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Climate work is social work: addressing environmental justice to facilitate achievement of the Grand Challenges for social work

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Climate work is social work: addressing environmental justice to facilitate achievement of the Grand Challenges for social work

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Content 1
Climate Work Is Social Work: Addressing Environmental Justice to Facilitate
Achievement of the Grand Challenges for Social Work
Kelly Smith
Capstone Project
in partial fulfillment for the degree
Doctor of Social Work
Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work
University of Southern California
Dr. Juan Carlos Araque
August 2020

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Climate Work Is Social Work: Addressing Environmental Justice to Facilitate
Achievement of the Grand Challenges for Social Work
Climate change is the most significant problem facing social workers. Climate instability
threatens the loss of social justice and equality gains over the last half century distributed with
an unequal burden on those with lower social and economic capacity (Watts et al., 2017).
Historically, social work has utilized its skills to overcome oppression in many ways, yet it
continues to discount the effects of environmental injustice (Drolet & Sampson, 2017). The
Institute for Social Work and Environmental Justice (ISWEJ) will help surmount social work’s
avoidance of climate change by shifting disciplinary norms and developing new opportunities to
advance the goals of the Grand Challenges through environmentally just initiatives.
Executive Summary
The accumulating effects of climate change are commencing more rapidly than
anticipated, exacerbating existing inequalities. Yet, social work is mainly absent from
meaningful environmental justice practice or policy development. In response, the ISWEJ will
provide climate change impact and mitigation training for social workers and helping
professionals. The ISWEJ will form as a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC) in New York State
and operate as a for-profit organization in the private sector. It will operate under the auspices
of its single member, who will act as the sole proprietor. As an LLC, the ISWEJ can generate
revenue through its professional contracts, publications, and course offerings, rather than
secure funding and grants for similar operations.
Housed at Adelphi University School of Social Work’s Office of Professional
Development and Continuing Education, the ISWEJ will offer the nation’s first certificate course
on Environmental Justice for social workers. In 2021, the ISWEJ director aims to write and
publish an introductory textbook on the intersections between climate change and the historical
goals of social work to amplify its core messages beyond continuing education audiences.
Grand Challenge to Create Social Responses to the Changing Environment

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The Grand Challenge to Create Social Responses to the Changing Environment remains
an overlooked but essential component of social work because while the dire consequences from
climate change compound, social work remains hesitant to respond with impactful, disciplinary-
wide actions. Climate change is attributed to human activity that alters the atmosphere beyond
natural climate variability (United Nations, 1992). Environmental degradation and climate
change disasters, including hurricanes, droughts, fires, severe flooding, and other extreme
climatic events, have a significant influence on human rights, public health, and overall well-
being. Social work has an ethical and practical obligation to confront the compounding effects of
climate change on populations or events that might inhibit the achievement of all the other
Grand Challenges that are inextricably tied to environmental stability and safety (Appendix A).
Purpose of the ISWEJ within the Conceptual Framework
The ISWEJ will tackle the norms of ecoanxiety and climate apathy that hold in place the
wicked problem of environmental inaction among most social workers by activating climate
thinking in professional social workers across the discipline. Climate thinking, as introduced to
the discipline by the ISWEJ, encourages social workers to look at the short- and long-term
consequences of each decision, using a conceptual framework that identifies both social and
climate implications, and balances the immediate needs with long-term environmental
sustainability. While several social work scholars consistently advocate for environmental justice
across education and practice, gatekeepers and practitioners in the discipline mainly believe that
environmental issues lie outside the discipline’s realm of expertise (Gordon, 2017). In response,
the ISWEJ aspires to activate a critical mass of the over 700,000 social workers in the United
States to advance climate change mitigation in scholarship and practice (Bureau of Labor
Statistics, 2019). Educational opportunities developed within the ISWEJ will support future
innovations to overcome this Grand Challenge.
Policy, Practice, and Research
Currently, social work education in the United States does not adequately consider the

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multifaceted cultural, social, economic, and physical implications of climate change as they
relate to current and growing inequalities. Social workers need practical guidance about the
interactions, trade-offs, and synergies between individual and community actions and climate
impact, including relationships between water, food, energy, and inequalities and community
resilience to these and other issues (Bai et al., 2018). Climate change complicates all of the
Grand Challenges, yet social workers do not regularly consider how these catastrophic acute or
pervasive events destabilize communities, thereby inhibiting appropriate practice actions.
While a growing number of scholars dedicate their careers to environmental justice, their
research remains largely fragmented and siloed within social work. Environmental justice
scholarship in social work generally focuses on individual and community mental health
initiatives after disasters, with limited research on the impacts of climate policy or mitigation
techniques. Studies of individual climate events focus on acute events such as Hurricane Katrina
or the Malaysian Tsunami, with research in this realm primarily concentrating on mental health
across three distinct phases: crisis, post-impact, and rehabilitation with little evaluation of any
climate change interconnections (Hayes et al., 2018). The current state of environmental justice
research by social work promotes cyclical emergency responses while neglecting the rigorous
development or analysis of mitigation strategies that may better safeguard communities.
Furthermore, terminology variations for similar concepts such as environmental justice, eco-
social work, and green social work inhibit disciplinary cohesion on climate change, maintaining
social work’s absence from environmental practice, policy, and community-level activism.
Project Methodology
Establishing the ISWEJ at Adelphi University helps legitimize the new organization. The
main component of the ISWEJ prototype is the Environmental Justice Certificate proposal and
curriculum. The ISWEJ developed its prototype using a working draft of the forthcoming
Council on Social Work Education Environmental Justice Curricular Guide with permission
from Cathryne Schmitz, CSWE Committee on Environmental Justice co-chair. By engaging

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practicing social workers in Environmental Justice Certificate programs, the ISWEJ will
generate positive peer pressure among diverse social workers to disrupt and dispel the norms of
ecoanxiety and disciplinary scope. The ISWEJ will further motivate greater numbers of social
workers to acknowledge environmental justice as a core component of equality. The ISWEJ
textbook and website will expand the mission of the ISWEJ and develop understanding among
social workers that environmental justice intersects with other primary forms of oppression,
including race, gender, and socioeconomic status. The ISWEJ prototype will facilitate social
worker engagement with practices that tackle the multifaceted problems connected to the
climate crisis to achieve the Grand Challenges.
Summary of Project Aims and Future Action Steps
The ISWEJ strives to grow into a critical national organization that trains course
facilitators and partners with multiple universities to provide environmental justice continuing
education to social workers. The curriculum development, textbook, and website will give the
ISWEJ opportunities to expand its key message: Social workers must attend to climate change
to achieve disciplinary social justice goals (Appendix B). Over time, the ISWEJ intends to
develop curriculum that is more closely attuned to regional needs and petition for the mandated
inclusion of environmental justice education in accreditation and licensing standards. The
ISWEJ also anticipates offering sustainability consulting to universities and professional
organizations to better align their practices with the National Association of Social Workers
(NASW) Code of Ethics in response to the climate crisis (Appendix C)
Innovation Potential
The ISWEJ strives to build a coalition among social work gatekeeper institutions that
will share knowledge and help to inform the opinions of social work researchers and students to
realign social work with environmental justice. Developing this collective understanding is a
transformative approach that confronts marginalization and poverty by reforming the socio-
political and economic entities that negatively impact the environment and human outcomes

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(Dominelli, 2012). The partnership with Adelphi University is mutually beneficial because the
ISWEJ affirms the university’s broader commitment to sustainability, differentiating it from
peer institutions by offering the first Continuing Education Environmental Justice Certificate
course in the United States. Reciprocatively, raising awareness of schools that align with social
work environmental ethics will increase the demand for such adherence in the higher education
market (Brownson et al., 2017). Enhancing the uptake of sustainability serves as a competitive
advantage by adhering to the NASW Code of Ethics and making curricular adaptations on the
pervasive impacts of climate change. Adelphi’s initiative will motivate other schools to
reconsider their curriculum in light of the expanding climate crisis.
Through long-term partnerships, the ISWEJ aims to advocate for NASW policy shifts
that mandate environmental justice continuing education credits, thereby improving social
workers’ ability to respond to the multifaceted climate crisis. Similarly, the ISWEJ seeks to
change the accreditation requirements for schools of social work by the CSWE mandating
environmental justice as a core curricular component. Establishing relationships between the
ISWEJ and these nationally significant organizations will further affirm that environmental
concerns lie well within the scope of the profession’s obligation and reach.
Conceptual Framework
The ISWEJ uses a conceptual framework that identifies social and climate implications
of social work action while balancing immediate needs with equitably distributed long-term
environmental sustainability. The impacts of climate change on the health and well-being of
vulnerable populations have important social work practice implications (Appleby et al., 2017).
The ISWEJ creates social responses to the changing environment by training social work
professionals across the disciplinary scope to incorporate climate crisis awareness and action
into their practice.
Statement of the Problem
Social work’s absence from climate change mitigation is problematic. Social workers

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already deal with the myriad repercussions of environmental injustice or want to help otherwise
mitigate the consequences of the climate crisis, but they may not know how to intervene
effectively. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) (2018), global
carbon dioxide emissions must decrease by 45% by 2030 to cap temperature change at 1.5°C
above pre-industrial revolution rates and reach net zero carbon output by 2050. Decades of
social work research consistently demonstrate that in the United States, racial minorities,
especially those living in poverty, face substantially more environmental hazards in daily life
than wealthier, white individuals (Beltrán et al., 2016). Even though the toxic burden of
pollution falls disproportionately on impoverished and minority populations that social work
endeavors to serve, historically, the profession has not intervened in a meaningful way to
alleviate this pervasive problem. Through the lens of the social environment, social work
traditionally utilizes the person-in-environment framework to understand problems, despite a
general acceptance of the correlation between natural and physical environments with health
and well-being proving reluctant to engage in environmental issues due to this narrow social
interpretation of the person-in-environment methodology (Coates & Gray, 2012; Teixeira &
Krings, 2015). Without making substantial changes, many places on earth will become
inhabitable, with obviously dire consequences for the most vulnerable people in society,
dramatically increasing the populations requiring social work interventions.
Current Efforts
Current innovations in climate change occur, for the most part, outside the scope of
social work. For example, new meteorological technologies draw causal relationships between
climate change and specific “natural” disasters by simulating atmospheric models that
demonstrate environmental outcomes with and without anthropogenic greenhouse gases
(World Meteorological Organisation, 2019). These models help shift perceptions regarding
anthropocentric causes for the accelerating strength and impact of these disasters.

