This contributory chapter embraces the emerging debate about the policy engagement of social workers and aims to explore the policy role that social workers play in seeking to influence policies. Policy practice is assumed to constitute a prominent framework for analysing emerging professional routes for radical and structural social work in policy arenas (place-based policy), where social workers identify new social problems, develop policies to overcome them, and so advance impact and change in public policies. With respect to Italian local welfare, some experiences with place-based policies realized from a community perspective represent powerful catalysts with which to think of social work from a political perspective. With a community approach and situated knowledge, the policy practice of social work highlights an interesting theoretical and practical framework to inform social work education.