Summary

The Katherine A. Kendall Institute for International Social Work Education was established in 2004 by its namesake with the mission to advance global and local perspectives in social work for mutual understanding and advancement of human wellbeing.\ The proposed presentation is part of a group of three presentations that will highlight key strategic initiatives to promote diversity through collaborative global initiatives. They include one focused on the overall Institute, one about the Kendall Institute Grant Program, and the third about its Fulbright Partnerships.\ The Kendall Institute is a unique model for cultivating diversity through international social work initiatives. The Kendall mission is to promote strategic international collaboration to advance global initiatives and human diversity. All our activities seek to empower practitioners, researchers, students, and educators with relevant knowledge and skills to promote global diversity. The Kendall Institute Grant Program and the Fulbright Partnerships are two prime examples that demonstrate our commitment to human diversity. The workshop will discuss how the Kendall Institute is structured, its intentional and self-consciously global perspective, how we deliberate, and recently completed strategic plan.\ Members of the Kendall Institute constitute the Advisory Board who are established international social work scholars with expertise on assorted global social welfare issues.The workshop invites participants to dialogue with the Kendall presenters to deepen and disseminate ideas for pushing forward a diversity agenda for international social work.\ 

Keywords (separate with commas)

International Social Work Education, diversity, service learning

Summary

The Katherine A. Kendall Institute for International Social Work Education was established in 2004 by its namesake with the mission to advance global and local perspectives in social work for mutual understanding and advancement of human wellbeing.\ The proposed presentation is part of a group of three presentations that will highlight key strategic initiatives to promote diversity through collaborative global initiatives. They include one focused on the overall Institute, one about the Kendall Institute Grant Program, and the third about its Fulbright Partnerships.\ This presentation focuses on the Kendall Institute’s partnerships with\ Fulbright Programs of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the United States Department of State, and administered by Council for International Exchange of Scholars (https://cies.org/) and World Learning (https://fulbrightspecialist.worldlearning.org/). Fulbright awards are granted to US and non-US based students, faculty, and scholars from over 24 designated disciplines, including social work. Fulbright’s auspice, funding and mission provide a unique identity in fields of international cooperation and capacity building.\ The Kendall Institute’s partnership compliments existing mentorship and mutual support among social work educators, important factors in making successful applications to Fulbright programs. Our focus suggests a path to engagement in international collaboration, and a source for renewal of social work educators’ commitment to global social justice and international perspectives in professional education and practice.\ We welcome conference participants with wide ranging interests and experiences, both in\  existing international partnerships, and relatively new such perspectives and activities. Participants can anticipate positive outcomes, including gaining information, networking opportunities, and inspiration to begin or rekindle trajectories with Fulbright and similar international programs.\ This initiative is integrated with the Kendall Institute’s mission and portfolio, along with other activities including Kendall Institute’s Grants Program and integration of international, diverse practice in the education of future social workers in the United States.

Keywords (separate with commas)

international social work education, diversity

Summary

\ The Katherine A. Kendall Institute for International Social Work Education was established in 2004 by its namesake with the mission to advance global and local perspectives in social work for mutual understanding and advancement of human wellbeing.\ The proposed presentation is part of a group of three presentations that will highlight key strategic initiatives to promote diversity through collaborative global initiatives. They include one focused on the overall Institute, one about the Kendall Institute Grant Program, and the third about its Fulbright Partnerships.\ At historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), slightly more than three percent of students study abroad as undergraduates, compared to a 10 percent participation rate for all students.\ \ A Kendall sponsored project, the\ International Service Learning Program for Historically Black Colleges and University Toolkit (ISL HBCU), will assist in closing this gap. This presentation will address the challenges and opportunities for faculty and students to engage in international service learning. It will illustrate a case study of a successful implementation of such an international service learning course. It will outline the foundations and essential components of such a toolkit to provide utility for other schools of social work interested in such an initiative.\ 

Keywords (separate with commas)

service learning

Summary

Groups are central to human relationships, human rights, and the promotion of social justice. However, group work educators and partners rarely have opportunities to discuss their challenges and approaches. This session is unusual in focusing on a method of drawing participants from across geographic boundaries, fields of interest, and practice approaches to explore wide-ranging interests in group work in social work education.\\  Our purpose is to provide a forum to share experiences and engage in co-creating strategies to strengthen group work in social work.\\ \\ In previous sessions over the last 15 years, participants were engaged in vital aspects of group work education, practice, and research, including inclusion of service users and community members, equitable cross-cultural, cross-national, and interdisciplinary collaboration, and promotion of human rights and anti-oppressive practices within our institutions and communities. A foundational tenet of human rights is to promote the value of social support and solidarity within all communities.\\  An essential component of group work is to build connections and relationships that foster a sense of belonging, directly aligning with the concept of solidarity.\\ \\  Joining together with participants who bring diverse and unifying interests in group work in social work education, practice, and research has enhanced future work, influenced curriculum and policies, and encouraged partnerships to improve local and global conditions.\\ These sessions are conceptualized as incubators of essential advancements in group work, international collaboration, dissemination, and innovation.\\ \\ 

