“Doing Hope”: Ecofeminist Spirituality Provides Emotional Sustenance to Confront the Climate Crisis

Affilia ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 088610992098724
Author(s):  
Finn McLafferty Bell ◽  
Mary Kate Dennis ◽  
Glory Brar
Keyword(s):  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Environmental Stewardship ◽  
Catholic Sisters ◽  
The World ◽  
Right Relationship ◽  
Environmental Work ◽  
Climate Crisis

Environmental crises caused by our changing global environment evoke intense and difficult emotions, particularly the paralysis that often results from despair. Understanding how people who are deeply engaged in environmental activism deal with their emotions can help in emotionally equipping people to address the climate crisis. Ecofeminist spirituality directly addresses these issues through an environmental stewardship that offers hope and healing for the world. This study includes 14 interviews with workers at an ecojustice center founded by an order of Catholic sisters in the United States. We used thematic analysis to identify three main themes that collectively describe the participants’ perspectives on (a) experiences of difficult feelings, (b) strategies for coping with those feelings, and (c) perspectives on cultivating hope. Participants shared how they were able to cope with difficult emotions and cultivate hope that the work they are doing matters, which was essential to sustaining their ecojustice work. As social workers respond to the changing environment, understanding how to sustain environmental work at the macro-level is essential to addressing largescale problems while also attending to difficult emotions at the microlevel. Further implications for social work practice include the importance of intergenerational organizing, living in “right relationship,” incorporating spirituality, and reinhabiting the profession.

Reflections of stress in US abortion narratives

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 533-556 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mickey Sperlich ◽  
Gretchen E Ely ◽  
Rebecca S Rouland ◽  
Connor A Walters ◽  
Max Carwile
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Traumatic Stress ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Trauma Informed Care ◽  
Trauma Informed ◽  
Work Education

A trauma-informed, thematic analysis that identified stress-related themes evident in 39 personal abortion narratives from the Tennessee Stories Project in the United States is presented in this paper. Using the Braun and Clarke model of thematic analysis, guided by the trauma-informed social work framework, researchers examined these narratives to identify stress related themes.FindingsAn overall theme of stress and traumatic stress was found to be present throughout the abortion narratives. These themes were categorized into subthemes, including: (a) existing life stressors preceding the abortion experience, (b) stressors while trying to access abortion services, (c) stressors while obtaining abortion services, and (d) stressors arising after the procedure.ApplicationsThese results suggest that stress and traumatic stress were reflected in these abortion narratives throughout the abortion seeking experience. This finding supports the need for social work practice responses that are designed to address and eliminate stress during the process of seeking and obtaining an abortion in the United States. A trauma-informed framework is recommended for guiding social work education about abortion, social worker interactions with clients who are seeking abortions, and the development of abortion policy in the United States in order to better align the abortion seeking experience with the principles of trauma-informed care.

Visions of community

1999 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-38
Author(s):  
Pauline Jivanjee ◽  
Susan Tebb
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Work Education ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Women's Movements ◽  
Work Education

Experiences traveling in Kenya provide a backdrop to an examination of the principles and practices of the Harambee and women’s movements in Kenya as they compare with feminist social work practice in the United States. Concluding remarks address the implications of our learning for our work in social work education.

Beyond the Code of Ethics, Part II: Dual Relationships Revisited

2002 ◽  
Vol 83 (5) ◽  
pp. 483-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Freud ◽  
Stefan Krug
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Code Of Ethics ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Dual Relationships ◽  
Social Work Educators ◽  
Social Work Practitioners

The authors, both social work educators, serve on an ethics call line committee that provides insights on how the provisions of the (United States) National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics (NASW, 1996) interface with the ethical dilemmas encountered by the social work community. In this paper, the authors highlight aspects of social work practice that they consider ethical, yet not easily accommodated by the provisions of the current Code. They also question the 1996 introduction of the concept of dual relationships into the Code and suggest that the Code adopt the less ambiguous term of boundary violations. Also recognized by the authors is the need for clear boundaries for the protection of clients against temptations that might arise in a fiduciary relationship, and for the legal protection of social workers. But, the authors argue, social work practitioners in certain settings, with particular populations, and in certain roles, inevitably face multiple relationships as an integral aspect of their work. The authors conclude that social work's adoption of the psychoanalytic constrains of anonymity, neutrality, and abstinence has detoured the profession from its original double focus on individuals and their society.

Urban Redevelopment Planning and Social Work Practice

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laurie A. Walker
Keyword(s):  
Social Workers ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Urban Redevelopment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Based Organizations ◽  
Inclusive Processes ◽  
Private Investors

Urban neighborhood disinvestment in the United States resulted in deferred maintenance of buildings and common social problems experienced by residents. Strategies to redevelop neighborhoods include collaboration among many subsystems seeking to collectively invest in places and people. Contemporary federal initiatives focus on incentivizing coordinated investments between existing local community-based organizations, local and federal government, and private investors. Public–private partnerships include anchor institutions with commitments to the long-term success of place-based initiatives who invest their financial, intellectual, social, and political capital. Social workers are embedded in local community-based organizations and relationships with residents in neighborhoods experiencing redevelopment. Social workers can help guide top-down and bottom-up approaches to neighborhood revitalization toward more equitable and inclusive processes and outcomes. Resident engagement in redeveloping neighborhoods takes many forms and requires differing skill sets for social workers. Urban redevelopment is a global trend with common critiques regarding relying on gentrification and market-driven strategies with private investors.

