Summary

U.S. President Lyndon Johnson declared a War on Poverty by signing the Economic Opportunity Act into law on 20 August 1964. Syracuse University Social Work professor Dr. Warren Haggstrom moved quickly and secured the very first Research, Training, and Demonstration Grant in the amount of US$314,329 from the fledgling Office of Economic Opportunity. The funds were used funds were used to form the Community Action Training Center, a “first-of-its-kind program to produce professional community development workers,” under the direction of Dr. Haggstrom. This presentation will focus on an essential component of the CATC curriculum – the Legal Seminar designed and taught by noted Syracuse civil rights and civil liberties attorney Faith Seidenberg – drawing lessons from the author’s findings in the archives of Syracuse University, Seidenberg’s personal documents, and interviews with living former participants of this innovative early effort to educate and train professional community organizers. This presentation will focus on the Legal Seminar, designed and taught in the mid-1960s as an essential component of the curriculum at the groundbreaking Community Action Training Center by noted Syracuse civil rights and civil liberties attorney Faith Seidenberg – drawing lessons from the author’s findings in the archives of Syracuse University, Seidenberg’s personal documents, and interviews with living former participants of this innovative early effort to educate and train professional community organizers. This historical case study is intended to provide context and insights from past practice that are useful in the training and education of contemporary community organizers.

Keywords (separate with commas)

Community organizing, Education and training, History of social work

Summary

Social workers often hold themselves to a high stand of being able to rise above personal values, beliefs and biases when engaging in our work, but how valid is this standard we hold ourselves to?  This presentation will explore the impact of understanding our ethical responsibility to the communities and clients we serve and how using an innovation framework can support us to put clients needs at the forefront.  Confronting our personal privilege and morals at the door when we enter our work, this presentation will demonstrate how Sagesse, as an agency at the edge of innovation shone a light on our blind spots as service providers when designing, delivery and evaluating programs and care. Through this content and our personal reflection this presentation will create a safe place for people to understand the privilege and morals they bring into spaces with them, what the benefits and downfalls of these both are, and how to move forward from a place of awareness and recognition of impact.  Participants will leave this workshop with increased understanding of the ethical implications of making decisions without understanding of our personal biases and the role of innovation to support our movement forward and away from personal restrictions.  Leading with our innovation framework, participants will have the opportunity to understand the components of innovation that are engaged within our agency and community work and the impact that has on our ethical responsibility to work towards ending the social issues we are so deeply entrenched in. 

Keywords (separate with commas)

ethics, social development, innovation, adaption, moving fast, minimum viable product, industrial complex, 

Summary

Supervision plays a significant role in social work practice because the profession depends largely upon the organisation’s administrative structure, which includes supervisors to continue training new social workers and provide ongoing professional guidance. Despite the predominance of supervision within the profession, and the weight placed upon its function by policymakers, practitioners, and managers alike, it remains an under-researched area of enquiry when it comes to evidence-informed supervision policies. In South Africa, the Supervision Framework for the Social Work Profession seeks to contextualise, and provide norms and standards that guide the execution of supervision in the country. However, since its inception in 2012, no study has been conducted on how the Supervision Framework is implemented in various organisations. Hence, the aim of this paper is to report on the stories of social workers in a designated child protection organisation regarding the implementation of the Supervision Framework. An exploratory case study design was adopted. Using semi-structured interviews, data were collected from 28 social workers employed in a designated child protection organisation. Data were analysed through thematic content analysis. The findings revealed that the child protection organisation may be regarded as a best practice example of the implementation of the Supervision Framework based on the linear stories of social workers. The study found that, although the organisation under study has thrived in developing a supervision policy and implementing the policy in line with the Supervision Framework, there remains challenges related to the dominance of the administrative function of supervision within the organisation and, in some instances, lack of emotional support. Hence, the study advocates for clinical supervision which should not be combined with other middle management organisational tasks to reduce the administrative load of supervisors which has been the primarily hindrance to structured supervision in child protection organisations in South Africa and abroad.

