Social Worker’s Impact and Influence on Domestic and International Policy Development
Topic(s): 
Professional Practice
Webinar event date: 
May 13, 2025 1:00 pm EDT
Webinar link

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Webinar Presenters: 
Candies Kotchapaw, MSW, BSW, CYW

Candies Kotchapaw is a Jamaican-born Canadian social entrepreneur and change-maker who champions Black youth engagement and leadership in the niche field of international multilateral diplomacy. Using seventeen years of front-line social work and lived experience of navigating precarious work as a catalyst, in 2015, Candies shifted her career focus from direct practice to public policy advocacy. Using her Master of Social Work research paper as an anchor, Candies berthed the nonprofit organization called Developing Young Leaders of Tomorrow, Today (DYLOTT) and is the founding executive director since 2019. Candies launched the Black Diplomats Academy in 2021 as the public policy advocacy arm of DYLOTT. Candies is a national and internationally decorated Black diplomacy ambassador. She is a recipient of the Queen Elizabeth Platinum Jubilee Award, CILAR Inspiring Innovators Award, Women of Influence Global Award, Paget Warner Founders Award, Most Influential People of African Descent and 100 Accomplished Black Canadian Women’s Award among others

Description

The Canadian experience of social work’s practice space has historically been limited to the micro and mezzo environment from a front-line service delivery model. Yet, in the increasingly convoluted public and social policy arena, where the social determinants of health outcome priorities are debated and determined by policy actors who do not have direct knowledge or experience of their policy implementation impact; the impetus for social workers to possess broad-based macro level competencies in government systems navigation (understanding the roles and responsibilities of each level of government), public and social policy analysis and effective community development negotiating skills has never been more urgent.

In this 90-minute workshop, the facilitator will guide the audience of social workers from various practice backgrounds through a series of activities to achieve the following objectives:

1. Introduce effective methods of influencing domestic and international policy development from a macro social work perspective.

2. Amplify Social Work’s integral role in public policy implementation as a cornerstone of Equity and Inclusion (lived experience of poverty and underrepresented communities as the experts in economic and social policy development).

3. Encourage more social workers to seek out opportunities to connect their local engagement to the broader public and social policy decision-making architecture.

Workshop attendees will gain new advocacy skills or re-organize their advocacy toolkits to effectively engage in public and social policy advocacy for their clients and communities by connecting micro and mezzo issues such as municipal services, employment skills development, addictions/health and mental health, online harms or others to the policy actors at various levels of government with the goal to effectively navigate systems and positively influence domestic and international policy development. The outcome of these activities is to reinforce social work’s integral role in the implementation of equitable public and social policy.