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Historically, social work education in African universities was heavily influenced by a European worldview. By creating and implementing Euro-centric curriculum, the important role of African values, social systems, and ways of knowing, developed thousands of years before the colonial period, were dismissed and replaced by western theories and practice. The United Nations, in supporting colonial countries to become independent, encouraged the exportation of western social work education to African countries to address social issues arising from independence. African social work conferences emerged in the 1950’s and 1960’s including in Ghana (1962), Zambia (1963) and Egypt (1965). These conferences produced a critical thinking venue to address what African social work educators were realizing: that western social work education was ineffective in training African social workers to work locally within their communities. As a result, the Association for Social Work Education in Africa (ASWEA) was formed to act as a forum where social work educators would critically discuss the relevance of western social work to Africa and to strengthen the indigenization process of creating a social work curriculum for Africa. Conferences, workshops, and directories of social work education around the continent were produced from 1973-1989. In 2020, a distinguished group of African social work educators agreed to meet and conduct a critical analysis of these 3,500 pages of important historical African social work documents. Since 2020, the group has met monthly to present analysis of these documents. The significance of this research for Africa is that a historical record will be produced of the evolution of social work in Africa, from 1973-1989 that can be taught in social work classrooms, supporting the decolonial process of social work education in Africa (postcolonial, decolonial). The presentation will present a PowerPoint of this process of critical analysis with some preliminary findings.

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social work education, Africa, decoloniality, ASWEA, history

Resumen

Indigenous peoples are among the most marginalized people in the world. In recognition of this human-rights problem, the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in 2007. Since then, a proliferation of advocacy concerning Indigenous peoples’ rights, including self-determination, sovereignty, decolonization, sustainable livelihood, and cultural revitalization, has arisen in the global, national, and local arenas. However, the global, national, and local disconnect often constitutes a deterrent to realizing Indigenous peoples’ rights. The social work profession in many parts of the world continues to fall short of its stated values and directly or indirectly contributes to ongoing oppression of Indigenous peoples. This must be changed. Social workers must have the knowledge and the tools needed to live up to the social justice foundation of our profession by advancing Indigenous peoples' rights whenever and wherever possible. Social work practitioners must move beyond short-term solutions to problems impacting Indigenous communities and instead focus on advancing Indigenous rights by supporting the implementation of UNDRIP at all levels. Social work leaders must actively work to decolonize colonial systems of social services that continue to oppress Indigenous peoples. Social work educators must integrate UNDRIP and Indigenous issues into the curriculum. This presentation will stimulate discussion among SWSD participants about (1) global, national, and local advocacy of Indigenous peoples’ rights, (2) implementation gaps of UNDRIP in Indigenous communities (3) past successes, current challenges, and future possibilities of drawing on glocal\\ connections for advancing Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and (4) the role of social work in helping to fill implementation gaps and to “translate” global and national advocacy into local actions. This presentation will report on a case study that captures the recommendations of the leaders of six social organizations staffed by Indigenous peoples in Cambodia on ways to advance Indigenous peoples’ rights.\\ 

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Indigenous peoples' rights, UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), global advocacy, social work education, Indigenous community development, Indigenous organizations, decolonizing social work, Cambodia

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How as social workers, do we come to know about El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and their diasporic communities? In the West there is a particular narrative about Central Americans where men are producers and women are victims of violence. This violence is explained as happening over “there” and produced by culture, including gender ideologies of machismo and marianismo. Culturizing gender-based violence roots Central America in colonial narratives of uncivilized, backward and not progressive in comparison to the West – the beacon of humanity and civilization. This narrative or taken-for-granted assumptions are rooted in a representation of culture unilaterally applied when working with and understanding women and their experience. What’s ignored is the stories of women who are redefining gender and their ongoing everyday resistance(s) to colonial assumptions. This presentation centres testimonios from a transnational social work research project to shift the social work gaze from the West to focus on Women’s on-going activism. Twenty-two women participated, connecting the personal and collective across time and space to theorize from the body to push for social change. Theorizing from the body positions Central American women as holders and producers of knowledge existing outside of the West. In engaging with this knowledge, social workers are encouraged to see beyond culture as a driver of gender-based violence and listen to the voices of women in and from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and their diasporas.