scholarly journals Degrowth for transformational alternatives as radical social work practice

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-433
Author(s):  
Meredith C.F. Powers ◽  
Komalsingh Rambaree ◽  
Jef Peeters
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Ecological Justice ◽  
The World

Historically, and in modern times, social workers have been culpable in perpetuating the very systems of oppression that we seek to eliminate. This happens as we are part of cultures and economies that operate out of the growth ideology. Acting in accordance with the growth ideology does not lead to the outcomes that we strive for as professional social workers. Rather, the growth ideology results in growing social inequalities and increasing ecological injustices around the world. Social work can, instead, embrace an ecosocial lens and promote degrowth approaches for transformational alternatives. Rather than reinforcing the existing systems of injustice and oppression, radical social work can take an activist role and bring about urgent and radical changes to promote ecological justice through social and ecological well-being. Examples from radical social work in local and international communities demonstrate the possibility of degrowth for transformational alternatives as radical social work practice.

The Opioid Crisis

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Aryana Bryan ◽  
Valerie Hruschak ◽  
Cory Dennis ◽  
Daniel Rosen ◽  
Gerald Cochran
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Opioid Use Disorder ◽  
Prescription Opioid ◽  
Opioid Use

Opioid-related deaths by overdoses quadrupled in the United States from the years 1999 to 2015. This rise in mortality predominately occurred in the wake of historic changes in pain management practices and aggressive marketing of opioid medications such as oxycontin. Prescription opioid misuse and subsequent addiction spilled over to heroin and fentanyl for many. This drug epidemic differed from others in its impact among non-Hispanic whites, leading to drastic changes in how the United States views addiction and chooses to respond. This article offers an overview of opioid use disorder (OUD), its treatment and its relationship with pain. It also discusses special populations affected and provides insight into future directions for research and social work practice surrounding opioid management in the United States. Because of the profession’s emphasis on the person and social environment as well as its focus on vulnerable and oppressed populations, social work plays a critical role in addressing the crisis.

The Association of Social Work Boards

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Jenise Comer ◽  
Joyce A. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Mariana Islands ◽  
High Stakes ◽  
Northern Mariana Islands ◽  
Staff Members ◽  
Industry Standards ◽  
Secure Environment

The Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization dedicated to the regulation of social work practice. The Association was created to protect clients and client systems from harm caused by incompetent, unethical, or unlicensed social work practice. The primary and most important responsibility of ASWB is to develop and maintain a national exam that is valid, reliable, and legally defensible. The Association contracts with a test vendor to administer the exam in an identical, secure environment to social work candidates for licensure in the United States, Canada, the U.S. Virgin Island, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the District of Columbia. Accomplishing the task of providing a reliable and valid exam involves a complex process of recruiting and training. The volunteers and staff are competent to complete the arduous task of constructing and reviewing different forms of the exam for each level of licensure. The test vendor and a consulting psychometrician provide supervision and analysis of test data to confirm the test performs at or above industry standards for a high stakes exam, which determines entry to practice based on a passing score. ASWB staff members also engage in several activities that support state and provincial boards to advance regulation and safe practice. The purpose, mission, and history of ASWB will be presented in detail, along with focused attention on the exam and additional services provided to the regulatory community. Future issues will identify the Board of Director’s 2019 Strategic plan. Opportunities, challenges, and threats to professional regulation include attention to international social work practice regulation, license mobility, and deregulation.

A Centennial of Mary Richmond’s Social Diagnosis: A Celebration and Contemporary Assessment of a Seminal Work

2019 ◽  
Vol 100 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-247
Author(s):  
Manny John González ◽  
Caroline Rosenthal Gelman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Growth And Development ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Subsequent Growth ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
Helping Relationship ◽  
Full Century

Mary Ellen Richmond is often credited with developing social work as a profession in the United States. In this article, we focus on Richmond’s Social Diagnosis, revisiting this hallmark of social work practice a century after its publication and tracing its foundational ideas at the root of the conceptualization and practice of subsequent giants in social work. Our aim is to recenter and retrace these formative ideas so crucial to the origins of social work as a profession and its subsequent growth and development by examining Richmond’s understanding of social diagnosis, evidence-informed practice, and the helping relationship. A full century after the publication of Richmond’s far-reaching Social Diagnosis seems the most apposite time for such a review and revisit.

“I won’t change who I am for anyone”

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 148-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Audrey Scranton
Keyword(s):  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
The United States ◽  
Hate Crimes ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
One Dimensional ◽  
United States Today ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
Online Setting

In the United States today, Muslim women are portrayed as weak, submissive, one-dimensional, and occupying a place of contradiction. These master narratives of Muslim women as uncivilized or anti-American lead them to be misunderstood at best and victims of hate crimes at worst. In this environment, a space emerges to explore counterstories, or narratives that depict a group as desirable in the face of a detrimental dominant narrative. In order to study how Muslim women construct their identities in this environment, a thematic analysis of stories told by Muslim women in an online setting was conducted. Findings reveal four prominent constructions or responses to this narrative: (1) I am multidimensional, (2) I am strong, (3) I change the world, and (4) I am special. Implications for the study of counterstories and future directions for research are discussed.

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