Keywords (separate with commas)

Social Work Supervision, Supervision Framework, Child Protection Organisation, South Africa,

Summary

Over the last few years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has developed rapidly (Karakose, 2023). Within AI development, innovative technologies like Open AI's ChatGPT are one of the most recent examples of this development. ChatGPT uses natural language processing techniques to respond to user-generated prompts and generate content that is increasingly hard to distinguish as having been written by a computer. In other words, you may ask ChatGPT, a chatbot, a question, or provide a prompt, and it replies with the answer.Since ChatGPT is 'here to stay' and is gradually becoming an integral tool in our personal and professional lives, developing guidelines for how social work students ethically use it is crucial. This mixed-method study explored the perceptions of social work educators about chatGPT. The main results from this study suggest the following:Social work instructors need and want consistent college/university guidelines related to students' use of ChatGPT, which include a consistent statement on the classes syllabus and appropriate language to have conversations with students;Since ChatGPT is not plagiarism, participants suggest adding plagiarism guidelines to account for the unethical use of ChatGPT;Find a new balance: regulate the use of ChatGPT by reshaping social work assignments to be more reflective and individualized.Finally, participants made some connections between the impact of Covid-19 on social work education and the use of ChatGPT. We conclude with an invitation to foster a discussion about how to integrate ChatGPT into social work pedagogy in a positive and empowering way.\\ 

Keywords (separate with commas)

Social Work pedagogy, ChatGPT, Social Work Education

Summary

Ethical responsibility for professional social workers to engage in self-care has been enshrined in social work codes of ethics. Ongoing maintenance of self-care is considered the responsibility of individual social workers, with little consideration of how workplaces support or inhibit the practice of self-care.\ Radical self-care includes the consideration of the dynamics of power, privilege, and oppression.\ We explore how the climate and culture of the university workplace has been altered by the pandemic response in ways that are traumatizing to faculty and staff across the university. We critically reflect on the challenges of our current working conditions that thwart the ethical practice of self-care to mitigate the effects of trauma. We reconsider professional values and ethical responsibilities as social work educators in the context of the expanded corporatization of the university. In the post-pandemic era, unprecedented budget cuts, merging and restructuring of departments, reductions in the workforce, elimination of positions and programs, increases in workloads, and erosion of institutional support for faculty have become the norm. Taken together, more attention is needed within social work education to support faculty in neoliberal workplace environments that may not be trauma informed, culturally responsive, or supportive of individuals and communities of self-care. We contend that when market-based "ethics" are privileged over professional ethics, the capacity for caring is undermined. Tension exists between the individual self-care imperative and the ethical duty to challenge discrimination and institutional oppression. We offer a framework for social work departments seeking to become more trauma informed and culturally responsive, and recommendations for promoting an organizational culture of self and collective care.

Keywords (separate with commas)

pandemic, trauma-informed, culturally responsive, ethics, social work education, self-care\ 

Summary

\  \  \ Since its inception, social work has operated from a premise of hope. All our practice, advocacy and interventions are founded on the belief or hope that our efforts, will, and can make a difference. Hope is the social workers common language that unites us despite our various backgrounds. It fuels our social justice movements and provides the required stamina to achieve victory in social policy changes across the globe. Yet, the power of hope seems to be consistently applied in all areas except for in the practice of collegiality.\ \  \  This workshop applies the commonality of hope to the one population that is often overlooked from our curriculum, conversations, and conferences; ourselves. It addresses the theme of ethics in social work and social development as it pertains to how we should also benefit from our own ethics and values. As racism has been formally acknowledged in many areas of social work and we have taken on the hard task of “righting” those wrongs against vulnerable populations, it is now time to address it amongst ourselves. This workshop will address how when speaking the common language of hope, we can address our curriculum and policy to ensure that future social workers are well equipped to support each other and hope again.

Keywords (separate with commas)

Social work, Primordial Prevention, Curriculum, Racism, Common Language, Collegiality, Hope

Summary

The social work profession with the United States (US) has seen laudable efforts to increase voter engagement (Abramovitz, et. al., 2019), including with university students (Hill, et. al., 2019; Hylton, et. al., 2018; Lane, et. al., 2019). This push reflects a commitment to promote political power through voter engagement (Lane, et. al., 2007). Civic knowledge has been shown to promote voter engagement (CIRCLE, 2013).  Knowledge of the processes and policies that govern elections and voting in an important component of civic knowledge. This specific form of civic knowledge, which will be referred to as electoral knowledge, emphasizes the participatory ideals imperative to democracy, including the role of voting in a democracy, the exercise of political power, and the realization of social justice.  While efforts to engage students in voting have increased, little is known regarding what these students understand about elections and voting. This study sought to explore the electoral knowledge of university students as well as how this knowledge influences voter engagement among these students.  The study employed a cross-sectional survey design with students enrolled in a public university in the eastern US. Students were asked to complete a 32-item online survey measuring their knowledge of elections and voting rights, as well as their engagement in voting and perceptions of electoral integrity. Two hundred and sixty-three students completed the survey.   Students evidenced moderate understanding of elections and voting rights. While they were likely to understand basic election facts, they were far less likely to understand the rights of specific vulnerable populations or where voter registration can legally happen. This finding supports increased coverage of voting rights and laws governing nonpartisan voter engagement. Furthermore, students in this study were concerned about threats to elections. Educators should explore these threats directly, with specific attention to how voter suppression  impacts vulnerable populations.

