The policy transfer model: A tool to help social workers engage in successful policy making

“New” social welfare policies are often actually policies borrowed from other states or nations. This paper reviews the recent theoretical developments in understanding the processes of policy transfer and presents a “policy transfer” model that can be a useful heuristic tool for social workers engaged in policy making. It discusses how the field of social work can benefit from understanding the factors underlying successful and unsuccessful policy transfer, and argues for the inclusion of the study of policy transfer in social welfare policy courses.