Summary

The overrepresentation of Indigenous children and families in the child welfare system in Canada is alarming and there is an urgent need for more just and culturally appropriate responses. Although there is evidence that systemic racism and poverty are connected to child maltreatment, these broader issues have gone unaddressed. Despite social work being a predominate profession in child protection, there is a significant gap in the research on how social work education programs are preparing social workers to make a difference in this field of practice. The purpose of this research is to help understand social work education as a platform for critical transformation in child welfare practice. Twenty-eight in depth, semi structured interviews were conducted with three main groups: front line child welfare workers who have social work degrees, social work educators teaching courses related to child welfare, and key informants in leadership and administrative roles related to child welfare delivery systems. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using constructivist grounded theory.Results: Data analysis revealed the complexity of child protection work and the need for social work education to reflect this reality. Findings suggest that preparing students for day-to-day practice as well as social change is necessary. Participants described transformative experiences in the classroom through experiential learning, peer learning, self-awareness, and critical thinking. Participants highlighted that learning multiple perspectives, having realistic portrayals of the field, learning in safe spaces, having a commitment to life-long learning, and understanding personal wellness are elements that facilitate transformative learning.Conclusions/Implications: Child protection services present unique challenges for social workers between helping and controlling. Barriers continue to exist between anti-oppressive frameworks and practice. The findings provide a framework for social work education to deliver transformative learning experiences that help students deconstruct oppressive perspectives and paradigms and learn alternative culturally responsive approaches to child welfare. 

Keywords (separate with commas)

Social work education, child welfare, transformative learning, Indigenous child welfare

Summary

Displaced populations have received increasing attention, yet the experiences of return migrants remain largely hidden within social sciences. Existing research suggests that policies which impact return migrants, especially those forced to return to their home countries, do not reflect their voices. Specifically, the UNHCR has adopted repatriation as a preferred policy solution, despite research which substantiates that returning to one’s home country is neither durable, nor the end of the migration cycle; as many of 80% of returnees decide to remigrate. This one-size-fits-all approach to forced displacement is a colonial practice as it does not recognize the impact of intersecting identity categories on return migration. To address this, this qualitative study examined the repatriation experiences of return migrant women from Kosovo and the role of social workers in facilitating return. In 2015, Kosovars constituted the fourth largest group of asylum seekers in the European Union, yet 96% of them were rejected. Considering that return migration trends are impacted by global power dynamics, this study relied on a postcolonial theories. Postcolonial theories suggest that power is partly operationalized through language, thus Critical Discourse Analysis was used as a research methodology. CDA is concerned with examining how power, language, and discourses shape social processes and relationships of dominance. Data collection included interviews with 15 return migrant women and 18 service providers in Kosovo. The main findings illustrate that returnee women and service providers rely on colonial discourses which construct Kosovo as inferior to EU countries and highlight the impact of patriarchy and ethnic racism on return migration. A postcolonial analysis demonstrates that despite Kosovars’ challenges with repatriation, EU countries use their power to impose repatriation as a preferred solution for Kosovo’s government. These findings provide important implications for how return migration might be carried out, not only in Kosovo, but worldwide.\ 

Keywords (separate with commas)

Repatriation; Return migration; Postcolonialism; Social Work; Kosovo

Summary

The population of people aged 55 and older is growing significantly in Canada. The aging population of Canada is also becoming more ethnically diverse, with South Asians making up the largest visible minority group in both the 2006 and 2016 census. Also, South Asian females represent the largest visible minority and comprise 5.4% of the Canadian female population and many of them are grandmothers who provide informal support for older adult children. However, the experiences of these grandmothers are missing in extant literature. Hence this paper will be adopting an innovative arts-based method - dohari narrative to explore and present the experiences of Nepalese grandmothers providing informal family support to adult children in the City of Hamilton, Ontario. The research found that the grandmothers feel obliged to take care of the entire family because of how busy their children are, and this might be a source of stress for them. This calls for a rethink for older care providers and provision of culturally sensitive interventions by social workers.

Keywords (separate with commas)

aging population, South Asian grandmothers, informal family support, dohari narrative, culturally sensitive interventions

Summary

The Prairie Child Welfare Consortium (PCWC) is a partnership between academic institutions, government representatives, and community agencies across three neighboring Canadian provinces: Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. The PCWC is committed to supporting families who encounter the child welfare system. The provinces share a similar colonial history of child welfare and face unique challenges as well as opportunities for promoting child and family wellness. Social workers have always played a role in developing and delivering child welfare services and there is a responsibility to help shape the future of child welfare to be culturally responsive and anti-oppressive.\ The Consortium provides a model for provinces/states and groups interested in collaborating to solve complex challenges by sharing ideas, resources, and engaging in research by creating a multi-sector and cross-cultural child welfare network.\ The PCWC has held ten biennial symposia bringing together various child welfare participants to discuss research findings, purpose solutions, and collaborate across jurisdictional and professional boundaries on child welfare issues. Part of the symposia structure is to include pre-conference training workshops and pre-conference meetings of Indigenous scholars and allies, focused on education and research pertinent to Indigenous child welfare. An important outcome of PCWC symposia has been the publication of eight books. This series: Voices from the Prairies has become an important resource for child welfare across Canada.\ The presenters will describe the Consortiums unique structure and collaborative model as well as the impact and outcomes that have been a result. Future initiatives by the PCWC to strengthen its capacity moving forward to create research partnerships, deliver education, and support policy and practice development will also be discussed.\ 

Keywords (separate with commas)

Social work education, Child welfare, Collaboration