I'm a UK based social worker that works with children so perhaps my particular experience and my coumtries experience are different.
However, I think there is a core conflict at the heart of social work - it's a helping profession and its also the apparatus of state power (e.g. it can take your children away).
So, in my view, at its heart it has to have a critical relationship to its own power. In the same way that i think we'd all like police officers that think deeply about the use of force and we'd like politicians to think about who they take money from, I hope we'd also like social workers that ask 'who does my work target?' 'Who does it work for and who does it work against?' 'Are their communities with particular experiences of this institution that we could better serve?'
I struggle, personally, to find anything in your article that suggests social workers are doing a diservice to white, hetrosexual, christian, men when they think about how race/racism impacts black and brown communities.
It's hard to really evaluate the extent amd impact of this from outside American Social Work education and the American context.
I read both of your articles amd it seems like a very American experience you and your colleagues are having. I must dedicate some time to working out the American social work system!
In my UK social work training, we covered a very wide range of things. That includes some of the things mentioned in your article. For example, a political history of the United Kingdom and the worldview underpinning neo-liberalism (smaller state, more private investment, personal responsibility etc). I found this helpful for 100 reasons, not necesarily from a lef-wing perspective, but because family structures, public health services, attitides to mental health etc. have all been shaped by this world view. We discussed race from many different perspectices, incuding how white practitioners with limited experienxe wifh cultural diversity might misunderstand or misjudge things from backgrounds that are not their own. In practice, I have seen this first hand on topics such as shame-based violence or alternative approaches to medicine.
From the outside, it seems like the USA is just more entrenched in the culture wars. It is wild that "research paper" made it through your universities ethics board! Labeling students on a white supremacist hierarchy and then attacking their perceived privilege and then quoting their fear of judgement is WILD. On the otherside, it seems like you and your co-authors are having a hard time accepting that personal and systemic reflection can yield fruit. In the same way that 'everyone has something to teach,' every idea has its value.
No one EVER asks them "What can I as a white person do in the US, that you cannot do? One single example"
They cannot answer this question because there's not a single thing. The Constitution they aim to destroy actually ensures THAT.
Social Work bureaucrats are zealots.
Agreed. But unfortunately they can influence an entire profession.
Some are, some aren’t. We need to restore humility and reason to the field.
I'm a UK based social worker that works with children so perhaps my particular experience and my coumtries experience are different.
However, I think there is a core conflict at the heart of social work - it's a helping profession and its also the apparatus of state power (e.g. it can take your children away).
So, in my view, at its heart it has to have a critical relationship to its own power. In the same way that i think we'd all like police officers that think deeply about the use of force and we'd like politicians to think about who they take money from, I hope we'd also like social workers that ask 'who does my work target?' 'Who does it work for and who does it work against?' 'Are their communities with particular experiences of this institution that we could better serve?'
I struggle, personally, to find anything in your article that suggests social workers are doing a diservice to white, hetrosexual, christian, men when they think about how race/racism impacts black and brown communities.
What have I missed?
Social work is not in the business of telling people’s story for them or shaming them. The single story of race embedded in the EPAS does just that.
Two other MSW students I know shared their perspective: https://www.diogenesinexile.com/p/the-hidden-rot-in-social-work-schools
It's hard to really evaluate the extent amd impact of this from outside American Social Work education and the American context.
I read both of your articles amd it seems like a very American experience you and your colleagues are having. I must dedicate some time to working out the American social work system!
In my UK social work training, we covered a very wide range of things. That includes some of the things mentioned in your article. For example, a political history of the United Kingdom and the worldview underpinning neo-liberalism (smaller state, more private investment, personal responsibility etc). I found this helpful for 100 reasons, not necesarily from a lef-wing perspective, but because family structures, public health services, attitides to mental health etc. have all been shaped by this world view. We discussed race from many different perspectices, incuding how white practitioners with limited experienxe wifh cultural diversity might misunderstand or misjudge things from backgrounds that are not their own. In practice, I have seen this first hand on topics such as shame-based violence or alternative approaches to medicine.
From the outside, it seems like the USA is just more entrenched in the culture wars. It is wild that "research paper" made it through your universities ethics board! Labeling students on a white supremacist hierarchy and then attacking their perceived privilege and then quoting their fear of judgement is WILD. On the otherside, it seems like you and your co-authors are having a hard time accepting that personal and systemic reflection can yield fruit. In the same way that 'everyone has something to teach,' every idea has its value.
I was saddled with one of these as a “therapist,” very counterproductive
Many are becoming trained to be social justice activists in the clinical consulting room. It's anti-therapeutic.
Indeed. Therapy has a long road ahead to get back on track.