Advocacy in Action: How Social Workers Drive Lasting Change

Advocacy isn’t just part of our code of ethics. It’s in our bones.

In every session, classroom, team meeting, and crisis response, social workers are navigating the tension between what is and what should be. That tension is growing. The systems are cracking. And under the crushing weight of the second Trump administration, corporate overreach, and widespread assaults on human rights, the need for social work advocacy is more urgent than ever.

But we’re not powerless.

In fact, social workers are some of the most strategically placed people in this fight. We’re the ones in the homes, the clinics, the schools, the hospitals, the courtrooms. We’re trained in systems thinking, relational care, and practical change-making. And that means advocacy belongs to us—and it doesn’t have to look like a protest or a petition to matter.

Let’s break down the ways you can be part of real, grounded, impactful advocacy, starting today.

Client Advocacy: One Person at a Time

Sometimes the most radical act of advocacy is helping a client feel heard in systems that want to erase them.

Whether you’re making sure someone has access to the medication their insurance is denying, challenging an IEP decision at a school, or helping a client draft a letter to appeal a benefits cut, this work counts. And if you’re a supervisor? Supporting your team in pushing back, safely and ethically, is also advocacy.

Client-level advocacy includes:

• Making sure clients understand their rights
• Navigating appeals, complaints, and hearings
• Helping clients prepare to speak up in intimidating spaces
• Translating inaccessible systems into actionable steps

Community Advocacy: Change from the Ground Up

You don’t need a title or a nonprofit to start organizing. You just need to care.

Social workers have always been part of community change: running mutual aid networks, facilitating harm reduction efforts, building coalitions, and helping neighbors keep neighbors safe.

Right now, community advocacy looks like:

• Supporting or starting a mutual aid fund for rent, groceries, transit, or child care
• Coordinating rides to mental health appointments, parole hearings, or court dates
• Hosting or sharing teach-ins, book clubs, and safe spaces to process legislation and policy changes
• Partnering with disability justice, reproductive justice, or housing orgs already doing the work
• Protecting and defending public libraries, trans youth, and public schools

Community advocacy is where we reclaim our power. It’s where care becomes collective.

Professional Advocacy: Defend and Rebuild the Field

We’re watching social work as a profession be flattened and devalued—and in many spaces, co-opted by bureaucracy and corporate systems. But we’re also watching a powerful push for liberation, equity, and sustainability inside our field.

Professional advocacy includes:

• Pushing for paid internships, tuition reform, and accessible licensure
• Naming and addressing racism, ableism, and gatekeeping in social work education and leadership
• Supporting union efforts and anti-oppressive workplace policies
• Offering transparent supervision and mentorship that creates real sustainability
• Challenging licensing boards and credentialing bodies when they create harm

If you’re a seasoned social worker: Speak up for the next generation. If you’re early in your career: Your clarity, your questions, and your critiques are advocacy.

Practical Steps: What You Can Do Today

Advocacy doesn’t need to be perfect or massive to matter. Here’s how you can get started right now:

1. Know Who Represents You

Find your legislators, follow what bills they’re backing, and let them know what matters to you.

• Colorado Social Workers: Find your legislator here
  You can also click on each legislator’s name to see which bills they’re sponsoring.
• Outside Colorado? Use Open States to look up your state legislators and see what’s happening in your region.

2. Support Mutual Aid

Find a local mutual aid group and see what they need. Not sure where to start? Try searching "[Your city] mutual aid" on Instagram or Google. If nothing exists, consider starting something small.

3. Talk About What’s Happening

Silence is complicity. Talk about the bills, the bans, the court rulings, the corporate overreach. Use your platform, whether it’s social media or a break room conversation, to name what’s happening and why it matters.

4. Use Supervision and Consultation Spaces to Sharpen Your Advocacy

Advocacy can feel overwhelming. Use your supervision space to break it down. Identify where you feel stuck, where you feel powerful, and how you can take action safely and ethically.

Social Workers Are Built for This

We are not neutral. We are not fragile. We are not powerless.

We are problem-solvers. Bridge-builders. System-navigators. And we know how to hold complexity.

Whether you're disrupting unjust school policies, making space for grief in group supervision, or organizing a local resource drive, you are advocating. And your work matters.

Don’t wait for someone else to lead. The work is here. You’re already part of it.

Copyright 2025: Petal & Peak Mental Health. All rights reserved.

Photo by The Jopwell Collection on Unsplash