Keywords (separate with commas)

Electoral Knowledge, Voter Engagement, Voting Rights, Elections, Voter Suppression, Voting

Summary

In 2016 Colombia adopted the Final Peace Agreement between the government and the armed group FARC to end the world’s longest civil war.  Although there is an emerging consensus that women have played different roles in the armed conflict, peace agreement, reparation, and reconciliation as victims and actors/agents, this has not been systematically explored.  This paper uses Feminist Popular Education (FPE) principles and approaches to examine this proposition.  It explores how women NGOs, movements and advocacy groups have used FPE to engage women in critical reflection of their memories, roles, resistance, and activism to challenge masculinities and transform gender inequalities around armed conflict, peace, and transitional justice.  An environmental scan of tertiary data from seven women’s organizations during the last 30 years was used to analyze gender inequality and women’s transformation.  We further built a timeline using the seven principles of FPE to systematize the data on gender educational inequalities and women’s involvement around four critical times of the armed conflict.  These included the pre-constitutional reform (1991), women and transitional justice (2011), peace agreement (2016), and nowadays reparation and reconciliation.  The timeline captured how FPE became an educational, political tool to create a space and a mechanism to articulate women’s concerns and demands to grow into active agents and get their transformation.  The paper ends with a critical elaboration on women’s empowerment in different states of the armed conflict and how FPE could promote women’s agency to mitigate the political, social, and historical context of gender inequality. 

Keywords (separate with commas)

Armed conflict, Peace, Women's Activism, Feminist Popular Education, Women's Agency, Environmental Scan, Systematized Experiences.

Summary

Menstrual health has been described as integral to achieving global health, gender equity and the Sustainable \ Development\ Goals (SDGs), with increasing recognition of menstruation as a critical element in achieving social justice outcomes. Social work is a profession concerned with social justice, human rights, and gender equity, but the extent to which the profession has engaged with menstruation as a human rights issue remains unclear.\ This research\ systematically analysed published literature to examine social work engagement with the topic of menstruation and associated issues related to social justice and human rights, including issues around equity and stigma, hygiene, and access to sanitary products. A systematic and comprehensive literature search was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA-ScR guidelines for scoping literature reviews.\ This\ presentation explores findings of this review, which demonstrate that menstrual experience - despite being characterised by injustice - is an under-represented issue in social work discourse. These findings indicate a need for the profession to address this gap through holistic, transformative practice to achieve menstrual justice through the elimination of the stigma of menstruation, the prevention of discrimination, and the enhancement of gender equity. This research highlights opportunities for the profession to\ consider potential contributions social work could make to not only advance the SDGs but realise professional goals related to social justice, gender equity, and human rights.\ \ 

Keywords (separate with commas)

Menstruation, advocacy, gender equity, social justice, human rights

Summary

Women often relate to criminal justice systems as victims of crime. Trends indicate that a growing number are featured as suspects, accused and prisoners. The percentage of women in prison is growing globally and at a faster rate than the male prison population. While the global prison population grew by approximately 21 percent from 2000 to 2016, that of imprisoned women and girls grew by 53 percent during the same period (Walmsley, 2017). A dramatic increase in the number of women and girls in prison worldwide raises questions about criminal codes, the functioning of criminal justice systems, and socio-economic factors affecting crime rates.Locally, the common offenses for which they were imprisoned are drug-related cases, illegal recruitment, theft, robbery, and violation of Special Protection of Children Against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act. Women are likewise detained in Police Stations for drugs, theft, quarantine violations, gambling, homicide, and violation of Law on Reporting of Communicable Diseases. Cases were settled in the villages involving minor offenses.Women in conflict with the law have been suffering from gendered pathways primarily due to discriminatory laws and violence against women they were subjected to early years of their lives.Inadequate supply of hygiene kits, irregular psychosocial services, underutilized non-custodial measures, and lack of coordinated response on reintegration remain unattended.\ Hygiene kits provision, feminist counseling, and policy advocacy on non-custodial measures and follow through on the implementing guidelines of the Women In Detention provision of the Women Development Code of Davao City through legislative and executive actions are critical elements the social workers pursue in order to demonstrate amplification of the UN Bangkok Rules on Women Deprived of Liberty and those in conflict with the law. Inclusive social policy and legislation at the local level are explored.

