Shannon Lane | Scholars Strategy Network

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About Shannon

Lane's research focuses on political social work, civic engagement, and social policy. Overarching themes in Lane's writings include integration of voter engagement within human service organizations, and the need for advocacy to protect access to the right to vote. Lane serves as the Deputy Registrar of Voters in Bethany, Connecticut, Research Committee Chair for the Humphreys Institute for Political Social Work, and as a member of the CSWE Council on the Role and Status of Women in Social Work Education. She is the co-author of Political Social Work: Using Power to Create Social Change and Social Welfare Policy in a Changing World.

Contributions | No Jargon Podcast | In the News | Publications

Contributions

Limiting Hospital Visitations During COVID Not in Patients’ Best Interests

Kerry Milner
Suzanne Marmo-Roman

Commentary, February 2022

In the News

Shannon Lane quoted by Emily DiSalvo, "Day Camps Look Different, Provide ‘Normal’ Fun" CT News Junkie, July 2, 2020.

Shannon Lane quoted by Justine Coleman, "Domestic Violence Cases Drop Off After Years of Consistency" The GW Hatchet, October 4, 2017.

Publications

"Giving a Voice to Those with Felony Convictions: A Call to Action" (with Sarah Shannon, Katherine Hill, and Tanya Rhodes Smith). Oxford Academic 65, no. 4 (2020): 406–408.

Reviews the racist history and outcomes of felon disenfranchisement and calls on the profession of social work to act on professional knowledge, ethics, and values by working to end the disenfranchisement of people with felony convictions.

Social Welfare Policy in a Changing World (with Elizabeth S. Palley and Corey S. Shdaimah) ( SAGE Publications, Inc, 2019).

Links policy and practice and employs a critical analytic lens to U.S. social welfare policy. Pays particular attention to disparities based on class, race/ethnicity, ability, sexual orientation and gender, authors assess the impact of policies at the micro, meso, and macro levels. Helps students recognize the many ways that policy affects their lives and the lives of their clients and communities.

"Politics Is Social Work With Power’: Training Social Workers for Elected Office" (with Jason Ostrander and Tanya Rhodes Smith). Social Work Education The International Journal 37, no. 1 (2018): 1-16.

Describes and evaluates an educational experience in the US that prepares social work practitioners and students to run for elected office; to work in leadership positions at the local, state, and federal levels; and serve as effective advocates for social change. Plans for future political engagement before and after the training were compared.

Political Social Work: Using Power to Create Social Change (with Suzanne Pritzker) (Springer, 2018).

Prepares social workers to influence both policy and politics with a detailed real-world framework for turning ideas into concrete goals and strategies for effecting change. Traces the roots of social work in response to systemic social inequality, it clearly relates the tenets of social work to the challenges and opportunities of modern social change.

"Creating a Culture of Voting in Direct and Generalist Practice" (with Katharine Hill, Jason Ostrander, Jenna Powers, Tanya Rhodes Smith, and Mary E. Hylton). Advances in Social Work 19, no. 1 (2019).

Presents one component of a model for integrating voter engagement into social work education: the provision of training for field instructors on nonpartisan voter engagement at two universities over two years.

"Political Social Work" (with Suzanne Pritzker), in Encyclopedia of Macro Social Work.  National Association of Social Workers, edited by Pritzker, S. & Lane, S.R. .

Involves explicit attention to power dynamics in policymaking and political mechanisms for eliciting social change. Highlights the need for social workers to work toward political justice and the role of power within political action.