Keywords (separate with commas)

Groups, interdisciplinary collaboration, cross-culture, Human Rights, \\ anti-oppressive practices, experiences, narrative, community

Summary

As a human rights profession (Mapp et al., 2019; United Nations Centre for Human Rights et al., 1994), social workers must learn ways to advance equity and justice to reduce inequality and oppression. Thus it is essential for social work programs to include this material in their curriculum since it is only by learning to practice these skills that social workers can realize human rights for individuals, regardless of their intersecting identities (Reynaert et el., 2022). However, research has found an emphasis on teaching the human rights instruments and principles rather than how to actualize a rights-based approach for justice in social work practice (Chen et al., 2015; Swigonski, 2011). To achieve human rights for increasingly diverse populations, the social work curriculum should educate social work students about using human rights principles (including anti-discrimination, equity, and inclusion) to promote equity and justice and prepare them to practice from this perspective. To accomplish this, this session will review strategies to assess the curriculum to achieve these goals, as well as potential methods programs can adapt. Based on previous research (Gatenio Gabel & Mapp, 2019), the presenters will share an exercise designed to help educators assess the extent to which a social work curriculum integrates a rights-based approach based on human rights principles of participation, inclusion, accountability, transparency, and equity.  This tool assesses human rights content and skills training in social work curriculum to train social workers to reduce inequalities and increase hope for all peoples.

Keywords (separate with commas)

Human rights, social work education, curriculum

Summary

Background: Refugees, asylum seekers, and forced migrants are changing our geopolitical landscape.  Climate disasters are increasing, amplifying the urgency to find sustainable immigration solutions. The Covid-19 virus and climate crises reveal our shared public health and global interdependence.  This research sought to understand best practices for providing culturally effective health and behavioral health services to forced migrants during the time of Covid-19 and climate crises.Methods: The findings presented are from qualitative interviews of social workers collected from several countries (Iceland, Germany, Mexico, Switzerland, and the United States). The participants were providers of social services to forced migrants who fled their homelands due to persecution, economic hardships, civil unrest, and climate disasters.  The data was analyzed using content analysis. The interviews were coded, categorized, and these categories were further reviewed and organized to bring out the major themes.Findings: Differences in culture, countries, and economies determined many of the goals and services provided to forced migrants. Culture, history, economics and geopolitics were major factors in how each country managed the arrival of new residents as well as how a country handled the pandemic. Human rights and resilience were used to better understand the needs of stakeholders and possible best practices in helping forced migrants and host countries. The implications of this are discussed, with particular focus on the role of social work in meeting stakeholders' needs. Over 150 years ago in the United States, social work emerged at a time with similar conditions as today (massive immigration, epidemic, and income disparities). What have we learned? How do we navigate forward?

Keywords (separate with commas)

Forced Migration, Resilience-Enhancing Techniques, Human Rights, Health and behavioral health

Summary

’The times they are a changing’ – all the time in social work. And so must research. While the world has changed several theories, research methods and research participants have remained the same. Somehow the basics of research are often understood as timeless. This is probably true in several studies and when talking about pure research. But it’s not possible in social work research. Research will and must be influenced by several participants and the diversity in social work. In participatory practice research approaches a negotiation between the stakeholders must take place. Negotiations about traditional scientific areas like: research question, research design, data analysis and publication. It is new for researchers that ‘outsiders’ interfere with their research. To support the interference new elements suddenly become part of the research process: the ability to support democratic processes and diversity among stakeholders, the skills to establish communicative and dialogical rooms and the awareness of power issues in the  joint  research processes. As research projects often are initiated by researchers and as the research processes often are headed by researchers, researchers need to face these new relational tasks. In other words: the researchers must be skilled to run the democratic, dialogical, diverse and communicative processes – besides being skilled to do research. The presentation will define and discuss participatory research and the new roles and tasks for the researchers – and hence one important part of the changing times in research. 

