Anticipatory Social Work: Foresight Approaches and Tools for Social Imagining and Collective PRAXIS

Dealing with a rapidly changing world is the purview of all professions. Nowhere is this truer than in those professions dealing with well-being, social change, justice, and equity. What is the future of social work as a profession, and how should social work prepare for--and help to shape--what comes next?

In Anticipatory Social Work, Laura Burney Nissen asserts that social work faces a series of vital turning points for its own future including artificial intelligence and technology in our shared world and the impacts of climate change on human well-being. These relate to new kinds of practice challenges--and mutations of old ones. Anticipatory social work is simultaneously a philosophy that becoming more ready for the future is not only possible, but desirable; a history and global community of those doing exactly that; and a set of tools and techniques for bringing this to life in an ethical and equitable manner. This includes such features as actively and imaginatively considering scenarios of what the future may hold and assisting communities to prepare for the unexpected. Going beyond simple labels of utopia and dystopia, anticipatory social work engages individual and group skills to bring a sense of playfulness, possibility, and creativity to the opportunities social workers have to make a difference in this world.

This book includes an overview and history of foresight, methods, and tools; a practice template to provide guidance and put ideas into action; and explicit ideas of how social workers can become more ＂future ready＂ in their work. It aims to help social workers become individually more effective and engaged in relation to issues of the future that promote more justice and success, and intentionally help move the profession forward on purpose.

Laura Burney Nissen, PhD, MSW (she/her) is a Professor of Social Work at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, where she has taught, conducted research, and administered two national programs of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation utilizing foresight approaches since 2000. She is a Research Fellow at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, California, and has led a three-year campus-wide ＂Futures Collaboratory＂ as a Presidential Futures Fellow from 2019 to 2021. She received her MSW and PhD from the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work.