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Within social work, environmental justice is beginning to permeate professional
organizations after decades of advocacy by key scholars. Amid claims that ignoring
environmental justice violates social work’s ethical code, the NASW asserted that the profession
must intervene in global environmental inequities (Miller et al., 2012). Similarly, the CSWE
formed a Committee on Environmental Justice to update social work curricula in 2015 and is
currently drafting The Curricular Guide for Environmental Justice as part of the 2015
Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards Curricular Guide Resource Series (Council on
Social Work Education, 2015; Coe Regan, 2019). The curricular guide aims to create cohesion
across interested institutions but will not mandate the incorporation of environmental justice in
the social work curriculum.
Environmental Context
Climate disasters are rising in both frequency and severity. The IPCC released a report in
October 2018 outlining the probable consequences of the climate crisis along with
recommendations to limit global carbon output by 2030 to stabilize temperature rise and
prevent catastrophic impacts of climate change and environmental degradation
(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2018). While these outcomes will differ across the
globe, in each area, climate change negatively affects public health, destroys infrastructure,
fragments community networks, and impairs economic opportunities (Hogan & Kelter, 2015).
While social work practice effectively meets immediate needs after a disaster, the discipline does
not attend to climate change as a core component of inequality (Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, 2018; Hayes et al., 2018). Furthermore, the United Nations predicts that the
combined impacts of climate change and population growth will increase the need for at least
50% more food, 45% more energy, and 30% more water by 2030, creating multiple systemic
complications that will escalate human rights violations (as cited in Alston, 2015). The
repercussions from climate change impact social determinants of health and prosperity in
substantial ways that will worsen current inequalities.

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Acceptance and recognition of the environmental crisis continue to grow, but significant
behavioral or systemic modifications and solutions remain absent. Despite evidence linking
greenhouse gas emissions to climate change and disasters, emissions rose 2.5 percent in the
United States in 2019 after a decade of decline (Hogan & Northam, 2018). The current federal
administration continues to ignore the scientific warnings on climate change eroding policies
that offer environmental protection and mitigate climate change while increasing
environmentally destructive activities and appointing fossil fuel champions into cabinet and
administrative positions (Greshko et al., 2019). Yet, there is a growing shift in perceptions about
climate change across demographics, and the proportion of Americans who self-identify as “very
worried” about climate change has more than tripled since 2011 (Leiserowitz et al., 2018).
Therefore, despite the rise in emissions and purging of legal protections, the industry-
constructed debates over climate change are no longer convincing, as a diverse collection of
individuals are subject to the lived experiences and the consequences of disasters related to the
climate crisis.
Social Significance
Climate change is significant because it destabilizes communities and social protections.
Acute environmental disasters affect populations in myriad ways, through economic costs,
displacement and homelessness, rising death rates among vulnerable groups, psychological
issues relating to trauma, escalation of substance abuse, and increases in domestic violence
(Bowles et al., 2018). The impact of these disasters highlights the expanding gap between those
who have the resources to recover from these events and others for whom the disasters lead to
worsening outcomes, including deepening poverty, loss of food and water security, and forced
migration (Alston, 2015). The varied climate change effects on populations compound to
devastate communities and threaten national and global societal stability with negative
repercussions for human rights.

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Theories of Change
Structural social work theory. Structural social work theory posits that the
underlying causes of social problems in capitalistic societies are the differing control of
resources and political power among individuals and communities. Structural social work theory
highlights the underpinnings of oppression that impact marginalized populations and destroy
the environment while creating a privileged life for the few (Dominelli, 2013). In response, the
ISWEJ will utilize structural social work theory as it demonstrates that capitalism’s inherent
predisposition to favor profits consistently undermines human rights and environmental justice
with negative impacts on lived experiences of the populations social work aims to serve.
Social work’s ecological systems perspective. An ecological systems perspective
in social work acknowledges the interdependence between human and environmental well-
being and an understanding that climate change impacts are intricately linked with structural
inequalities. This lens adopts a social justice and human rights approach to climate change by
recognizing the disproportionate impact on marginalized populations due to structural
inequalities, acknowledging the necessity of participatory interventions to advance meaningful
solutions (Dominelli, 2012). The ISWEJ can build on this theory to mobilize social workers
toward implementable climate solutions.
Logic Model
The ISWEJ is a multifaceted strategy that operates primarily at the micro and mezzo
levels (Appendix D). The logic model outlines training and resource development at the ISWEJ,
including various inputs, outputs, and outcomes. These strategies, adopted from the Expert
Recommendations for Implementing Change (ERIC) protocol, build climate thinking into social
work practice (Appendix E).
Inputs
Through inputs such as the development and testing of an environmental justice
certificate, the ISWEJ will gauge the success of its implementation model. Inputs from

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practitioners include their advocacy, intervention, community organization, and therapeutic and
educational skills to modify their decision-making to include climate change mitigation and
environmental justice advocacy. Historically, social work has utilized its skills to overcome
oppression in many forms by fostering community development, empowerment, and
participation among marginalized groups (Drolet & Sampson, 2017). To initiate this work, the
ISWEJ established a partnership with Adelphi University in Fall 2019. The ISWEJ will develop
and test its training program while documenting participant data to ensure the applicability of
its strategies. Inputs from the ISWEJ include a course proposal and syllabus, trial webinars, and
surveys to monitor progress and obtain feedback on program efficacy.
Outputs
The ISWEJ will build social worker knowledge regarding intersections between the
profession’s goals and the climate crisis while developing action plans to address immediate and
long-term needs for various populations. To potentially support pro-climate beliefs and
behaviors, climate mitigation relies on systems thinking to understand how beliefs and attitudes
shift (Ballew et al., 2019). Understanding systems across diverse populations and locations is
invaluable before a crisis and leads to better interventions and outcomes post disaster (Mason et
al., 2017). Social work is adept at preparing for uncertainties across diverse populations.
Through the ISWEJ, social workers will develop skills to enable their admittance to
interdisciplinary organizations working to solve the climate crisis that often excludes social
work, such as The Grantham Research Institute on climate change at the London School of
Economics. The ISWEJ-trained social workers will become valuable members of such
organizations, employing systems knowledge to bridge science and climate action, developing
creative, flexible, and proactive responses to various threats, advising policymakers, and
fostering resilient and just communities.
In partnership with Adelphi University, the ISWEJ launched its first virtual
environmental justice certificate in September 2020. The ISWEJ will then evaluate whether

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social workers who undergo training demonstrate a higher capacity to incorporate climate
thinking in their current practices. If successful, this output will build the ISWEJ’s reputation
and help to expand its reach to other university partners. The ISWEJ will also build knowledge
regarding intersections between the profession’s goals and the climate crisis while developing
action plans to address immediate and long-term needs for various populations through a
textbook publication in 2021. The ISWEJ will further expand its outputs through sustainability
consultation, bringing schools of social work and professional organizations into alignment with
the NASW Code of Ethics, beginning in 2025.
Outcomes
Immediate. In the First Fiscal Year of Operations (FFYO), the ISWEJ will launch its
website and publish a textbook, expanding the organization’s reach throughout higher
education. The ISWEJ will begin its training program partnering with a single university,
Adelphi. The outputs will help build the ISWEJ’s reputation increasing acceptance of
environmental justice among other colleges and universities in the future. At the practitioner
level, social workers who engage in the ISWEJ training will build their climate competency and
earn Continuing Education Units (CEUs). The ISWEJ expects that 95% of these individuals will
maintain fidelity to the model and incorporate climate thinking into their practices, utilizing at
least two tools or strategies that align with ethical climate action in their daily practice.
Intermediate. By its fifth year of operation, the ISWEJ expects that the feasibility of
the model will be proven and that the ISWEJ will expand its reach to 20 partner universities,
utilizing 12 ISWEJ-trained facilitators. The ISWEJ will utilize the Reach, Effectiveness,
Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework to obtain consistent
feedback supporting the achievement of specific goals, identifying barriers, and monitoring
progress at the organizational and behavioral levels to construct more effective trainings and
maintain consistency across programs (Appendix F). The ISWEJ expects to generate a growing
revenue each year and reinvest these surpluses into the organization. Based on the certificate

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course feedback loop, the ISWEJ will produce field guides for different social work client
populations. These actionable strategies will align with Project Drawdown’s currently available
recommendations that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Long Term. By 2030, the ISWEJ will help firmly establish environmental justice as a
core component of inequality, evidenced new CSWE’s accreditation requirements inclusive of
mandated coursework in environmental justice. Working with state chapters of the NASW, the
ISWEJ will support regulations requiring environmental justice training in licensing
maintenance. The ISWEJ will expand its training opportunities creating a media course for
social workers and fostering partnerships with meteorological outlets. Media portrayals of
climate disasters often seem remote and leave the public with a sense of apathy that does not
motivate to act, but humanizing climate change can lead to more rapid and effective change
(The Lancet, 2018; Markman, 2018). Through the ISWEJ, social workers will join other expert
professionals, including psychologists and natural scientists, with a robust media presence.
Through increased media coverage by social workers, the ISWEJ will help reaffirm the
discipline’s unique perspective and ethical approach to climate communications, expanding
public and political support for environmental policies that reduce systemic inequality.
Innovative Solution
Environmental justice curriculum at the university level in social work is rare, but it is
absent at the professional level for practicing social workers. The ISWEJ’s innovative solution to
the Grand Challenge will primarily operate in a digital space and accelerate the adoption of new
concepts across the discipline with optimal reach and minimal carbon outputs. The training
workshops and publications will address topics including ecoanxiety, the spiral of climate
vulnerability, the climate gender gap, environmental justice, and generational communication
(Appendix G). Social work is facing “empathic failure” because much of the profession does not
understand the impact of climate change on vulnerable populations, with these concerns often
being trivialized or sidelined by current leading professional organizations (Boddy et al., 2018).