Keywords (separate with commas)

Domocratic research processes, Diversity in research, Participation and negotiation in social work research

Summary

Energy Poverty (EP) has been recognized by the European Commission as a major challenge for the energy transition in Europe and lifting vulnerable citizens out of EP is prioritized as an urgent task for the EU. EU-surveys found that up to 125 million EU-citizens are dealing with circumstances of EP already, and that numbers are increasing (International Energy Agency and EU Energy Poverty Advisory Hub, 2021). Proven effective measures to alleviate EP are only applicable in local conditions, are difficult to transfer and are unable to reach a growing number of marginalized target groups. Particularly hard-to-reach vulnerable households require tailor-made approaches, as EP is often only one of the multi-social problems they are dealing with. Therefore, the problems of these households should be addressed integrally.  The EU Interreg project SCEPA (Scaling up the Energy Poverty Approach) aims to contribute to a just and inclusive energy transition by better engaging more vulnerable households, reducing and alleviating EP. Within this project we conducted a literature study review, consisting of a literature search and expert interviews, to identify interventions to mitigate EP that are practiced within the European context. Instead of reinventing the wheel, in collaboration with a consortium of partners consisting of local and regional governments, their local networks and social impact organizations, we gather, integrate and enhance existing effective EP approaches to develop a Joint Action Strategy by sharing best practices and contextualizing intervention methods and procedures.The presentation will focus on the overarching conceptual model to mitigate EP, how this unfolds to a practical strategic model and suggests the selection of suitable interventions to mitigate EP in a more integral way. Furthermore, we will discuss the role of social workers and their organizations to foster a social perspective in the current emphasis on technological, financial and governance interventions.  

Keywords (separate with commas)

Energy Poverty, Vulnerable Households, Integral Approach, Collaborative Learning and Sharing, Social Work 

Summary

Monmouth University launched its Doctorate of Social Work (DSW) Program in 2022. This cutting-edge DSW Program at Monmouth University focuses on the area of human rights leadership. This is an advanced practice social work degree program focusing on a professional area of practice. Social work as a profession is experiencing tremendous growth, even now during a global post pandemic. The US Department of Labor predicts a 13% growth in the profession between 2016 and 2026. The three areas in social work that will see the largest growth is health care, child welfare, and mental health.\ Educating and preparing students to realize their potential as leaders and to become engaged citizens in a diverse and increasingly interdependent world is a core component of Monmouth University's mission. This program envisions to offer practicing social workers a program where they can distinguish themselves in the profession as leaders by championing human rights and acting as agents of change across local, national, and global communities. There is a clear and pressing need for leadership development in the social work field. Students in the DSW program will be able to: develop expertise in an area of human rights leadership in social work that encompasses diversity, equity and inclusion; create and disseminate practice-relevant human rights leadership scholarship through multiple modalities and digital technologies; apply ethical decision making from a human rights and social justice perspective; use and critically evaluate scholarship in human rights evidence-based practices; and design, evaluate and implement effective human rights programs and policies. It also provides a very unique focus on human rights leadership that no other DSW program offers currently. This presentation will highlight how higher educational program could prepare graduates for professional social work practice that strives to secure Human Rights by advancing social, economic, and environmental justice for vulnerable populations.\ \ 

Keywords (separate with commas)

Summary

Hispanic adolescents are over involved in the juvenile justice system. In 2019, they had been 60% more involved in incarceration than white youth (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2019). The juvenile court of the United States is aware of the importance of the rehabilitation for delinquent youth (Grisso, 2013). Functional Family Therapy (FFT) is an evidence-based therapeutical technique and a combination of systemic and cognitive-behavioral theories that focus on both risk and protective factors to treat delinquency behaviors (Dehghani \& Bernards, 2022). The impact of the FFT on the Hispanic population has rarely been explored.\ \ A culturally appropriate intervention implemented to reduce adolescents’ maladaptive behaviors, empower them and their families to manage their emotions and behaviors and release the adolescents from the juvenile justice system.Edinburg, Juvenile Court referred 15 Hispanic adolescents, and their parents/guardians (P/G). Six adolescents and 12 P/G completed 10 sessions intervention. The adolescents completed a pre and post-test of The Sorensen Self-Esteem test and Grasmick Self-Control Scale. The P/G also completed the pre and post-test of the Interpersonal Relationship Family Questionnaire.The result indicated that all adolescents’ self-esteem increased. \ The result of the One-tailed Wilcoxon signed-rank Test (OWT) showed no statistically significant changes in adolescents’ Self-control. The result of the OWT showed no statistically significant changes in the interpersonal relationship of the P/G. However, a follow-up interview with P/G three months after the intervention revealed that their interpersonal relationship improved. Four P/G reported that their adolescents returned to the system, two of which did not attend the training sessions.\ The results indicated that FFT intervention had positive impact on the family system of the delinquent Hispanic adolescents, improved the family interpersonal relationship and reduced the rate of recidivism\ in the juvenile justice system in the city of Edinburg and could have preventive outcomes.\ 