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Coloniality, gender-based violence, mobilization

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Rapid and increasingly climate change variations have been observed during the last decades. This phenomenon has been escalating the vulnerable populations risks, disparities and inequalities\ in different contexts and levels of reality. As climate change is a relatively new and complex research area in social work, the need for a systematic mapping study is crucial in order to summarise the progress so far and identify the gaps and requirements for future studies.\ This paper presents a systematic mapping study of social work and climate change global publications since 2015,\ and their linkages to the sustainable development goals. The results present the most cited works on the subject, an evaluation map showing the most frequent and cited words and seven clusters of themes based on their co-occurrence, with a major emphasis on underdeveloped territorial areas. From the preliminary analysis, the most relevant research findings, trends, and issues emerge, suggesting multilayered and complex\ theoretical and practical implications to have into account when developing an effective research road map on the subject.\ 

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social work, climate change, SDGs, systematic mapping study

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Oxford Brookes University has introduced an innovative buddying system for social work students with those at Hope Africa University, Burundi, which is in East Central Africa. The mutual aims of the system are for students from both institutions to learn about social work in another culture, develop their communication skills, and increase their experience of diversity and inclusion. Students meet virtually once a month in small groups to co-produce a resource for future social work trainees to understand cultural differences. The project evaluation is based on the Burundian principle ‘Ikibiri’ (working together) and the African principle ‘Ubuntu’ (I am because we are) (Mutsonziwa, 2020). This talk will share lessons learned from decolonising teaching and research, and equip and inspire others to do the same. 

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Decolonisation, Ubuntu, Ikibiri, buddying,

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The overrepresentation of First Nations youth in provincial child protection systems in Canada, including in Quebec, is well known. Research has revealed the harmful consequences of the undifferentiated application of child welfare systems to Indigenous children and families, including the loss of cultural identity. Even though Quebec’s Youth Protection Act (YPA) has been amended several times so that any intervention takes into consideration the preservation of children’s cultural identity, this legislation remains unsuited to Indigenous realities and continues to have discriminatory effects. In Quebec, the recognition of First Nations' cultural and family practices as well as the right of Indigenous peoples to self-determination have for a long time been the subject of significant controversy and resistance by the legislature.To counter systemic discrimination, federal legislation (An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families) was introduced in 2020, allowing Indigenous communities to implement their own child welfare law. It is in this context of legislative changes that the Atikamekw Nation of Opitciwan adopted their own law in 2022 and has initiated a research-action to document its implementation. After presenting the new principles of the law, we will see how the establishment of an Atikamekw governance fosters the development of original community approaches that ensure not only the safety and well-being of Atikamekw children, but also the preservation of their cultural identity and the decolonization of social practices. 

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Governance, child welfare services, Indigenous laws, social practices

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This abstracts details the work of an established international project exploring partnership working and collaboration across the United Kingdom and East Africa. Using the backdrop of decolonisation of the curriculum and embedding indigenous wisdom, this project undertook some learning on indigenous wisdom and how this can be applied to social work practice and the curriculum, with a move towards the internationalisation of the profession. This project focused on decolonising what international collaboration means and how this is practiced through responding to and addressing colonial influences to repair and rebalance partnerships. This included utilising key indigenous concepts and methods around mediation and community consultation. The learning from this project enables a start to build an evidence base for the position of indigenous knowledge and the value this brings to a global perspective for social work curricula and to increase global learning through a lens of social justice

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Decolonisation, indigenous, social work education, international collaboration

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This presentation shares a strategy of engaging positionality in teaching and learning as a way to broaden emancipatory approaches in social work education.  Given the current political climate of undercutting critical perspectives in education, it is crucial to continue to foster critical consciousness of ideas, beliefs, values, commitments, histories, and discourses that shape how we live, work, and relate to one another.  Cultivating reflexivity on positionality we not only demonstrate how power relations are constructed and lived every day, but also offer platforms for emancipatory approaches to education, where the dominant narratives are problematized, and alternative narratives amplified. The presentation will share examples from the classroom.