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Reaching a critical mass of practicing social workers can generate positive peer pressure among
colleagues to view environmental justice as a core component of equality and, therefore,
influence the discipline’s climate work trajectory.
Aims and Significance of the Innovation
The ISWEJ offers a multifaceted strategy that operates at the mezzo and micro levels and
combines several discrete actions: sustainability consultation and implementation, resource
development including textbooks and webinars, and trainings that build climate thinking into
social work practice. The ISWEJ will engage its target population, the 707,400 U.S. social
workers, to adopt environmental justice and climate collaboration plans across the field (Bureau
of Labor Statistics, 2019). To serve this broad target population, the ISWEJ will build inclusive,
scalable, locally adaptable, responsive practices based on the Grand Challenges. These solutions
will use climate change mitigation as a transformative opportunity to multi-solve problems by
promoting environmental actions that simultaneously benefit more traditional social work
goals. Additionally, ISWEJ sustainability consulting will evaluate the current organizational or
practitioner circumstances and needs and highlight opportunities to align practical
sustainability measures with the NASW Code of Ethics to embed environmentally sound norms
across the discipline (2017). The partnerships between the ISWEJ and schools of social work
will use the academic year to schedule feedback between site-based stakeholders and the
ISWEJ, making adjustments as necessary.
Stakeholder Perspectives
Social Workers
Social workers are primarily absent from climate work, succumbing to the norm that
environmentalism lies outside the field’s responsibilities and feeling encumbered by current
resource demands, including time. There is a demonstrated need for evidence-based response
strategies to allow social workers to help best mitigate the daily consequences of climate change
(Mason et al., 2017). Social workers are essential in crafting climate solutions. Still, their

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continued hesitation in attending to climate vulnerabilities and risks make the discipline
complicit in perpetuating the very inequalities it was founded to eliminate.
Social work does not successfully connect various climate disasters to the broader
systemic issues of climate change, affect all other social problems, or develop cross-disaster
assessments to build future competency. Immediately after a climate event, social workers
engage with environmental justice and are adept at meeting the immediate needs of individuals,
including food, water, shelter, and security (Hayes et al., 2018). Social workers are less involved
in connecting the needs and responses across disparate events or building disciplinary climate
resilience plans (Kemp, 2011). Social work must quickly organize to build individual
environmental capacity, establishing interdisciplinary approaches to systems change, and
advocate for policy and social work curriculum development to ensure environmental justice
(Teixeira & Krings, 2015). Social workers are solution-focused and skilled at managing groups
and building community efforts. Employing these strengths toward mitigating climate change
can expand the discipline’s ethical standards, advocacy, and efficacy.
Social workers can learn to advance the goals embedded in the Grand Challenges
through environmentally just multisolving solutions (Swain et al., 2018). Children are more
vulnerable to the negative health implications of climate change due to a variety of factors,
including their immature physiology and lifelong exposures that cause developmental delays
and other psychological and physical effects (Hayes et al., 2018). Understanding this can
encourage social work stakeholders to further engage in both developing and researching
programs and opportunities to reduce children’s toxin exposure, for example, by eliminating
pesticide-laden foods in meal programs or reducing traffic pollution near schools.
Climate Scientists
While climate scientists have sounded countless alarms on climate change for decades,
they typically operate independently from social scientists. This siloing prevents arriving at
viable climate solutions. Collaborations between natural and social scientists, along with

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community stakeholders, will help develop climate-resilient communities (Drake et al., 2016).
Diligent scientific study and reporting on the consequences of climate change through the IPCC,
World Meteorological Organization, National Climate Assessment (NCA), and many other
groups create an essential foundation for understanding complex systems that social work can
employ to build more resilient communities. Decision-makers need evidence to establish climate
risks, develop strategies for climate mitigation and adaptation, and turn to scientists for this
information (Bai et al., 2018). Climate and social scientists are essential partners in overcoming
the structural and individual challenges of the climate crisis.
University Partners
In the rapidly changing economic landscape due to disruptions caused by COVID-19,
many universities are struggling financially (Regehr & Goel, 2020; Vlachopoulos, 2020).
Departmental budgets are facing substantial cuts, students are demanding tuition and housing
refunds, and uncertainty abounds for the 2020 –21 academic year (Regehr & Goel, 2020).
Investing in a virtual education program for continuing education students is a wise move for
universities at this juncture. Such programs bring revenue from an additional population that is
mandated to take coursework to maintain licensure.
Community at Large
The community at large is a critical stakeholder in the ISWEJ as the economic and social
costs of climate disasters expose a widening gap between those with and without the ability to
overcome repercussions from these events. Low-income communities of color are more likely
than wealthier neighborhoods to be situated in areas prone to flooding without adequate
drainage systems, as exemplified by Hurricanes Katrina and Harvey (Stone & Cohen, 2017). The
changing patterns of climate change, including natural disasters, infectious diseases, and food
and water scarcity, have direct relationships with population displacement and conflict,
drastically impacting communities and requiring multiple levels of intervention (Watts et al.,
2017). The climate is already beginning to destabilize infrastructure and social networks

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(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2018). It is also important to note the short-term
benefits of ignoring climate change offers. Examples include maintaining individual
transportation decisions, organization manufacturing expenses, and government power
regulations benefiting fossil fuels, rather than finding and adhering to alternatives that may
require higher inputs or costs (Markman, 2018). The community at large remains an essential
stakeholder in building resilient responses to climate change, focusing on local strengths,
knowledge, capacity, and needs.
Innovation Landscape
The ISWEJ will attract social workers to the importance of climate thinking by uniting
environmentalism with the historical aims of social work. The global onslaught of disasters,
conflicting goals, and governmental austerity demonstrates the necessity to engage immediately
with the issues of climate change (Gordon, 2017). The rapidly diminishing time frame to address
climate change and protect the earth’s habitable spaces establishes the work of the ISWEJ as
both innovative and imperative. Social workers can use an environmental knowledge base to
build sustainable interventions that tackle the coexistence of obesity and undernutrition, which
are direct consequences of the industrial food systems that promote high-energy diets with poor
nutritional content (Lindgren et al., 2018). Currently, health care, social services, and economic
responsibility are shifting from the realm of government to private markets. Shifting the
responsibility for risks such as illness, unemployment, and poverty to individuals transforms
these problems into issues of “self-care” (Lemke, 2001). This move is problematic because
embedded within the new paradigm is the idea that if individuals or communities cannot protect
themselves from such risks, they must be irresponsible and unworthy of interventions or
assistance. Instead, social workers must consider the double burden of malnutrition on their
clients, recognizing the inherent environmental components of the food systems that produce
adverse health outcomes for children, and establish new ways for incorporating environmental
justice into practice.

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History
The broad historical focus on human rights, community building, and social justice
within social work creates a foundation for innovative, collaborative, and environmentally just
processes. Since the 1970s, a select group of social work researchers have increasingly
incorporated environmental consideration into research, especially on the social components of
climate change that exacerbate the safety and health for children and other vulnerable
populations (Ramsay & Boddy, 2017). Historically, social work has fought for human rights in a
variety of capacities for the environmental justice of factory workers, tenement communities,
and other marginalized groups (Kemp & Brandwein, 2010). A peer-reviewed literature review
finds that research efforts on climate change in social work are accelerating, with nearly half of
all studies published after 2010 (Mason et al., 2017). Despite the recent surge in disasters and
public climate change discourse, social work’s engagement with climate change has not moved
out of an academic debate toward measurable impact and mitigation strategies.
Policy
Social work is mostly absent from environmental and climate-related cross-disciplinary
decision-making at the government or professional level. Globally, social dilemmas around
climate change are further exacerbated by the abstract and future-based aspects of the
problems, making it difficult for the institution of effective policy initiatives action against these
growing threats (Van Lange, Joireman, & Milinski, 2018). Due to the increase in the scope and
varied locations of climate-linked natural disasters, trends are shifting in America across the
political spectrum, with a growing majority of adults now acknowledging that climate change is
real, human-caused, and anxiety-inducing (Gustafson et al., 2019). Social workers are less
involved in policy planning and mitigation for climate change, with critical implications for the
health and well-being of populations globally (Kemp, 2011). The politics of climate change are
shifting, and the current literature demonstrates that the debates over climate change, its
existence, and causes are becoming obsolete. As the perception of harm caused by climate

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change increases, the polarization of the issue lessens (Drake et al., 2016). Many viable solutions
exist to reduce carbon output on an individual and national scale (Hawken, 2018). However, the
political will to significantly reduce carbon output through meaningful policies remains elusive
as reforms remain a polarizing issue, limiting progress on climate change mitigation or
preparation.
Practice
Social work has an ethical and practical obligation to confront the compounding effects
of climate change on populations or events that might inhibit the achievement of all the other
Grand Challenges because they are contingent on environmental safety and stability. In practice,
social workers deal with the consequences of climate change at the micro, mezzo, and macro
levels, regardless of whether they recognize these emergent patterns. Social work is late to
engage with the impact of climate change, but doing so allows the profession to reassess its
foundational knowledge and practical responsibilities to people and environments (Coates &
Gray, 2012). Leaders in social work and environmental justice encourage the development of
efficient, client-focused solutions to the complex issues surrounding climate change, in a
proactive, rather than merely reactive, manner, focusing primarily on the implications for
vulnerable populations.
Public Knowledge and Discourse
Social work is excluded from many cross-disciplinary projects, including the Yale
Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC), and must assert itself in these collective
spaces or risk losing relevancy. The research team consists of psychologists, geographers,
political scientists, statisticians, pollsters, and communication scientists to accelerate civic and
political will for climate action, producing research on public opinion and behavior regarding
climate change (Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, 2019). Social workers are
conspicuously absent from this group. Since 2014, the cross-disciplinary field of climate
communications has collectively written more than 1,000 peer-reviewed papers on effective

20
climate change messaging and action (Ryan, 2019). Emerging research from YPCCC and similar
programs identifies climate-related discourse that raises public knowledge and results in
activities that support a climate response on the community, national, and international levels.
The scarcity of global climate responses is not due to a lack of public knowledge but
rather an awareness of climate change because individuals and governments most often refrain
from taking significant action and, instead, pass on the consequences and onus for solutions to
future generations. As solution expectations move onto future populations, individuals fall into
patterns of denial that impede crucial climate interventions (Luís, Vauclair, & Lima, 2018). It is
imperative to focus public attention on the current, actionable tactics that begin to address the
climate crisis immediately, including fossil fuel restriction, food waste reduction, educating
girls, family planning, and water distribution efforts (Hawken, 2018). A public discourse that
relies on future scientists and citizens to mitigate the crisis creates blindness to current
environmental injustice and normalizes the risks of current practices.
Local Contextual Environment
Climate change is dismantling social protections through both the direct effects of
climate events and the indirect consequences as communities attempt to recover from traumatic
circumstances. Adelphi University has a hyper-local population with only 7.7% out-of-state
students, and 5% international students (Adelphi University, 2019). Therefore, many
community members likely lived through the traumatic events of Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Due
to climate change, hurricanes similar in dramatic size and scale of Sandy were a one in 500-year
event pre-industrial revolution. In 2017, it was a one in 25-year event, and by 2030, a hurricane
of that magnitude is likely to occur once every 5 years (Garner et al., 2017). Climate change
causes and compounds mental health challenges, including post-traumatic stress disorder,
anxiety, depression, grief, guilt, trauma, recovery fatigue, substance abuse, and suicidal ideation

21
(Hayes et al., 2018). These impacts are meaningful because they may undermine student coping
ability and success outcomes.
Opportunities for Innovation
Social workers have an opportunity to engage in climate thinking and thereby advance
environmental justice for and with persistently marginalized groups. There is a demonstrated
need for evidence-based response strategies and curriculum development for social workers to
help and best mitigate the daily consequences of climate change (Mason et al., 2017). The
impacts of climate change on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations have
important social work practice implications (Appleby et al., 2017). Yet, surveyed social workers
reported feeling unprepared to address environmental impacts on clients, citing a lack of
resources and training (Nesmith & Smyth, 2015). Social work’s historical focus on building
social justice and community-oriented approaches can support proactive responses to climate
change (Coates & Gray, 2012; Dominelli, 2013). The ISWEJ has an opportunity to close this gap
by training professional social workers to recognize and address the pervasive effects of
environmental injustice.
Unfortunately, as the climate crisis continues to unfold, more institutions and
organizations will be forced to reckon with environmental and social ramifications, creating a
higher demand for the ISWEJ to scale its programming. Simultaneously, the need for social
workers adept at responding to these repercussions will also increase in demand, making social
workers who complete the certificate course more marketable, competitive, and competent.
Reframing social work as a sustainably focused discipline through partnerships with the CSWE
and NASW will continue to create more space for the ISWEJ to increase its national impact.
After the first full year of successfully implementing and monitoring the Environmental Justice
Certificate Course through Adelphi University, the ISWEJ will use the data for marketing itself
to diverse institutions and begin training additional course facilitators and adding regional
components to the certificate curriculum. The ISWEJ will create an inclusive and proactive

