Community platform
A space to organize, support each other, and sharpen macro skills.
Hear first on the mailing list ↗Practice equity starts by advancing macro.
Client-centered and interpersonal practice already has the training, credentials, and jobs to sustain it. Macro practice has gone underresourced, underdeveloped, and underappreciated for a century. This self-sustaining problem is what we call the Micro Pipeline in Social Work (MPISW™). Macro Pathways was built to dismantle it.
Macro is
Start the route: who we are →
anywhere a social worker touches systems, culture, or power.
Who we are
Macro Pathways is a movement-first organization.
Professional development is one way we work, alongside research, advocacy, and community. Everything we do serves one mission.
Mission
Dismantle the Micro Pipeline in Social Work (MPISW™).
We raise awareness of macro practice, advocate for pathways into it, and build the resources, learning, and community social workers need to practice at the systems level.
Vision
A rebalanced profession.
Macro practice is fully resourced in social work education, licensure, and the job market.
The problem
The Micro Pipeline in Social Work (MPISW™)
The systemic funneling of social workers into client-centered and interpersonal roles, often at the expense of macro practice exposure and preparation.
Two tracks that sustain each other
Track 1
Structural forces
- Accreditation design
- Standards give programs wide discretion, and most use it to favor clinical concentrations.
- Field placement scarcity
- Macro placements are hard to find, and supervisor requirements narrow them further.
- Credentialing asymmetry
- Licensure and pay are tied to interpersonal practice, with no equivalent path for macro.
- Labor market invisibility
- Macro roles rarely carry "social worker" in the title, so they go unseen.
- Faculty reproduction
- Programs produce the supervisors and faculty who prepare the next class the same way.
Track 2
Cultural and perceptual forces
- Identity compression
- Social work gets narrowed to clinical work, in public and within the profession.
- Economic fear
- Students follow the path that looks financially safest, and that path runs through licensure.
- Gaps in macro mentorship
- Students rarely meet macro social workers who can show them the way in.
Each track sustains the other, which is why single-point fixes rarely change outcomes.
274MSW students and early-career graduates answered Macro Pathways' national survey, June 2025 to May 2026.
76%are interested in macro-level roles
84%believe macro social work is equally important as clinical practice
70%report an unclear job market for macro roles
32%feel confident they could find a macro-level job after graduation
The motivation exists. The path does not.
Client-centered and interpersonal practice already has the infrastructure to sustain it. Practice equity means Macro Pathways focuses on macro, where the gap is.
Next stop: dismantling the pipeline →What we're doing about it
Research, resources, and community
Each piece below moves the profession toward practice equity.
MPISW™ research
A national survey of 274 MSW students and graduates, with peer-reviewed publishing in progress.
See the findings →The Macro Directory
A living map of the organizations, initiatives, and networks advancing macro social work. Free for everyone when it launches.
Get notified on the mailing list ↗Macro Monthly
Lands the first Monday of every month with macro job postings, spotlights on social workers doing systems-level work, and news from the field.
Join the mailing list ↗Workshops and speaking
Four Macro Career Navigation Workshop cohorts ran January through March 2026. Book a talk or training for your program or organization.
Make a request →Every purchase has a job
Made-to-order tees, mugs, and notebooks. Revenue covers operating costs first, then goes toward paying interns.
Visit the store ↗Find your orientation
The Macro Spectrum
The Macro Spectrum names five orientations social workers can hold toward macro practice. An orientation is not a title or a skill level. It is how you relate to macro practice. Select one.
Macro-Inclined
These orientations are not a ranking or a ladder. They show that macro practice belongs anywhere social workers do, at any level, in any industry.
Founder and CEO
Dr. Patrick M. Taylor
DSW · LCSW
Dr. Patrick M. Taylor is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Air Force veteran, and founder of Macro Pathways. He holds a Doctor of Social Work from the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, where his research identified, named, and studied the Micro Pipeline in Social Work.
His broader vision is a profession that shows up everywhere: in policy, technology, corporate systems, public health, media, and beyond. He serves on the Advisory Committee for the Macro Social Work Student Network (MSWSN) through ACOSA.
In the conversation
- Social Work to Wealth podcastThe Micro Pipeline in Social Work · 1 ASWB CE credit
- Revolutionary Social Work podcastDisrupting the Micro Pipeline in Social Work, Ep. 30
- Social Justice Origin StoriesThinking Beyond Direct Practice and the Clinical Office
- Recognition
- 2026 Outstanding Doctoral Student Award, Association for Community Organization and Social Action (ACOSA)
- Degree
- Doctor of Social Work, University of Southern California, 2026
- License
- Licensed Clinical Social Worker
- Coined
- Micro Pipeline in Social Work (MPISW™)
How to get involved
Join the work.
Pick the way in that fits where you are right now.
Community platform
Opening early 2027. A space to organize, support each other, and sharpen macro skills.
Get notifiedSpeaking and training
Talks, workshops, and research collaboration on macro practice and the MPISW™.
info@macropathways.com