Keywords (separate with commas)

women human rights, policy advocacy, social activism

Summary

The idea of irregular migration reflects a human imperative to move in search of better conditions but also state efforts to exercise sovereignty through border controls and delimitation of access to social rights. In this paper, I bring together the results of several empirical projects in Quebec, Canada, that document the ways in which the socio-political context puts irregular migrants' social determinants of health (health insurance, housing, labour rights) at risk. Using the concepts of Deportability and Bordering, I analyze the ways that migrant organizations and social work allies challenge these problematic conditions. In the first project, we explore access to healthcare for undocumented migrants. Second, the labour conditions of asylum seekers. Third, the housing conditions of migrant workers. In all three cases, it is clear that the state exclusion of these migrants from social rights serves to keep these migrants in a subordinate socio-political and economic position, and puts their health and wellbeing at risk. However, there are also examples of migrant resistance to these conditions, which will be analyzed for their feasibility in different contexts. Finally, we will discuss how social workers and researchers can be effective allies to these efforts and consider the transnational implications of the situation in Canada with that in both countries of origin and countries of destination. 

Keywords (separate with commas)

international migration; undocumented; asylum seekers; migrant workers; health; housing; labour; collective action; social work; action research

Summary

There are 89,445 people from the Filipino diaspora in Western Sydney, Australia (Australia Bureau of Statistics, 2016). Acculturative stress and depression is prevalent among the Filipino community across generations despite their long stay in Australia. The author highlights the importance of fostering social support and discusses the Filipino term of ‘Bayanihan’ meaning ‘spirit in community’ and the development of new community-led initiative Bayanihan, a grassroots community group that was developed in 2022 to address these issues.

Keywords (separate with commas)

filipino diaspora, Western Sydney, Australia, Sydney, Community, Filipino community, filipinx, grassroots community development

Summary

Research indicates that individuals who can imagine their aging futures are better prepared for the aging process. However, stories of aging and later life often go untold, limiting public understanding of this rich and complex phase of life and limiting our ability to age well. Similarly, there are often only limited or homogenous aging scripts available to us to provide inspiration and insight into our own aging process. The Untold Stories of Aging project was developed to spread awareness of the diverse possibilities of aging futures, foster public conversation around aging and later life, and reduce internalized and external ageism through education and awareness. This presentation will share the process and products associated with the Untold Stories of Aging Project, an art- and media-based community action project intended to share the experiences of older adults and the professionals who serve them through conversation, collaboration, art, and advocacy. In 2022, we developed an art exhibition including the work of over 30 artists on aging-related themes, such as life trajectories, intergenerational trauma and healing, dementia, etc. Pieces span many mediums including sculpture, drawing, painting, poetry, music, textiles, mixed-media and more. These pieces were presented to the community in a live exhibition and continue to be hosted through a growing digital archive. In 2023, we filmed interviews with professionals working in aging services to share their stories from the field and promote aging-related practice. Through these joint art- and media-based projects, we aim to cultivate a space for older adults to share their stories, including aspects of their experience which are not typically discussed in legible spaces or terms so that we all might be better informed, prepared, and inspired for our own aging futures.\ 

Keywords (separate with commas)

creative aging, aging-related advocacy, gerontological education, community action

Summary

This study delves into how social workers in India engage in policy practices aimed at enhancing the well-being of their clients and communities. Policy practice stands as a crucial skill for social workers, enabling them to champion social and economic justice for marginalized and oppressed populations. The Council for Social Work Education has recognized policy practice as a fundamental competency within the profession. Armed with a distinctive perspective and expertise concerning the daily struggles and needs of individuals, social workers possess the capacity to shape and influence social policies that effectively address these issues.The study's data was collected between May 2022 and August 2022 in India, utilizing key informant interviews and observational methods. Participants encompassed 12 social workers, including educators, practitioners with professional degrees such as Bachelor's and/or Master's, employed by non-profit organizations offering vital social services.Findings from the study highlight diverse strategies employed by social workers to amplify the capacity and empowerment of both their clients and the broader community. These strategies encompass leadership training, fostering awareness of oppressive structures, and establishing networks. However, the recent reduction in funding for network and organization building has adversely impacted grassroots movements in India. This underscores the critical importance of reinforcing local organizations through support and empowerment.The study further uncovers a pertinent need for improvement in the policy practice skills of social work educators. While they may adeptly impart the theoretical facets of policy practice, the absence of direct involvement in policy advocacy work hinders their ability to provide practical and experiential learning to students. Consequently, a recommendation surfaces, suggesting that educators in the field of social work should actively engage in policy practice, thereby infusing the classroom with valuable real-world experiences.

Keywords (separate with commas)

Policy advocacy, social work education, Policy practice, non profit organization