22
space for social workers to affirm their commitment to environmental justice, regardless of their
field specialty, thereby creating additional opportunities for innovation both within the ISWEJ
and beyond. To further scale the ISWEJ core messages, in its third year of operation, the
Institute will award its first $10,000 grant for replicable, environmentally responsive
innovations by social workers. In marketing the award, the ISWEJ will again shift disciplinary
norms, highlighting the foundational importance of environmental justice as a core component
of equity.
Innovation Connection with Logic Model and Theories of Change
The ISWEJ will build social worker knowledge regarding intersections between historical
goals and the climate crisis while developing action plans to address immediate and long-term
needs for various populations. The ISWEJ will emphasize social work’s ethical obligation and
mitigate climate vulnerabilities by building on social work’s skill set of advocacy, intervention,
community organization, therapy, and education to develop social worker disaster responses,
collaboration, analysis, and planning. The logic model demonstrates the urgency for social work
to expand understanding among its practitioners and gatekeepers that environmental justice for
all clients —like racial, economic, and gender-based human rights —is a core component of the
field that they are ethically bound to protect.
The ISWEJ uses the ecological systems perspective and structural social work theories of
change to demonstrate that climate change is rooted in gender norms, racial norms, and income
inequality. Historically, social work has a tardy disciplinary response to social movements
(Kemp & Brandwein, 2010). Using these theories of change, the ISWEJ accelerates its response
to disrupt current systems of power that benefit from maintaining the inherent inequities of
capitalism that are primarily responsible for causing climate change. As the limits of the earth’s
ecosystems and atmosphere are continuously pushed to extremes, the ISWEJ will organize a
collective response across social work to advance cooperative and activate socially just solutions.
Likelihood of Success

23
Awareness of the need for environmental justice education will expand with the
publication and distribution of the CSWE’s Environmental Justice Curricular Guide in August
2020. This timing makes the ISWEJ well positioned to succeed as an intervention addressing
the Grand Challenge to create social responses to the changing environment. With permission
from Cathryne Schmitz, Committee on Environmental Justice co-chair, the ISWEJ utilized the
working draft of the Curricular Guide to align its certificate course with these newly established
CSWE guidelines. Adelphi University is currently marketing the ISWEJ inaugural certificate
program. Interest in the program is growing through social media posts, features in university
magazines, and through the director’s engagements at various social work conferences.
Prototype
The ISWEJ has a multifaceted prototype inclusive of a course proposal, syllabus,
website, and book proposal, among other elements. The collection of artifacts demonstrate the
ISWEJ’s commitment to address the problem of social work absence from interventions that
serve populations by actively engaging with environmental justice. Each element of the
prototype design honors and advances the Institute’s mission to assert social work’s ethical
obligation to address and mitigate climate change while developing practical applications to
improve social work client’s short- and long-term environmental circumstances.
Organizational Development
Developing a mission-focused organization, the ISWEJ will rely on interpersonal
communication, intercultural sensitivity, development of a shared understanding of definitions,
and adaptability to different population needs as essential components (Okoro & Washington,
2012). The ISWEJ will also maintain its ethical commitment to the environment through
sustainably driven organizational decisions such as offsetting carbon emissions through the
IFSW Climate Justice program.
Through partnerships with the CSWE, NASW, and universities, the ISWEJ will expand
its reach to professionals across the generational spectrum of social work practice.

24
Environmental citizenship must include intergenerational equity and justice, which the ISWEJ’s
partnerships will foster (Drover, 2000). These partnerships will set clear expectations to
facilitate the Institute’s mission to link students, recent graduates, and seasoned professionals
from diverse backgrounds in a way that recognizes differences, on the behalf of participants and
the populations they serve. Especially in light of the increasing demands for equality from Black
Lives Matter, the ISWEJ is committed to representation and will actively critique its work to
ensure it is anti-racist (Ray, 2020). The ISWEJ’s frequent data analysis and participant feedback
will help ensure that achievement is equitable and meaningful to marginalized communities.
Technology
The ISWEJ website includes an overview of its mission and vision, information about
upcoming events, and testimonials from prior students. The website brings validity to the
organization while opening avenues of communication to advance the ISWEJ’s climate-thinking
strategies across every level of social work through university and community partnerships,
accelerating a discipline-wide, socially just response to climate change. In the future, pre-
recorded workshops may become available through the website to expand the ISWEJ’s reach.
Project Materials
The main component of the prototype is a 12-week Environmental Justice Certificate
proposal and syllabus aligned to the CSWE’s forthcoming Environmental Justice Curricular
Guide. After researching other continuing education courses, the ISWEJ developed a 24-credit
course giving a historical overview of environmentalism in social work and moving into the
contemporary issues and populations most affected by the climate crisis. The course concludes
by exploring potential interventions and solutions to the causes and effects of climate change
affecting the clients or communities that the participants serve.
The new course will appeal to social workers at the micro, mezzo, and macro levels
because each individual will tailor their learning to their needs as a practitioner. Through
multisolving for the traditional purposes of social work alongside positive environmental

25
measures multiplies benefits, social workers will become more productive, while finding entry
points into climate thinking (Swain et al., 2018). Social workers can market their new skills in a
rapidly changing world, where situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic highlight the impact
of environmental injustice, in the form of air pollution, on marginalized populations who
experienced higher rates of severe illness and death (Brandt et al., 2020). Social workers will
learn the benefits of ensuring environmental justice on their professional goals. Another
educational resource in development is an introductory textbook tentatively titled Climate Work
Is Social Work: Prioritizing Climate Thinking to Help Solve Social Work’s Greatest Problems.
This book will examine the intersections of environmental justice with each of the remaining
Grand Challenges. The author will take a strengths-based approach to this problematic topic,
offering sections dedicated to the solutions currently available to social workers.
Alternative Solutions
Climate Reality Project
The Climate Reality Project (CRP) began in 2006 when pioneering environmentalist,
former Vice President Al Gore, trained 50 volunteers to expand the reach of his film “An
Inconvenient Truth” (Ettling & Orlando, 2018). The CRP’s mission is to overcome the climate
crisis by catalyzing and taking urgent action across each level of society to eliminate reliance on
fossil fuels (CRP, 2019). The main goals of the organization include building a critical mass of
individuals speaking out about the climate crisis, implementing, monitoring, and strengthening
international policies to establish emission standards, and accelerating the transition to 100%
renewable energy (CRP, 2019). CRP is active in over 150 countries and has trained over 17,210
Climate Reality Leaders during 39 Leadership Corps conferences (CRP, 2019). With reported
expenditures exceeding $10 million during the 2018 fiscal year, the CRP is a sizable charitable
organization spending more than 94.7% of charities in the United States (McKeever, 2018).
Unlike the ISWEJ, CRP is intersectional and is not aligned to the needs of a specific discipline.
University of Denver

26
The University of Denver offers a unique social work master’s degree concentration in
Sustainable Development and Global Practice. The MSW concentration coursework focuses on
social and environmental justice issues as they pertain to the discipline, similar to the work of
the ISWEJ. This unique concentration program connects problems, including access to food,
water, and housing, with social work’s promotion of human rights (University of Denver, 2019).
Like the ISWEJ’s course, the University of Denver aims to graduate social workers with skills in
local and global policies relating to environmental preservation, community capacity building,
and sustainable development. However, to access this coursework, students must enroll in the
University of Denver MSW program.
Project Implementation Methods
The ISWEJ is a multifaceted strategy that operates at the mezzo and micro levels and
uses content development, trainings, networking, and advocacy opportunities for social workers
to increase the innovation’s adoption and validation across the discipline. The ISWEJ will
conduct an initial quasi-experimental study of a single intervention, the certificate course,
utilizing three instruments to assess and evaluate levels of environmental concern, personal
action, and workplace stress as both pre- and post-treatment measurements. The Beliefs that
Pro-Environmental Behaviors are Inconvenient Scale demonstrates internal consistency and
strong reliability with a Cronbach’s alpha score of 0.76 (Robertson & Barling, 2017). Ecoanxiety
and the climate crisis present additional burdens and stress on social workers; so, data reflecting
changes in workplace stress are valuable information. To that aim, the ISWEJ will use the Work
Stress Scale with excellent internal reliability (Cronbach’s alpha 0.85) (Dytell, 1990). The
Environmental Concern Scale is a brief measure of four items ranked on a 7-point Likert scale to
examine the relationships between climate change concerns, personal greenhouse gas
emissions, and materialistic values (Andersson & Nässén, 2016). While this measure does not
report reliability or validity information, it will add value to the ISWEJ research design when
combined with the other measures because of its close alignment with the central topic of study.

27
The ISWEJ will then employ the RE-AIM framework due to its compatibility with
systems-based interventions that help the ISWEJ to identify and evaluate promising multilevel
interventions (Appendix F). Each participant in the training and control groups will complete
the data collection measures independently using a secure online database for the pre-, post-,
and 3-month maintenance evaluations. The ISWEJ will also employ additional surveys to garner
qualitative stakeholder perceptions and assessments. All of the participants, including the
control group, will provide demographic data to further isolate variables and reveal any valuable
or emerging trends.
The research design will employ a non-probability stratified convenience sampling using
social workers who have previously obtained CEUs through the ISWEJ’s university partner,
Adelphi. The eligible participants are actively practicing licensed social workers in the United
States with Internet access. The sample size for the intervention and control groups includes 25
participants each —social workers who receive an invitation to join the ISWEJ training and earn
additional CEU credit vouchers for completing the study. The strength of this sample includes
their availability to the study. The weaknesses of this design include its limited size and lack of
random sampling, which increases threats to external validity.
These measures will support decision-making concerning the program and incorporate
participant satisfaction outcomes as part of the RE-AIM (Proctor et al., 2011). This
implementation plan will evaluate the effectiveness of the ISWEJ’s core training, and if
successful, it will aid the scalability of the model across additional partnerships. Developing
dynamic and interactive digital trainings in tandem with universities will help to build the
ISWEJ’s reputation and allow for a greater distribution of its educational materials, including
manuals and tool kits, so that more stakeholders might learn about the ISWEJ.
Obstacles
As professionals at the forefront of crisis intervention, social workers deal with the
mental health and societal impacts of the pandemic in their daily work. It is crucial to consider