Keywords (separate with commas)

Delinquent Hispanic adolescents, Functional Family Therapy (FFT), Family interpersonal relationship

Summary

The University of Cincinnati School of Allied Health Sciences leads semiannual cross-cultural learning programs for Social Work and Health Science students in Costa Rica. \\\  The University began working with community partner Viva Nicaragua Abroad twelve years ago in Nicaragua and now sustains this partnership through study abroad programs that support the Nicaraguan asylum-seeking and refugee community in Costa Rica. This long-standing partnership is a model for ethical and sustainable study abroad programs that benefit both students and community partners. \  The University collaborates with Viva Nicaragua to facilitate needs-based activities that support the efforts of Nicaraguan asylum seekers and refugees to integrate into Costa Rica. \  This unique program brings together Nicaraguan immigrants and refugees, \ Costa Ricans, and international students to engage in cross-cultural activities that promote cultures of peace, tolerance, and acceptance. \  \ This tripartite global approach provides multiple benefits for Social Work and Health Science students and community members. Students and community partners collaborate on workshops that focus on topics including nonviolent conflict resolution, trauma-informed care, self-care, gender equity, health disparities, diversity, and inclusion. \  \ All participants engage in rich discussions about global topics including human displacement and social justice. \  \ Students work alongside community members to facilitate activities that promote cultural competence, inclusion, and tolerance and provide tangible products that support the needs of the Costa Rican and Nicaraguan communities.\\\ \  Students gain a greater understanding of global topics and facilitate activities that support integration efforts with Costa Rican and Nicaraguan immigrant communities. \ Similar efforts can be reproduced locally and internationally to incorporate global perspectives in social work and promote dialogue and action about social inequities, tolerance, and inclusion.

Keywords (separate with commas)

social work, cross-cultural learning, cross-cultural collaboration, experiential learning, interdisciplinary programs, immigrants, asylum seekers, refugees, tolerance, inclusion, social integration, diversity, cultural competence, human rights, global social work, human displacement, ethical study abroad, sustainable study abroad, Costa Rica, Nicaragua.\\ 

Summary

Symposium overviewIn the backdrop of on-going political conflicts across the globe, it is important for social workers to explore and find ways to support individuals, families and communities who are affected by such extreme experiences. While there is a growing body of social work knowledge on complex emergencies such as natural disasters, less is known about the professional role in relation to different political conflicts. Furthermore, local activists, practitioners and scholars – particularly from countries which are labelled as developing - rarely have a chance to generate knowledge and shape social work interventions in such contexts. This is, in part, due to the perceived priority of aid and development interventions, funded and implemented by international efforts, with knowledge developed in other contexts.\ This Symposium aims to open the space for IFSW engagement in this field, by offering examples from three different contexts – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Burkina Faso, and Cyprus. The Symposium will also be an announcement for the forthcoming IFSW book titled ‘Local Perspectives on Social Services and Social Work in the Context of War and Conflict – an International Rader’, which will be available as a free download via the IFSW website in mid 2024.\ Presentation 1: Towards a Social Work for Critical Peace: Insights from the Case Study of Cyprus (Ioakimidis)Presentation 2: Eurocentric standards, anti-colonial discourse, social work and political conflict – a case study of Burkina Faso (Ouedraogo)Presentation 3: Madness after the war – lessons from Bosnia and Herzegovina on supporting people who experience distress after political conflict (Maglajlic)\ \ 

Keywords (separate with commas)

Social work, political conflict, peace building, adult services, mental health

Summary

Relationships between representatives of minorities and the police in democracies have been tainted by many events of un-just treatment, excessive and discriminative violence. In order, at least in principle, to overcome these problems, independent police complaint bodies (IPCBs) started to emerge in democratic settings by the end of the 1990’s as a necessary balance mechanism for the betterment of relationships between the police and the citizen in general, and representatives of minorities in particular. It seems then, logically, that the more these mechanisms are known to the public, the easier it is to get access to complaint procedures, the more efficient they are and the higher democratic control over coercion mechanisms such as the police are. But opinions of police representatives are somewhat deceiving in this regard: while no one ever really criticize the mere existence of IPCBs, they present on the other hand, too powerful outside police control mechanisms as potential infringements of police duties and mission efficiency. While it is highly debatable that this is really the case, there will always be two other important variables in this equation: first, to which extent does the public really know the existence of IPBCs, and, second, to which extent do they really trust these mechanisms when time comes to file a formal complaint against a police officer or a police organization? Our presentation will be devoted to results emanating from public surveys conducted in Canada, France, Germany and the U.K. After a short methodology section, we will present the main elements coming out of the results one country at a time, to get after that to those of these elements that might be compared within these three national contexts.\ 

