Integrating Micro and Macro Perspectives and Practice
After exploring the relationship between micro and macro practice, in the essay describe how you perceive the balance between social work’s dual goals of attending to immediate need and working toward social change to address root social issues. If you were given a limited amount of resources to work toward solving a social issue for a population, how would you prioritize resource allocation on the continuum of micro to macro? For example, if you were granted $100,000 to help issues of hunger in Atlanta, would you spend the funds on feeding people currently experiencing hunger? Or would you spend the funds on trying to implement policy to decrease hunger in the future? Discuss your rationale. What ethical dilemmas arise as we, as social workers, make choices about where to devote our efforts?