28
the competing demands of a social worker’s attention during the current resurgence of the Black
Lives Matter movement and amid the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. The implications of
COVID-19 create a parallel to the known and expected consequences of climate change. Prior
warnings exist for both crises, which exacerbate inequalities, violence, and negative mental
health impacts, cause traumatic grief, expose resource limits, and require multilevel
interventions. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres notes that like the
coronavirus, greenhouse gases respect no boundaries (United Nations, 2020). Crises like
pandemics and climate change profoundly impact social work practice, yet still, social norms
within the discipline imply that these events lie outside the discipline’s responsibility or
expertise.
Situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic highlight the impact of environmental
injustice, in the form of air pollution, on marginalized populations who have experienced higher
rates of severe illness and death (Brandt, 2020). Interestingly, many of these current impacts
mirror the potential implications of the climate crisis. The ISWEJ curriculum hinges on building
bridges between issues social workers care deeply about, such as eliminating institutionalized
racism, and environmental justice. The ISWEJ can highlight the importance of drawing
connections between the advancement of racial equity by multisolving to advance positive
environmental measures and multiply community benefits.
Leadership Strategies
Leadership at the ISWEJ aims to build relationships and trust to ensure the Institute’s
success. The leader strives to apply knowledge and skills, rather than simply possess them
(Tropman & Wooten, 2010). Knowing how to use personal skills and build opportunities with
crucial stakeholders proactively will ensure future success and support ISWEJ’s efforts to
elevate climate activism and environmentally just initiatives. Transdisciplinary science may
advance the Grand Challenges of Social Work as the ISWEJ builds a cross-disciplinary team
approach. The ISWEJ aims to incorporate knowledge and best practices into its curriculum,

29
such as ecoanxiety from psychology, climate data from the sciences, and effectively implemented
green policy initiatives from government scholars. Doing so can expand potential education and
training strategies and, therefore, the breadth and capacity of social work research (Gehlert et
al., 2017). Continuous data collection and open communication lines with diverse social work
and interdisciplinary experts will also facilitate the director’s leadership growth.
The director will continue to hone her leadership skills by meeting with stakeholders,
presenting at conferences, and publishing data regarding the outcomes of the certificate
program. The leader intends to increase her marketing and website development skills to
successfully expand the reach of the ISWEJ messaging. Social work is losing its foothold as other
disciplines such as public health, environmental studies, and urban planning band together in
interdisciplinary groups to engage with climate change policy decision-making. Subsequently,
these groups exclude social work and close in its traditional borders (Kemp, 2011). As director of
the ISWEJ, the leader aims to join at least one interdisciplinary organization, such as The
Solutions Project. This leadership may help bridge the interdisciplinary gap, expanding
opportunities for social workers to share their equitable and rights-based focus with these
groups, and potentially direct funding to social worker-led community initiatives.
Assessment
Individuals
The ISWEJ plans to utilize a quasi-experimental design to evaluate the effectiveness of
ecoanxiety trainings for practicing social workers using non-randomly assigned comparison
groups. This design aims to identify key characteristics and demographics of the target
population, including their experiences of ecoanxiety and environmentalism concerning social
work practice. Each participant in the training and control groups will complete the data
collection measure independently using a secure online database for the pre-, post-, and 3-
month maintenance evaluations. After 12 weeks of a quasi-experimental study of the
Environmental Justice Certificate course, the ISWEJ will employ the RE-AIM framework due to

30
its compatibility with systems-based interventions. The ISWEJ will strive to assess the positive
and negative consequences of the program, for example, evaluating whether learning more
about the climate crisis through the ISWEJ trainings leads to the unanticipated and undesired
effect of increasing ecoanxiety among participants (Appendix H).
Organizations
The ISWEJ will evaluate its efficacy at the organizational level by designing semi-annual
surveys for partner universities using quantitative and, increasingly, qualitative methods to
provide context and detail to the understanding of the facilitators and barriers to its
interventions to address climate apathy and building environmentalism into social work (Gaglio
& Glasgow, 2017). The ISWEJ will also survey and monitor perceptions and interventions at
peer universities to gauge changes in practice, research, and curriculum development. This
research may also lead to new partnerships for the ISWEJ trainings or sustainability
consultations.
Community at Large
The ISWEJ aims to observe and collect reports on meaningful changes at the community
level through outreach to former continuing education course participants. The ISWEJ will
conduct semi-annual surveys to garner the implementation of climate thinking by participants,
compiling these data into digital field guides. These field guides will be openly available through
the ISWEJ’s website, serving to inspire additional implementations of successful programs and
sparking new initiatives. The ISWEJ will utilize data from other organizations such as YPCCC to
observe trends in climate change perceptions and communications. The Institute will make
efforts to align its work to the needs and populations identified in these reports to better serve
the wider community.
Ethical Considerations
Ethical considerations for this research are minimal because the target population for

31
this study is not a vulnerable group, and the research design employs voluntary participation.
The researchers will obtain informed consent from each participant and assure individual
anonymity throughout the study. Because the research study will collect data on human
subjects, the ISWEJ will seek approval from Adelphi University’s Institutional Review Board
(IRB). There are no conflicts of interest regarding this study, and the ISWEJ does not anticipate
any objections to the IRB request.
Fundamental ethical principles from the NASW will further guide operations at the
ISWEJ, including Social Workers’ Ethical Responsibilities to the Broader Society, Public
Emergencies, and the Environmental Policy of 2003 guide operations at the ISWEJ. The NASW
Code of Ethics, 6.03 Public Emergencies, establishes an obligation for social workers to engage
more fully in environmentally sound practices because climate change is a public emergency of
the gravest proportions, thus facilitating the ISWEJ’s mission (National Association of Social
Workers, 2017). All components of the ISWEJ model address these very issues and delineate the
foundational connections between social work ethics and equitable environmental protections.
Furthermore, consistent quality monitoring systems and feedback loops between users and
services provided by the ISWEJ will promote adaptability that tailors the initiatives to meet local
needs while maintaining fidelity to the core elements of the innovation, such as adherence to the
NASW Code of Ethics. By shifting society toward a holistic and ethical paradigm, this work may
create opportunities to prioritize beneficial Indigenous-led solutions that strengthen tribal
capacity and successfully attend to the challenges brought forth by the changing environment
(Billiot et al., 2019). However, indigenous or other cultural knowledge cannot be exploited or
tokenized. Ethical partnerships through the ISWEJ must elevate marginalized voices and offer
leadership opportunities to non-privileged groups, as underscored by the calls for equity from
the Black Lives Matter movement (Ray, 2020).
Stakeholder Involvement

32
Substantiating the ISWEJ through the NASW Code of Ethics by identifying climate
change as a public emergency further establishes buy-in from critical stakeholders at the
organizational and individual levels of social work by aligning the ISWEJ’s aims with their
professional missions (National Association of Social Workers, 2017). The ISWEJ will aim to
engage a representative population and a diverse group of researchers recognizing the necessity
to embrace culturally inclusive narratives to establish long-term community benefits and
environmental justice (Schmitz et al., 2012). Social work stakeholders will join the ISWEJ from
across the spectrum of practice and will share knowledge at the practice level as they engage
with climate-thinking tools or recommend the Environmental Justice Certificate course
(Appendix I). These stakeholders will have a feedback loop with the ISWEJ through field guides
and virtual collaboration efforts to advance the historic goals of social work as they connect to
environmental justice and sustainability. University stakeholders are facing unprecedented
changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, rapidly shifting many aspects of campus life online
(Vlachopoulos, 2020). The ISWEJ can provide a new revenue source for universities as they face
pandemic-related budget cuts.
The community at large is an essential stakeholder in building resilient responses to
climate change, focusing on local strengths, knowledge, capacity, and needs. Social
determinants of health are worse for populations in poverty who likely face compounding issues,
including higher unemployment, deficient educational opportunities, inadequate living
conditions, among other factors, and lead to a higher incidence of neurological and behavioral
conditions (Webber et al., 2018). The ISWEJ can build capacity among social workers to shift
these patterns and provide more equitable climate-change protection and mitigation.
As additional stakeholders, climate scientists will increase the resonance of their
research if they have a better understanding of how climate change and increasing natural
disasters cause trauma on individuals and communities (Boddy et al., 2017). The call to
immediate action on climate change is becoming increasingly urgent as climate scientists

33
recognize the very severe and imminent dangers to the environment and human health if swift
enactments are not taken to reduce carbon emissions (National Climate Assessment, 2018). Yet,
the climate science community has yet to generate substantial adoption of protective measures.
Thus far, social work has played a minor role in cooperative discussions about the impacts of
climate change on vulnerable populations.
Communication Products and Strategies
Generally, the Grand Challenges take an independent approach to each of the 13 issues,
largely overlooking intersections between challenges. The ISWEJ communication strategy will
engage various stakeholders by drawing connections between the different Grand Challenges
and the environment (Appendix A). The ISWEJ will share its practical guidance about the
interactions, trade-offs, and synergies between individual and community actions and climate
impact on its website, at conferences, in journals, and through university media outlets.
The ISWEJ is also beginning a social media campaign titled “Think Globally, Act Locally”
as a call to action for practicing social workers. This campaign aims to build community,
exercise positive peer pressure to shift the norms of environmental complacency in the
discipline, and engage social workers in participatory interventions that benefit climate-
vulnerable populations. The virtual campaign will harken back to well-known historical figures
in social work to validate the goals of the campaign in order to shift social work norms and
include environmental justice as a disciplinary goal. The ISWEJ will connect quotes from
individuals such as Jane Adams, who claimed each generation has its test, to the current crisis.
By explaining that climate change must be this current generation’s test helps to legitimize and
connect social workers to this additional disciplinary component, likely absent in their
education. Social workers can then connect to a variety of opportunities through the ISWEJ
website, such as joining a peer network, signing digital petitions, and registering for a 12-week
virtual continuing education course.