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Positionality, critical consciousness, emancipatory approaches

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In September 2022, a school in the northeast implemented Dr. Love’s Liberatory Consciousness Framework (LCF), which addresses antiracism and oppression.  Liberatory consciousness is an awareness of oppression and intentionality about changing systems of oppression (Love, 2010). The LCF consists of four elements –awareness, analysis, action, accountability/allyship.  Awareness requires that you recognize that we live in an oppressive society; analysis requires that you develop explanations about why oppression is happening; action requires you to take action to promote equity and justice; and accountability/allyship requires you to collaborate with others to address what is contributing to an oppressive society. The LCF is being used to guide curriculum development, students’ work in their field placements, and the work of staff within the school.The purpose of this panel discussion is to inform social work educators about the usefulness of the LCF for curriculum development and designing field placement activities. Examples of how the framework is being used in the curriculum and field settings will be discussed as well as lessons learned. Results will be presented from the initial evaluation of the implementation of the LCF. Resources for those who would like to use this framework in their schools will be made available. Participants will be given time to discuss how they can implement this framework and discuss any challenges they might anticipate in its implementation.Participants will learn about the elements of (awareness, analysis, action, and accountability/allyship) the liberatory consciousness framework.Participants will learn about the ways in which the liberatory consciousness framework was implemented in the curriculum and field settings and consider how they might want to implement it at their own schools.Participants will learn about the challenges encountered in implementing the liberatory consciousness framework.

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liberatory consciousness framework, antiracism, oppression, social action

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In Canada, the inequitable assaults of the COVID pandemic and intertwined traumas of anti-Black, anti-Asian, and anti-Indigenous racisms have mobilized social work schools and the social work profession to actions that are often grouped in a discourse of decolonizing social work. However, the term ‘decolonization’ has been employed imprecisely, often used metaphorically to describe actions towards social justice. True decolonization, in the context of social work, requires deliberate efforts to undo the cultural and social effects of colonization, namely, social work focused in eurocentrism, practices reinforcing cultural hierarchies, and the erasure of indigenous ways of being and healing. Using decolonization as a metaphor fails to serve the pressing need for social work to be more respectful of, and responsive to, the diverse communities it serves in the contemporary context. This paper will discuss the impact of (neo)colonization on social work, as it is imperative that we acknowledge and understand the specific ways in which colonization has shaped social work before we can effectively dismantle its detrimental impacts. This paper asserts an urgent need for social work to embrace a precise decolonization framework, thus empowering social workers to challenge the status quo and address the systemic issues that undermine our efforts to do social work for social justice. 

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Canada, decolonization, anti-racisms, indigenization, cultural diversity, social work practice

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The narratives used to convey mental health experiences and the meanings associated with them are manifold. The work of postcolonial scholars has shown how mental health practices can be mediated by the colonial gaze, both consciously and unconsciously, further shaping the understanding of mental health issues, if not the experience itself. Moreover, mental health concepts have long served to establish and maintain colonial interests (Fanon, 1952). As such, allegations of misdiagnosis are most prominent in the cross-cultural diagnosis of schizophrenia and psychotic experiences (Adeponle, 2010).\ Combining the preliminary results of a research on psychotic experiences among the Inuit of Nunavik, Québec, Canada, and the experiences of the author as social worker in indigenous context, this presentation explores the different narratives around mental health and psychotic phenomena in Nunavik. We propose to look at the different meanings that emerge and explores how mental health concepts are culturally constructed and how it impacts research and clinic and often, prevent the development of culturally pertinent services. The aim of this presentation are to develop a better understanding of how concepts of mental health and psychotic phenomena are understood in Nunavik and identify the challenges related to the practice of social work in a context of coloniality. We also wish to discuss the uncertainties and biases that researchers and practitioners may experience, when faced with different epistemologies and ontologies, \ and how to embrace these uncertainties. \ 

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Mental health; psychotic phenomenon; Inuit; Indigenous; coloniality

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One of the barriers to decolonisation work in social work in Africa and around the world has been the dismissal of colonisation as a thing of the past that ended with the colonial era. There continues to be a denial of ongoing colonisation and neocolonialism hence erasing the responsibility to fix them in social work. in this presentation, the present-day manifestations of colonialism in social work will be discussed and a decolonisation-first theory-practice provided. Some processes of decolonising self and mind from the colonisers/colonised perspective will also be shared to stimulate listeners to start on or progress the much-needed decolonisation and indigenisation of social work. 

