LibGuides: SW 505-50 Social Welfare Policies & Services: Websites

Web Resources from Syllabus

American Fact Finder U.S Census Bureau source for population, housing, economic, and geographic information.
Center for the Study of Social Policy The center strives to help states and localities implement creative and effective strategies that strengthen disadvantaged communities and families and ensure that children grow up healthy, safe, successful in school, and ready for productive adulthood.
Council on Social Work Education CSWE aims to promote and strengthen the quality of social work education through preparation of competent social work professionals by providing national leadership and a forum for collective action. CSWE pursues this mission through setting and maintaining policy and program standards, accrediting bachelor's and master's degree programs in social work, promoting research and faculty development, and advocating for social work education.
Global Policy Forum An independent policy watchdog that monitors the work of the United Nations and scrutinizes global policymaking. GPF gathers information and circulates it through this comprehensive and heavily-visited website.
Global Call to Action against Poverty
Government Benefits Portal This site sponsored by the federal government in partnership of Federal agencies to assist advocates and clients in locating government benefits for advocates and clients.
Influencing State Policy ISP assists social work faculty and students in learning to effectively influence the formation, implementation, and evaluation of state-level policy and legislation. Link to state policy resources, become a member, and learn about the annual ISP contest which challenges students and faculty to influence state policy.
Information for Practice To help social service professionals throughout the world conveniently maintain an awareness of news regarding the profession and emerging scholarship.
Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) is a public policy research organization dedicated to public policy issues of critical importance to women and their families. IWPR focuses on poverty and welfare, employment and earnings, work and family issues, the economic and social aspects of health care and domestic violence, and women's civic and political participation.
International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) IASSW is the worldwide association of schools of social work, social work educational programs, and social work educators. The IASSW promotes the development of social work education throughout the world, develops standards to enhance quality of social work education, encourages international exchange, provides forums for sharing social work research and scholarship, and promotes human rights and social development through policy and advocacy activities.
International Federation of Social Workers IFSW is a global organization striving for social justice, human rights and social development through the development of social work, best practices and international cooperation between social workers and their professional organizations.
National Association of Social Workers NASW is a professional organization of social workers in the United States with over 150,000 members. The NASW provides guidance, research, up to date information, advocacy, and other resources for its members and for social workers in general.
National Center for Policy Anaylsis NCPA was a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization. The NCPA's goal was to develop and promote private alternatives to government regulation and control, solving problems by relying on the strength of the competitive, entrepreneurial private sector. Topics included reforms in health care, taxes, Social Security, welfare, criminal justice, education and environmental regulation. (The organization ceased operation in mid-2017.)
Poverty Guidelines, Research, and Measurement This website from the US Department of Health & Human Services is a terrific bookmark to keep up to date with current poverty guidelines, research and measurement.
Social Development Resources webpage
Urban Institute A nonprofit nonpartisan policy research and educational organization established to examine the social, economic, and governance problems facing the nations. Find excellent policy papers on housing, immigration, Social Security, welfare reform, community re-entry programs for prisoners, and many others.

Searching Websites Effectively

Finding what you need on comprehensive websites can be time-consuming. Look for sitemap to locate specific materials, or use this handy trick:

Open Google search bar
Type in search term(s)
Type in "site" + ":" [colon symbol] followed by the URL.

This technique will yield search results for your keyword(s) only within the website URL.

Narrowing your results:

You can search by specific domains. For example, if you only want government jobs sites, you can search "jobs" + "site:.gov" .

You can also also search for specific file types. For example, to search for a PDF document on jobs, search "jobs" + filetype:PDF.