34
Summary
The ISWEJ proposes to solve the wicked problems of climate inaction and address the
Grand Challenge to create social responses to the changing environment by reducing ecoanxiety
and activating climate thinking among social workers and university programs. These
interventions will prioritize and unite environmentalism with the historical aims of social work,
albeit with barriers and facilitators. The main obstacle to the ISWEJ is that most social workers
believe that climate change and environmentalism are not disciplinary concerns or
responsibilities (Gordon, 2017). A subsequent barrier is the muddling of environmental social
work research caused by terminology variances for the same concepts, which makes establishing
trends in the literature challenging to accumulate. However, the NASW Code of Ethics, 6.03
Public Emergencies, establishes an obligation for social workers to engage more fully in
environmentally sound practices because climate change is a public emergency of the gravest
proportions, thus facilitating the ISWEJ’s mission (National Association of Social Workers,
2017).
Implications
The ISWEJ is a powerful solution for the problem of climate change avoidance within
social work. The multifaceted intervention will create ripple effects of climate mitigation and
protection throughout the 707,400 social workers in the United States by reprioritizing
environmental justice in scholarship and practice at the gatekeeper and practitioner levels
simultaneously (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019). Social workers can market their new skills in
a rapidly changing world, where situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic highlight the impact
of environmental injustice, for example, in the form of air pollution and on marginalized
populations who experienced higher rates of severe illness and death (Vlachopoulos, 2020).
Social workers will learn that there are benefits in ensuring environmental justice with regard to
their professional goals, and they will recognize that multisolving for the traditional purposes of
social work alongside positive environmental measures multiplies benefits for clients and

35
communities. The solution-focused agenda at the ISWEJ will improve disciplinary efficacy,
normalizing solutions that benefit simultaneously social and environmental justice.
Developing an institute to engage social work with the ever-intensifying necessity for a
multidimensional response to climate change is an essential step toward maintaining social
work’s relevancy. Social work must utilize its deep and historical skill set and ethical
commitments to shape policy and offer substantial solutions to the most resonating and
complex challenge of modern time. As a discipline, social work can address the unique needs of
individuals and communities, especially the most marginalized and often the most affected,
through effective planning and preparation, rather than engaging with climate change only
through post-disaster responses (Hayes et al., 2018). With a focus on positive outcomes for
individuals and communities, social work can extend its expertise and collaborate with other
disciplines to find best practices to resolve and mitigate the devastating effects of climate
change.
Limitations
Climate change gravely threatens the human –earth system. Evolution equipped humans
to respond to immediate threats but it enables individuals to blur systemic crises, such as
climate change (Elkington, 2018). This perspective results in individuals feeling as though
climate change, because it is not currently an immediate threat, is unnecessary to address.
Similarly, over the last two decades, attempts to incorporate environmental justice within social
work have not netted substantial results. Measures by the NASW, CSWE, and AASWSW
recognize the importance of embracing environmental concerns as a discipline, but they were
mostly symbolic, begetting few substantial changes to the actual practice of social work.
Therefore, it is possible that attempts by the ISWEJ may also fall short of its ambitious goals of
shifting the social norms around environmentalism in social work.
Ecoanxiety

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Ecoanxiety is likely to remain a wicked problem as the frequency and intensity of
disasters related to climate change continue to increase. Ecoanxiety can undermine progress
toward achieving the Grand Challenge to Create a Social Response to the Changing
Environment. While awareness of climate change should enable safer choices, as individuals and
governments gain knowledge about climate change, they most often refrain from taking any
action (Luís et al., 2018). Ecoanxiety exacerbates maladaptive behavior, including the use of
addictive substances. Increases in the appeal of authoritarian movements, as recently seen in
Europe and the United States, may also be attributed to ecoanxiety as these political movements
attempt to relieve fears with a promise to return to a utopian past (Pihkala, 2018). Hopelessness
increases when confronted with the realities of climate change, undermining the resilience of
individuals, communities, and governments, often presenting itself as apathy.
Acceptance of Climate Change
Public acceptance of climate change is increasing across U.S. demographics; yet, only
53% of American adults think global warming is mostly caused by human activities (Howe et al.,
2019). The lasting impacts of denial campaigns by fossil fuel conglomerates, who knew of
climate change in 1981 before funding denial reports for 27 years, are responsible for
undermining climate science and misleading the public to profit from destructive practices
(Goldenberg, 2015; Hasemyer, 2018). The financial capacity of these conglomerates to lobby
governments and sway public opinion remains a significant limitation to advancing viable
climate solutions.
Risks
Environmental racism is an essential point of consideration for social work. Research
demonstrates that the most racially and economically marginalized face exposure to the highest
levels of pollution, coupled with the least amount of power and decision-making opportunities
(Coates & Gray, 2012). Within environmental social work, it is crucial to privilege voices outside
of the dominant Western perspective to combat inequalities (Teixeira, Mathias, & Krings, 2019).

37
Social workers need to recognize these disparities between power and access to safe and
equitable environments, offering critical reflection and multifaceted opportunities for more
comprehensive leadership and inclusion of nondominant groups.
Social work and other professions have frequently operated from the assumption that
only wealthy, White individuals care about the state of the environment. Research debunks this
myth, demonstrating through a nationally representative survey that diverse populations
underestimate the environmental concerns of low-income American minorities misperceiving
them as caring less about these issues than more affluent White Americans (Pearson et al.,
2018). The implications for this misperception are vast, as those most vulnerable to
environmental hazards are also perceived as the least concerned about the environment, serving
to further diminish the input opportunities by these community members in environmental
decision-making.
Recommendations
To thrive as an institute, the ISWEJ must fully invest time and resources in overcoming
multiple inequities. Gender disparities are a complex intersection for social work and climate
change policy development. Climate change and gender inequality intersect, amplifying one
another exemplified by the disproportionate amount of women and girls in poverty worldwide
(Bhuyan et al., 2019). Women have limited property ownership and access to economic
resources, less education and training, less freedom, more care responsibilities, and fewer
policy-level positions, all of which contribute to their likelihood of living in poverty (Alston,
2014). These circumstances of gendered inequity also correlate with a higher probability of
violence and death during and after climate disasters (Dankelman & Jansen, 2010; Enarson,
2006 & 2009; Levy et al., 2017). Rape and other sexualized violence, including domestic
violence, female genital mutilation, and trafficking, are understood through “frames” that
explain who counts as victims of violence for asylum purposes. Often, such gender-based
violence is not considered a reasonable claim for safe haven, creating gender-discriminatory

38
circumstances that leave women and girls more susceptible to risk (Nayak, 2015). The interplay
between climate migration and asylum-seeking is also a recommended avenue for future
analysis and solution building by the ISWEJ, addressing the Grand Challenge goal to Build
Healthy Relationships to End Violence.
To establish a robust and meaningful response to the Grand Challenge, the ISWEJ must
also acknowledge and rectify the tenuous relationship that exists between Indigenous
communities that face historic and ongoing exploitation by Western institutions and non-
Indigenous social workers who seek to collaborate on environmental issues. Indigenous
communities may be justifiably hesitant to partner with human service organizations, concerned
their roles may be tokenized and paired with limited opportunities for leadership (McBeath et
al., 2019). Indigenous peoples have documented and born witness to the myriad impacts of
climate change, despite historical efforts to remove them from their traditional lands (Billiot et
al., 2019). Thus, an environmentally just approach to partnering with Indigenous communities
should rightly aim to build trust by prioritizing community healing. By shifting society toward a
holistic and ethical paradigm, this work may create opportunities to prioritize beneficial
Indigenous-led solutions that strengthen tribal capacity and successfully attend to the
challenges brought forth by the changing environment (Billiot et al., 2019). It is of critical
importance for the ISWEJ to engage the community via diverse and inclusive ways of knowing.
Next Steps
Due to the primary focus of social work scholarship on therapy, especially in the United
States, the profession was late to engage with the impact of climate change. Responding to the
complexities of environmental dilemmas has created new pathways for the profession to
reassess its foundational knowledge and professional responsibilities to people and
environments (Coates & Gray, 2012). With valuable knowledge and policy development, social
work can bridge the gaps between lived experience and best practice to motivate serious climate
change mitigation and adaptation. According to the NCA, climate change has already produced

39
harmful effects in each region of the United States (2018). Social work is active across the
United States, and this substantial ground force can offer a considerable impact on climate
change mitigation and adaptation with proper coordination by the discipline. Arguably, social
workers are already engaged in the rebuilding efforts after climate disasters, albeit without a
cohesive strategy guiding their efforts. With a unified set of goals from the ISWEJ, social work
can further coordinate efforts that lead to substantial climate change adaptation and mitigation.
The scope and scale of climate change’s threat far surpass any other challenge yet faced
by humanity. Social work must quickly organize to engage 1) at the micro level to improve
individual environmental capacity and resilience, 2) at the mezzo level to establish
interdisciplinary approaches to systems change, and 3) at the macro level to promote policy and
social work curriculum development (Teixeira & Krings, 2015). Overall, social work, like most
individuals, organizations, and governments, refrains from embracing responsibility for
correcting the current climate trajectory propelling the human –earth system toward disaster.
Social work can no longer remain on the sidelines of climate change action and must assert itself
as a leading field, using its understanding of systems and equity to halt the climate crisis.
The ISWEJ is a financially sustainable organization that will operate with a surplus from
its inception and is likely to see increasing demand for its services in the coming decade as
climate change impacts continue to compound. Its multifaceted approach also offers many
meaningful opportunities to scale its services and advance its mission. The ISWEJ will hone its
course offerings and build its reputation at Adelphi University before expanding its reach and
outputs every year. Generating disciplinary awareness of climate and environmental justice
through grant-based investments is a future goal of the ISWEJ as well.
Conclusions
Social work is positioned to serve as a leader and galvanizing contributor to the policy
and practice designs necessary to confront climate change. Globally, social dilemmas around
climate change are further exacerbated by the abstract and future-based aspects of the

40
problems, making it difficult for individuals or institutions to take action against these growing
threats (Van Lange et al., 2018). Individuals and governments are struggling to adapt to new
environmental realities. Due to the increase in climate-linked natural disasters, trends are
shifting in America, across the political spectrum, with a growing majority recognizing that
climate change is real, human-caused, and anxiety-inducing (Gustafson et al., 2019). Social
work has expertise in communication and community building, both of which can serve to move
the climate-change discussions from their current state of relative inaction to substantial
measure with carbon-mitigating effects. Pinning climate consequences to the Grand Challenges
will support efforts at the ISWEJ to establish new norms among social workers that
environmental justice is a core disciplinary realm.
Climate change is no longer sidelined to scientific inquiry. Instead, it has become a staple
in political and public discourse. Social work has the potential, and responsibility, to help to
confront this new global reality and the different effects it has on marginalized communities to
offer proactive measures and protections against the disastrous effects of climate change. The
Grand Challenge to Create a Social Response to the Changing Environment indicates that social
work is exerting a new professional ethos on the environment (Kemp & Palinkas, 2015).
Reflecting on organizations that strive to overcome the climate crisis supports the development
of an innovation that aims to catalyze social workers as agents of environmental justice.
There is growing momentum from social work students, researchers, institutions, and
practitioners to better understand the interdependence between communities and the
environment. Social work is adept at solving complex problems and working with the confines of
layered inequalities, but it lacks a dedicated space for the development of these strategies and
best practices. The ISWEJ acts as a catalyst that proactively engages practitioners with inclusive
resilience building at this critical juncture for advancing social justice through climate
opportunity. The ISWEJ endeavors to inspire advocacy and realignment by social workers
across the discipline that climate work is social work.

