Faculty
Faculty can play a powerful role in supporting students to be informed and engaged voters. Scholars Strategy Network's Faculty Guide to Student Voting in Your Classroom suggests ways to bring nonpartisan voter registration, education, and voter participation to your classroom. It can also be daunting to sift through all of what's available, so we have compiled a list of ideas and resources that you can use to support and engage social work students, staff and faculty in all elections:
- Download our PowerPoint slide and encourage students to check their voter registration. They can also use our nonpartisan resource to register, request an absentee ballot, find information, and request reminders to vote before every election.
- Include content on voting in your class using the resources on this site, including our video series funded by the Scholars Strategy Network:
- Why Voting Matters: The benefits of voting to social work's mission, code of ethics and impact.
- Defending Democracy: Voting Rights and Voter Suppression
- Voting as a Social Work Intervention: why social workers and agencies are perfectly positioned to support clients and communities to vote
- Voting rules in your state. (Note: Voting in CT is on our website)
- Build civic skills and political efficacy. Democracy is learned best when students engage with it.
- Ask students to look up who represents them at all levels of government using our Find Your Elected Officials Worksheet as a guide
- Connect the issues facing students, clients and communities to elected officials, levels of government, and/or policymakers who can help address them. Invite them to your class.
- Connect the issues to elections and candidates using our sample candidate rating sheet.
- Build students' civic IQ and skills with more sample assignments that connect to both micro and macro class content
- Share Rock the Vote's Democracy Explainers
- Assign the NASW article on the Role of Clinical Social Workers on Voter Engagement Efforts and discuss how this connects to Section 6 of the NASW Code of Ethics.
- Encourage students to add voter activities, which tie to all 9 CSWE Core competencies, to their educational contracts
- Invite guest speakers who engage voters as part of their mission and impact (e.g., Planned Parenthood, AARP, and others)
Practicum/Field Education
- Give students field credit for election-related activities such as serving as a poll worker or running a voter registration drive.
- Encourage students and field supervisors to add voter activities to their education contracts, which tie to all 9 CSWE Core Competencies.
- Share resources to support this work:
- Our video series on Why Voting Matters, Voting as a Social Work Intervention and more
- Share the nonpartisan facts that supporting clients and communities to vote is legal, permissible, and ethical.
- NASW's Article on the Role of Clinical Social Workers on Voter Engagement, our Voter Engagement Guide for Organizations and other resources on our Help Others to Vote page with field instructors.
- Offer training opportunities around voter engagement and free or low-cost CEs to field instructors who participate.
Students
- Speak with your practicum supervisor about adding voter activities to your education contract, which tie to all 9 CSWE Core Competencies.
- Host voter registration drives and promote voter participation in your classes and events.
- Make sure you are ready to vote! Students can register and vote at their school address or request an absentee ballot application to vote by mail using your home address.
- Join and promote the Power of Three Campaign! Engage at least three friends, family and others to vote this election!
Schools of Social Work
In addition to bringing nonpartisan voter engagement to social work curricula and practicum education, schools of social work have an important role to play in supporting civic knowledge and engagement among students and the profession.
- Hire students to run peer-led voter activities on campus. Learn more about how Federal Work Study (FWS) programs can provide part-time work opportunities in community service and civic engagement for students demonstrating financial need.
- Encourage students, faculty and staff to check their voter registration at Convocation, all school meetings, or on the first day of class. It takes less than 30 seconds.
- Ask incoming students if they are registered to vote and if they want assistance to do so.
- Host voter registration drives and promote voter participation at events and school orientation.
- Educate all students about how to vote by absentee ballot or how to register locally.
- Provide stamps for ballots!
- Join and promote the Power of Three Campaign to encourage students, faculty, and staff to engage three voters this election
For more ideas on bringing nonpartisan voter education, registration, and turnout information to your campus and curricula, read Scholars Strategy Network's Faculty Guide for Student Voting.