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Colonialism; decolonial; decolonisation-First Theory-practice ; indigenisation; social work; decolonising self;decolonising mind

Resumen

Background: Hazardous alcohol use is one of the major risk factors for people’s health worldwide and certain populations, such as indigenous people (IP) experiencing homelessness, are disproportionately affected by its consequences. A myriad of interventions that target these complex issues have been developed. Among them, managed alcohol programs (MAPs) are harm-reduction interventions that aim to reduce the effects of severe alcohol use and homelessness. MAPs provide accommodation, social and health support in addition to regular doses of alcoholic beverages to stabilize drinking patterns and replace the use of non-beverage alcohol (mouthwash, hand sanitizer, etc.). Although the positive impacts of MAPs have been reported, very little is known about how to adapt this program to the living conditions of urban IP.Objectives: Using a decolonial approach, this paper aims to discuss the results of a qualitative evaluation of the first MAP in Montreal (Canada), implemented by the indigenous organization Projets autochtones de Montréal.Methods: Ethnographic methods (participant observation and informal interviews), and semi-structured interviews (n=12) were used to explore the adaption of the MAP and its effects on the lives of its residents. The collected data were thematically analyzed.\ Results:\ Efforts to culturally adapt the MAP model to urban indigenous people encountered challenges such as multiplicity of identities and diversity of lifestyles. However, the flexibility of the MAP’s harm reduction approach allowed the accommodation of diverse indigenous values and practices, fostering a sense of belonging among its residents. Several beneficial impacts such as stabilization of alcohol use and reduction/cessation of drug use were also reported. Improvement of residents’ health was also noted.\ Conclusion:\ The cultural adaptation of the Montreal MAP fosters a sense of belonging among its residents. Beneficial changes in substance use patterns and health improvement were also reported.\ 

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Cultural adaptation, interventions, addiction, Indigenous, decolonial\ 

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Despite efforts to engage North American Social Work with different frameworks, including Global Indigenous Frameworks, Social Work analysis, education, and interventions, they remain largely within the Modernity, Eurocentric-whiteness worldview. Decoloniality is the process of decolonization from the Aba Ayla (Latin America). It provides an alternative framework for social workers to discuss and understand human mobility and migration from the “other” standpoint. In 2014, former U.S. president Barack Obama declared the large-scale migration from the three Northern countries of Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras) a ‘crisis’ (Galli, 2018). Since then, Central Americans seeking safety movements has continued to gain international attention, particularly in 2018 and 2021, including caravans. The presentation aims to explore the construction of Central Americans migrating–specifically, the experiences of youth on the move. Based on research from the Rights for Children and Youth Partnership (RCYP), the presentation will examine youth as an excluded category using a decoloniality framework. As it is constructed, youthhood is a suspension between two stages: childhood and adulthood (Parada et al., 2024). While children (defined legally as those under 18) are afforded particular protections, youth between 18 and 30 are not afforded the same protections yet have been simultaneously recognized as not quite reaching adulthood. This in-between suspension becomes further complicated when discussing northward migration from Central America, as the migrant is also considered the liminal persona, whereby they are neither here nor there (Menjivar, 2006). We argue that the duality of existence–both as migrants and as youth–is used to treat the youth migrant as responsible for their illegalized movements and infantilized when and if it pleases decision-makers and politicians.

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Decoloniality, liminal persona, Central America, youth migration, caravans

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"Social workers are bridge builders between groups, organizations, governments, countries with the potential to support setting limits, defining needs, and strengthening capacity for mutual understanding. Yet social work practice is infiltrated with echoes of colonialism, capitalism, ableism, and patriarchal thinking and relating in the world. Somatic social work practices seek to unravel our conditioned responses shaped by oppression and trauma. When social workers teach somatic practices to clients in clinical work, we co-regulate with and support our clients’ ability to regulate their own nervous system, and thus increase their ability to face challenging circumstances, set limits, and navigate the “triggers” from traumatic experiences.What might this look like on the macro level? How could traditions across the globe that align with natural cycles and celebrate interdependence be reflected in our policies and practices? How might our macro practices help stretch our social nervous system to hold more joy and connection, to help us more skillfully move through grief, fear and uncertainty as cultures and nations?Using art as a medium for exploration, we are creating a multisensory vision board to imagine what a macro somatic social work practice might look, feel, sound, smell and taste like. Through images, sounds and textures, we will imagine a social work practice that marries indigenous knowledge and ways of knowing, organizing, and problem solving, in concert with the natural world. We will frame them within the language of neuroscience to contextualize these practices. "\ 

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Art as intervention, decolonial practices, somatic social work, macro social work, creative social work practices\