41
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52
Appendix A

Institute for Social Work & Environmental Justice

53
Appendix B
TASK START END
Phase 1 Planning
(Reach)
Engage stakeholder 1 September October
Propose certificate course November March
Engage participants June August
Engage stakeholders April ongoing
Initial Survey June June
Webinar June June
Certificate Course September December
Data Analysis January January
Post-training evaluation January March
Data Analysis January April
Publication (textbook;
glossary)
December ongoing sales
Review stakeholder feedback August ongoing
Maintenance Survey March March
Data Analysis March April
Produce data for stakeholder
consumption
June ongoing
Survey and reminder to
maintain practices
December ongoing
Accolades for those
maintaining practices
January ongoing
Phase 4 Implementation
Phase 4 Maintence
July Aug Sept
Phase 2 Research (Evaluation)
Phase 3 Adoption
Feb Mar April May June
Institute for Social Work & Environmental Justice
Dec Nov Mar April Oct Nov Dec
2021
Jan
Feb
2019
Sept
Oct
2020
Jan

54
Appendix C
NASW Ethical Standards
6. Social Workers' Ethical Responsibilities to the Broader Society
6.01 Social Welfare
Social workers should promote the general welfare of society, from local to global levels, and the
development of people, their communities, and their environments. Social workers should advocate for
living conditions conducive to the fulfillment of basic human needs and should promote social, economic,
political, and cultural values and institutions that are compatible with the realization of social justice.
6.03 Public Emergencies
Social workers should provide appropriate professional services in public emergencies to the greatest
extent possible.
National Association of Social Workers (NASW). (2019). Ethical Standards. Retrieved from
https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English

NASW Value of Social Justice
Ethical Principle: Social workers challenge social injustice.
Social workers pursue social change, particularly with and on behalf of vulnerable and oppressed
individuals and groups of people. Social workers' social change efforts are focused primarily on issues of
poverty, unemployment, discrimination, and other forms of social injustice. These activities seek to
promote sensitivity to and knowledge about oppression and cultural and ethnic diversity. Social workers
strive to ensure access to needed information, services, and resources; equality of opportunity; and
meaningful participation in decision making for all people.

NASW Value of Integrity
Ethical Principle: Social workers behave in a trustworthy manner.
Social workers are continually aware of the profession's mission, values, ethical principles, and ethical
standards and practice in a manner consistent with them. Social workers act honestly and responsibly and
promote ethical practices on the part of the organizations with which they are affiliated.
National Association of Social Workers (NASW). (2019). Ethical Principals. Retrieved from
https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English

The NASW ’s (2003) Environmental Policy
[Social workers] have a professional obligation to become knowledgeable and educated about the pre-
carious position of the natural environment. (para. 2)
National Association of Social Workers (NASW). (2003). Environmental policy. Retrieved from
http://www.socialworkers.org/resources/abstracts/abstracts/environmental.asp

55
Appendix D
Logic Model
NEEDS PRIORITIES/GOALS RESOURCES INPUTS OUTPUTS
ISWEJ develops
practical and
actionable
resources for
social work to
engage in
ethically-minded
sustainability to
mitigate the
climate crisis.

Social work currently
views climate change
as lying largely
outside the
discipline ’s domain.

Climate change
impacts vulnerable
populations first and
hardest.

Social workers are
often embedded with
these communities.

Social workers will
respond to these
issues, either
proactively or
reactively.

There is a lack of
cohesive planning and
knowledge about
current/future
impacts of climate
change or adequate
response from
gatekeepers to crisis.

Social work
gatekeepers are out of
alignment with the
NASW Code of Ethics
due to their current
disengagement with
environmental justice.
Assert social work ’s
ethical obligation to
address and mitigate
climate change.

Build a coalition
among social work
gatekeepers to share
knowledge and to
inform opinions that
realign social work
with environmental
justice.

Address
sustainability at
schools of social
work, revising their
professional roles
and adhere to the
NASW Code of
Ethics.

Change the
accreditation
requirements for
schools of social
work by the CSWE
and license
maintence at the
NASW to mandate
environmental
justice as a core
curricular
component,
requiring
widespread adoption
of the ISWEJ ’s
foundational
principals.
Digital
trainings

Textbook,
manuals,
toolkits, and
supporting
materials

Sustainability
consulting
• Establish university partnership by September 2019 (Adelphi
University)
• Develop and facilitate two environmental justice webinars by
Summer 2020
• Develop and test a training program to test success of the
ISWEJ implementation model
• Document and track participant data and environmentally
just transitions
• Propose Environmental Justice Certificate Course at Adelphi
• Establish ISWEJ under umbrella at Adelphi ’s Continuing
Education and Professional Development department
• By December 2019 launch first digital training in partnership with
Adelphi University
• Evaluate whether social workers who undergo a two hour training
demonstrate a higher capacity to evaluate climate-thinking in their
current practices and employ new strategies that enhance
environmental justice for their clients.
• Produce environmental justice glossary by September 2020
• Textbook: publication by mid 2021
• Develop interdisciplinary opportunities for social work and
environmental science interns
• Offer grants to launch social work initiatives from previous students
Implementation Stages
Reach/Effectiveness/Adoption/Implementation/Maintenance
• Utilize quantitative data analysis to evaluate the ISWEJ inputs
through a secure online database for the pre-, post, and
ongoing evaluations
• Identify and evaluate promising multilevel (including
individual and community) interventions in environmentally
just social work
Implementation Stages
Reach/Effectiveness/Adoption/Implementation/Maintenance
• Measure positive, negative, and unanticipated consequences
• Evaluate economic and environmental outcomes to determine the
effectiveness of the program
• Expand multidimensional interventions across social work gatekeepers
to influence micro and mezzo practices
OUTCOMES
Intervention Outcomes
• Improved management of ecoanxiety
• Implementation of climate thinking principles
• Data collection and analysis
Process Outcomes
• Gatekeeper acceptability of ISWEJ trainings
• Shifting social norms around social work and environmental justice
SHORT-TERM INTERMEDIATE LONG-TERM
Effectiveness/Adoption/Implementation/Maintenance
Macro
• Adoption: Partner with 1 university
• 95% adherence to new sustainability standards outlined
through consultation
• Acceptability: At least 5 media outputs from each institution
and organization that highlighting environmentally-sound
norms to influence peer groups within the discipline
Mezzo
• Adoption: Partner with a medium-size professional
organization to reorganize their professional roles and
responsibilities toward sustainability
• Feasibility: Align 1 conference with sustainability initiatives
• Acceptability: Present these initiatives at the conference to
reshape norms of environmental justice in practice across the
discipline weighing potential effects
Micro
• Adoption: Train at least 100 social workers on the climate
crisis through Continuing Education Units (CEUs)
• Fidelity: After attending an online training 95% of social
workers will understand the rationale for incorporating
climate thinking into their practice
• Sustainability: After attending an online training 95% of
social workers will have at least 2 actionable strategies to
incorporate into their practice to plan for or mitigate the
climate crisis
Effectiveness/Adoption/Impleme
ntation/Maintenance
• Acceptability: By December
2020, social work gatekeepers
will have an awareness of
sustainability trends and
climate thinking
• Adoption/Accessibility/Fea
sibility: By December 2020,
the ISWEJ will have initial
meetings with 2 other
institutions to plan curriculum.
Social workers and institutions
will look to the ISWEJ website
for continued updates and
actionable resources.
• Fidelity: Maintain ethical
standards as outlined in the
NASW Code of Ethics across all
implementations
• Sustainability: remain in
consistent contact with
implementation sites following
the academic calendar as a
guideline
Adoption/Maintenance
• Feasibility: By December 2025
change the accreditation
requirements for schools of social
work and make regional
adjustments to licensing
standards, now inclusive of
environmental justice CEs
• Sustainability: maintenance of
activities beyond scope of
collaboration
Maintain motivation through
grants; employment; and positive
peer pressure

56
Appendix E
ERIC Strategies for the ISWEJ

Appendix A
ERIC Strategies for the ISWEJ
Strategy Application
Use evaluative and iterative strategies
Assess for readiness and identify barriers and
facilitators
To move effective programming forward, the ISWEJ will explore ways to bring environmental and sustainability science
into social work to improve social justice and equity outcomes for vulnerable populations using the RE-AIM model.
Develop a formal implementation blueprint Progress measures including the number of gatekeeper partnerships developed, resources sold, and trainings provided during
this timeframe.
Develop and implement tools for quality
monitoring
After six-months of a quasi-experimental study of a single intervention (Environmental Justice Certificate), the ISWEJ will
employ the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework due to its
compatibility with systems-based interventions.
Obtain and use consumer feedback Early implementation for the ISWEJ includes surveying the current perceptions of climate inaction among social workers
Stage implementation scale up Begin with 1 local academic institution with goal of scaling and digitally serving other 3 institutions over the next 3 years.
Adapt and tailor to context
Promote adaptability Allow space for initiatives to meet local needs while maintaining fidelity to the core elements of the innovation, such as
adherence to the NASW Code of Ethics
Use data experts To ensure accurate interpretation of the survey results, the ISWEJ will outsource data analysis to statistical consultants.
Data will be collected through a secure online database for the pre-, post-, and three month evaluations
Develop stakeholder interrelationships
Develop academic partnerships Partner with schools of social work and encourage alignment with NASW Code of Ethics
Develop an implementation glossary Organize the abundance of terminology variations and establish consistency across the discipline
Identify early adoptors Adelphi University
Model and simulate change Using early adopters to shift expectations
Obtain formal commitments Publish commitments on websites and in media
Train and educate stakeholders
Develop educational materials Digital trainings for CEU credits
Distribute educational materials Publish, market, and distribute glossary, textbook, manuals; conference presentations
Make training dynamic Incorporate best practices and applicable strategies
Provide ongoing consultation Develop feedback loop to maintain fidelity to sustainability measures
Work with educational institutions Partnerships are maintained beyond initial contracts
Engage Consumers
Increase demand Use sustainability to differentiate schools of social work
Involve consumers Build student awareness of, and demand for, schools of social work that are aligned to the NASW Code of Ethics in their
response to the climate crisis
Prepare consumers to be active participants Offer student trainings
Use mass media Highlight accomplishments of institutions engaging with the ISWEJ mission
Change infrastructure
Change accreditation or licensing
requirements
Change the accreditation requirements for schools of social work by the Council for Social Work Education (CSWE) to
mandate environmental justice as a core curricular component. Mandate CEs in Environmental Justice for license renewal
(NASW).