Keywords (separate with commas)

police control - democracies - radicalized minorities - independent complaint mechanisms - public surveys

Summary

This presentation will describe course assignments within three graduate level macro social work courses, Community and Global Theory and Practice, Social Work Practice with Organizations, Communities and Societies, and Executive Leadership Practice and this author’s delivery of the courses through unique assignments aimed at helping students embrace community-based social work approaches to addressing global social work issues, social development approaches, human rights concepts and application and learning that advances inclusive practices. The assignments and overall course delivery are consistent with the themes of the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development Framework for 2020-2030.\ The MSW Program in Fort Wayne is situated in the midwestern part of the United States, in a politically conservative medium sized urban area that draws MSW students from the city as well as from its surrounding rural counties with varying degrees of diverse people groups. The majority of the MSW students attending this program have had limited international travel experiences and the geographic location of the program combined with the politically conservative mood of the state and the region, have influenced students’ awareness of and investment in global social issues impacting communities as well as exposure to diverse people groups. Though innovative course delivery and unique assignments, these three courses encourage students toward global mindedness, embracing diversity and culture, recognizing the value of community based social development approaches, enhanced understandings of international human rights instruments and their application, the need for global citizenship, and active use of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Workshop attendees will be provided with assignment details that can be tangibly replicated or modified for future use in social work education at undergraduate and graduate levels and adapted to individual country settings. The impact of the assignments on student learning will be shared with workshop attendees.

Keywords (separate with commas)

social work education; human rights; social development; global mindedness.

Summary

This research seeks to understand the democratic crisis from a reflection on the capitalist system and the repercussion of this conception in the professional performance of social workers. The capitalist system causes obstacles to the practice of full citizenship; thus, the expressions of the social question condition and reduce political participation. Therefore, the objective is to study the current democratic crisis as a political expression of the class structure and to identify the reflexes in the professional practice. Thus, in line with the study, it is necessary to understand Democracy, interpreting it as something alien to capitalism, which does not correspond to the conditions of political life created in this system, reflecting on the cultural composition of a "false democracy". In addition, in recent years, with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world and the advancement of neoconservadorism in Brazil, driven by the Bolsonaro government’s necropolitical project (2019-2022), the fragility of the democratic process becomes more evident, as well as precariousness, depoliticization and lack of criticality in the various fields of work of social workers. Having said that, it is fundamental to develop an investigation on the indicators that show the situation of the social workers' labor activity, contextualized in this framework of correlation of antagonistic forces, thus recognizing a culture of democracy fostered by liberalism as a structural impasse in the operationalization of the ethical-political project, aiming at overcoming the condition of the profession as an active part in maintaining the status quo.

Keywords (separate with commas)

Democracy, Capitalism, Citizenship, crisis, ethical-political project, social workers.

Summary

Social work spaces have maintained a steady commitment to conformity that uphold the hegemony of dominant practices of coloniality and white supremacy. These spaces serve to facilitate the normalization of colonial, racist, ableist and other oppressive discourses and practices that continue to construct the “Other” and facilitate their othering process under the gaze of help and care. Facilitated by the rhetoric of social justice and challenging oppression, social work spaces play a significant role in the operation of conformity to white supremacy and coloniality in ways that erase and silence voices of meaningful resistance. Neoliberal policies and practices have intensified the hegemonic role of social work and implicated the profession in the creation and maintaining process of conformity and intensified assimilation to whiteness while normalizing the erasure of the “Other” and their experiences. In this presentation, we outline hegemony in social work spaces that play out through extreme exoticization of the “Other” or through delegitimization of their calls for justice and inclusion that are preformed through “equity, diversity and inclusion” rhetoric. Utilizing coloniality and postcolonial thinking, we call out the weaponizing of competency discourses that manifest in upholding whiteness and white standards and trouble social work spaces as spaces of coloniality and white supremacy. \ We interrogate social work education, practice and research as professional spaces that \ perpetuate coloniality and conformity to white supremacy and highlight their role in silencing resistance and erasing calls for justice. We also demonstrate the gap between social justice-oriented theories knowledge bases and question how they are translated into performative practice in social work spaces. We end the presentation by calling on the profession to redeem itself and claim its role as a profession that has the potential to create spaces of justices and maintain social transformation.\ 

Keywords (separate with commas)

White Supremacy, Coloniality, Social Work spaces, Resistances, Decoloniziation\