in the USA is far from complete. Yet, in just the past 12 years, social work education has made great strides in advancing human rights within the curriculum (Gatenio Gabel & Mapp, 2019). In a post-pandemic world, we cannot forget where we were pre-pandemic and how vulnerabilities and traumas were exacerbated during the public health crisis. A 10-year review of post-Katrina New Orleans recovery and reconstruction revealed many human rights violations in the areas of housing, health care, criminal justice, and migrant worker protections (Voigt & Thornton, 2015). As we continue to see an increase in reports of domestic violence during the pandemic, social workers must raise awareness of abuse as a human rights violation (Guterres, 2020). Advocacy must continue for universal health care and public health services. The impacts of COVID-19 highlighted the need to address existing and new disparities exposed in the USA with even more determination for change. Community resilience building and advocacy will be key for those vulnerable populations whose situations have been exacerbated by the pandemic (Wilson, 2020). Social work education, with its signature pedagogy of field, can promote holistic approaches to social change by tackling inequalities in theory and practice (Androff, 2016; Androff & McPherson, 2014; Chiarelli-Helminiak et al., 2018; Berthold, 2015).