57
Appendix F

RE-AIM Perspectives for the ISWEJ
Adapted from King, D. K., Glasgow, R. E., & Leeman-Castillo, B.
(2010).
RE-AIM Dimension &
Definition
Questio
ns
Built Environment-
Specific
Metrics
Barriers Facilitato
rs
Reach
The proportion of Schools of Social
Work willing to participate in the
ISWEJ initiative and the extent to
which those institutions are the most
at risk for the impacts of climate
change (i.e. Tulane University, New
Orleans, LA)
Engage a large percentage of social
workers in the US (currently
estimated at 707,400 by Bureau of
Labor Statistics, 2019).
If social work continuing
education programs adapt
climate-thinking into their
curriculum to bridge the gaps
between environmental
degradation and social work, how
can it be calculated whether these
skills are adopted into social work
practice?
How will the program recruit
social workers that provide
services for the most climate-
vulnerable populations?
What role does social media
play in recruiting both schools
of Social Work and
practitioners?
Estimate number of social
workers reached versus the
number of practicing social
workers.
Conduct surveys to determine
whether/and which climate-
thinking skills are being utilized
in various contexts and
locations.
Social workers often believe
climate change and
environmentalism lie outside the
scope of the discipline and
practice.
Time and resource
demands. Buy-in from key
stakeholders
Geographic and
technological restrictions.
The ISWEJ will offer leaders at
Schools of Social Work trainings so
they understand the terminology and
logic models behind climate-thinking.
Surveys to explore what brought
these leaders to the ISWEJ will
provide information to recruit
more users.
The ISWEJ will consistently utilize
the hashtag
#ClimateWorkIsSocialWork to reach
a wider range of social work
educators and practitioners.
Effectiveness
Measurements of the intervention ’s
impact on social work practice,
including positive, negative, and
unanticipated consequences,
including environmental and
economic outcomes.
Do the ISWEJ trainings
elicit behavioral changes at
the institutional and
practitioner levels?
Can climate-thinking take a
“top- down ” approach?
What are strategies that enable
social workers to effectively
balance immediate client needs
with long- term climate
protections?
Trainings will take place on
digital platforms. Observe and
quantify behaviors (both positive
and negative) occurring before
and after the environmental
change (i.e. the adoption of
sustainability protocols).
Document consistency and
whether variations in adoption
occur across demographics
including age, gender, and race.
Document and assess any
positive or negative
unanticipated consequences.
Reflect on the impact of
unforeseen circumstances
(COVID-19 pandemic; surge in
civil rights activism through
Black Lives Matter).
Geographic diversity and
primarily digital operations
restrict implementor access to
physical structures. This may
impact ability to ensure fidelity to
the sustainability pledges that are
cornerstones to the climate-
thinking model.
It seems evidence-based
resources are unavailable for
climate resilience trainings at the
organizational level. Few
evidence-based resources exist at
the individual level.
Social work professionals often
do not have a formal
understanding of climate and
environmental science, which
are critical to establishing the
need for this intervention.
The ISWEJ will set specific goals,
identify barriers, monitor and
document behavioral changes to
guide decision- making while
developing climate- thinking
sustainability models for schools of
social work.
Consistent feedback from users
will support decision-making and
allow for program modification to
build more effective trainings.
Cross-disciplinary partnerships and
collaborations with environmental
organizations will help provide the
scientific trainings necessary for
social workers to become
scientifically-sound advocates for
climate and environmental justice.
Adoption Does the ISWEJ add value to the
mission of schools of social work
by
Assess the inclusion of decision-
makers for the sustainability
changes that will approve
(leadership),
Will the program work
differently in different university
settings?
Sustainability and climate-thinking
align with the NASW Code of Ethics
and
The number and proportion of
schools of social work willing to
initiate the ISWEJ program and how
representative they are of the social
work institutions.
The number and proportion of social
workers willing to train with the
ISWEJ program and how
representative they are of the social
work population.
adding sustainability measures
and climate-thinking trainings?
Does the school of social work
have the capacity, and resources
to deliver and maintain the
programs?
Are these changes viewed
positively by key stakeholders?
How are social workers bringing
climate-thinking back into their
daily practice?
implement (facilities
management), and maintain
(leadership; custodial) the
measures.
Immediate demands on
social work er’s time.
The number of key
stakeholders at each site.
Various forms of technology
utilized for program
dissemination.
The wide range of social
work professions.
Cultural
appropriateness of
interventions.
therefore, the school of social
work missions (NASW, 2017).
Incentivize sustainability plans by
highlighting ways the program
creates long-term cost-saving
measures.
Supplement curriculum with guest
speakers from diverse perspectives.
Environmentalism aligns with many
different cultures ’ ethical norms.
Implementation
At the setting level, implementation
refers to how closely key stakeholders
follow the various aspects of the
program including its guiding
principles, whether all elements are
implemented, and the costs versus
savings of the sustainability
programming (Reaim.org, 2019).
When the sustainability protocols
are implemented, do they meet
environmental benchmarks?
Do these sustainability initiatives
attract social workers interested
in environmental justice to the
schools?
Are the ongoing sustainability
and programming costs viable?
Are standards or guidelines for
LEED and other certifications
acceptable sustainability
measures?
Are built environment changes
fully or partially implemented?
Do barriers or deterrents to use
remain (address via intercept
surveys and observations)?
Where and when is the cost of
change incurred? Who pays?
Document other changes needed
to support the project (e.g., law
enforcement or traffic
engineering).
Upfront costs for built
environment modifications may
be substantial.
Each institution will need to
tailor the sustainability
measure and climate-thinking
protocols to their own setting
and specific needs.
Inconsistency in technology
usage and preferences across
sites.
The ISWEJ can adopt existing
resources to implement its
sustainability across different
settings.
The ISWEJ can develop detailed
resource and implementation
manuals.
Participation among key
stakeholders, including social work
leadership, facilities directors, and
custodial staff, in the planning will
improve the delivery of the
sustainability initiatives and improve
their commitment to, and acceptance
of, the programming (Reaim.org,
2019).
Maintenance
The extent to which the program
becomes institutionalized across
practices and policies at the school of
social work (Reaim.org, 2019)
Who will monitor the fidelity to
the sustainability commitments
over time?
Which stakeholder maintains a
working budget for the
sustainability initiatives?
Who will monitor fidelity to the
sustainable initiatives and goals
set forth by the program,
especially if leadership changes
over time?
Do adequate financial and
personnel resources and
protocols exist for ongoing built
environment maintenance costs?
Does the adoption of sustainable
built environments influence
social workers expectations and
behaviors for more climate-
protective measures, and ethical
obligation to consider climate-
thinking, in other areas of
practice?
Ensuring buy in across
stakeholders within the school
of social work.
Resource demands, including
time, and attention to other
pressing objectives.
Finding ways to regularly
schedule sustainability
assessments and interventions.
Environmental and policy
interventions are very effective
in allowing for maintenance at
the organizational level. Be
aware that users ’ buy in is
essential for environmental
interventions to be successful
at both individual and
organizational level.
Climate-thinking and
sustainability practices can
build upon existing
infrastructure and
programming.
Technology can facilitate reminders
to continue pursuing sustainable
initiatives after the program is
implemented.
Sustainability and climate-thinking
objectives align with the NASW Code
of Ethics and can therefore become a
foundational component of the
school of social work ’s mission.

58
Appendix G
Glossary of Terms
Client climate
wellness

Climate wellness is akin to environmental justice and encourages consideration for the short and long
term consequences of each decision for both the client and the environment.
Climate change
Changes to climate attributed to human activity which alters the atmosphere beyond natural climate
variability (United Nations [UN], 1992
Climate crisis
The accelerating frequency and intensity of climate issues across the globe demands more robust
language than change. (The Climate Reality Project, 2019).
Climate gender gap
The more severe and consequential impact of climate events on women and girls further exacerbating
gender inequality
Climate thinking
Prioritizing and uniting environmentalism with the historic aims of social work. Encourages social
workers to look at the short and long term consequences of each decision using a conceptual framework
that identifies both social and climate implications, and balances immediate needs with long term
environmental sustainability.
Climate work
the intentional adoption of practices and routines that address the climate crisis in conjunction with the
more traditional aims of social work.
Ecoanxiety
An increased sense of guilt and fear of climate change due to knowledge or personal experience with a
disaster that creates a sense of despair (Clayton, Manning, Krygsman, & Speiser, 2017). This despair
inhibits meaningful action and can severely impact social work progress and practice (Hogan & Kelter,
2015).
Eco-social
work/Environmental
Social Work/Green
Social Work
An approach to social work that adopts a social justice and human rights lens to climate change by
recognizing the disproportionate impact on marginalized populations due to structural inequalities and
recognizes the necessity for participatory interventions to advance meaningful solutions (Dominelli,
2012).
Generational
Communication/
Generational
Thinking
Linking climate timelines to family ages and circumstances, rather than seemingly arbitrary dates and
statistics and will likely contribute to more rapid and effective behavioral changes (The Lancet, 2018).
Multisolving
leveraging cross-sectoral collaboration, it is possible to design and implement projects that improve local
health, produce financial savings, and advance long-term climate goals all at once. These “multisolving ”
initiatives deliver improvements
in multiple sectors with the same investment of time, money, or political will, thus saving money, meeting
multiple needs, and empowering diverse constituencies. (Swain, McCauley, Edberg, Mwaura, & Jos é
Guiti érrez, 2018).
Spiral of Climate
Vulnerability
Three distinct phases that spiral repetitively with each experience of climate change, compounding to
amplify risk:
1. Predisaster baseline of marginalization(s)
2. Disaster impact
3. Expansion of marginalizations beyond baseline across several measures of equality and justice.
When subsequent disasters occur, individuals are already in a magnified marginalization. They will
continue to spiral farther down as each new climate events occurs becoming progressively more
vulnerable to climate impacts.

59
Appendix H
RE-AIM Barriers Facilitators
Reach • Belief climate change and
environmentalism lie outside the scope
of the discipline and practice
• Terminology
• NASW Code of Ethics, 6.03
Effectiveness • Geographic diversity of clients and
remote monitoring
• Technology
• Climate-resilience evidence-based
trainings are not currently available
• Most social work professionals lack a
foundational understanding of climate
and environmental sciences
• Transdisciplinary team science
approaches
• Obtain consistent feedback
Adoption • Resource allocation (including time) • Long-term cost savings
• Program differentiation
Implementation • Site differences
• Upfront costs for built environment
modifications
• Develop comprehensive resource and
implementation manuals
• Utilize existing resources to support the
implementation of sustainability
measures across different settings
• Intentional cultivation of participation
among key stakeholders
Maintenance • Ensuring and maintaining buy-in across
stakeholders over time
• Regularly scheduled sustainability
assessments and interventions following
the academic calendar
• Ethical obligations to address climate
change become foundational and
strategic mission-based objective

60
Appendix I
Social Wor k Pr actitioner Inter est in Envir onmental Justice
Webinar December 201 9 & June 2020
Which Gr and Challenge most closely aligns with your current professional or academic experiences?
Reduce extreme economic
inequality
5%
Achieve equal
opportunity and justice
20%
Ensure health
development for all
youth
20%
Close the health gap
9%
Stop family violence
7%
Advance long and
productive lives
14%
End homelessness
2%
Create social responses
to the changing
environment
9%
Eradicate Social Isolation
9%
Harness Technology for
Social Good
5%

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The Medicine Blanket Project

Asset Metadata

Creator Smith, Kelly (author)

Core Title Climate work is social work: addressing environmental justice to facilitate achievement of the Grand Challenges for social work

School Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work

Degree Doctor of Social Work

Degree Program Social Work

Publication Date 11/15/2022

Defense Date 07/31/2020

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag climate change,Education,environmental justice,OAI-PMH Harvest,Social work

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Araque, Juan Carlos (committee chair), James, Jane (committee member), Orras, George (committee member)

Creator Email kellysmith810@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-392860

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Legacy Identifier etd-SmithKelly-9124.pdf

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Document Type Capstone project

Rights Smith, Kelly

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

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