Art and Social Work: History and Collaborative Possibilities for Interdisciplinary Synergy

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 698-707 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Burney Nissen
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Work History ◽  
Psychology Education ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
Individual Family ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Work History ◽  
Current Potential

This article will stretch the boundaries of the interdisciplinary lens to consider the history of and current potential for the arts to enhance, advance, and amplify individual, family, and community social change goals of the social work profession. To begin, consider the following questions: What would inspire artists and social workers to intentionally work together to reveal new strengths, energy, and capacity in the areas we care about? What do the arts have to teach the profession of social work and vice versa? How have the arts already played a role in the profession, and what has impaired social work’s ability to make greater use of the strengths associated with the arts? How have other professions (public health, psychology, education, and others) incorporated partnerships with the arts? This article concludes with a call to action to advance the potential of the arts in coordination with social work and related disciplines.

scholarly journals Honoring Our Ancestors

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2/3) ◽  
pp. 259-273
Author(s):  
Jennifer McCleary ◽  
Estelle Simard
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
White Women ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Work History ◽  
The Us ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Work History

The US social work profession has historically claimed primarily middle-class white women as the "founders" of the profession, including Jane Addams and Mary Richmond. Scholarship of the history of the profession has focused almost entirely on settlement houses, anti-poverty advocacy, and charity in the late 1800s in the northeastern United States as the groundwork of current social work practice. Courses in social work history socialize students into this historical framing of the profession and perpetuate a white supremacist narrative of white women as the primary doers of social justice work that colonizes the bodies and knowledge of Indigenous people and their helping systems. Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in the US have always had indigenous systems of social care. Yet, the social justice work of BIPOC, and especially Indigenous people in the US, is left out of the dominant narrative of the history of social work practice for several reasons including racism, colonialism, and white supremacy. In this paper the authors contribute to the critique of the role of white supremacy as a colonizing process in social work history narratives and discuss frameworks for decolonizing social work pedagogy through a reconciliatory practice that aims to dismantle white supremacy.

scholarly journals An Introduction to Islandwood Papers on Social Work and the Arts

2019 ◽  
Vol 29 (6) ◽  
pp. 684-686
Author(s):  
Marilyn L. Flynn ◽  
Michal Sela-Amit
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Work Education ◽  
Social Innovation ◽  
Outcome Measurement ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Work Education

The social work profession has adopted science and empirical evidence as the means of validating discovery. As the commitment to science has intensified, interest in the use of arts in practice has grown as a counterpoise and an effort to justify other forms of knowledge and human experience. A roundtable was held in summer 2017 to examine whether the arts have a distinctive place in social work practice. It has been acknowledged that the arts have played a role in the history of the profession, however, remained neglected and marginalized in social work education. Roundtable participants argued that creativity, necessary disruption, and transformation have been lost to the field as a result. It is possible that social work education might be reimagined with new underpinnings of science, social innovation, and the arts. It should not be assumed that outcome measurement is not possible; however, measures would have to be rethought.

Examining my place in social work history: a scholarly personal narrative

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan E. Gonyer
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Personal Narrative ◽  
Work History ◽  
Scholarly Personal Narrative ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Work History

The social work profession began in the early 1900s and has changed and evolved in many ways since then. The author raises the question: ‘Am I who the founding mothers of social work imagined when they began their work?’ Looking at the values of the profession with a focus on social justice and language, the author explores how she is working towards social justice and how it fits into the historical perspective of the profession.

scholarly journals Whitewashing of Social Work History

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2/3) ◽  
pp. 274-297
Author(s):  
Kelechi C. Wright ◽  
Kortney Angela Carr ◽  
Becci A. Akkin
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Social Work Students ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Racially Diverse ◽  
Work History ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Work History ◽  
Diverse Perspective

Severe racial inequity has characterized the incorporation of ethnic minorities’ contributions to U.S. history and advancements (Sandoval et al., 2016). These disparities are inextricably connected to White Supremacist ideologies and practices, and are perpetuated in higher education through textbooks, pedagogy, and research. Social work, like many disciplines, teaches about its early roots with a whitewashed historical lens. Indeed, review of the social work literature reveals the scarcity of attributions to Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC). Without a more racially diverse perspective on social work’s history, social work scholars promote and sustain White Supremacy. The implications of this are crucial since social work education is predominantly populated by privileged White students who adopt this mentality, unaware of Black, Brown, Latino, Asian, Native or Other ethnic “Jane Addams” who have massively promoted the social welfare of communities for decades without historical recognition or the privileged positions of Addams and Richmond. Historical distortions also potentially discourage BIPOC social work students’ self-efficacy and future efforts to contribute and excel in the discipline. To properly address this issue, social work history must be refaced with a more equitable and just lens. This review seeks to address the gap in the literature pertaining to the need for a greater integration and infusion of racially diverse social work historical contributions in several ways. Recommendations will be made for future research in this area to dismantle racist perspectives in social work history, and strategies will be offered to help social work educators and researchers address this critical issue.

scholarly journals Introduction

Social Work ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-4
Author(s):  
Terry Bamford
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Work History ◽  
Social Work Training ◽  
Work Training ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Work History

The genesis of this book was a casual suggestion at a meeting of the Social Work History Network. Why don’t we do something to mark 50 years since BASW was formed in 1970, the Local Authority Social Services Act was passed and a unified social work training was about to be introduced? And this book is the something....

scholarly journals Social Work Grand Challenges and the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals: Linking Social Work and Women’s Health

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
Annalise John ◽  
Elizabeth Gamarra ◽  
Melissa Bird ◽  
Rachel L. Wright ◽  
Caren J. Frost
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Women’S Health ◽  
Women's Health ◽  
Sustainable Development Goals ◽  
Call To Action ◽  
Grand Challenges ◽  
Crucial Component ◽  
The Social ◽  
Development Goals

The health of women is a crucial component to family and community wellbeing. However, social work scholars have not been very engaged in research pertaining to the health needs of women. With the Grand Challenges of Social Work becoming a major element for national discussion and with the revision of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SGD) in 2015, we wondered how connected the 12 Grand Challenges and the 17 SDGs were. We searched the social work literature from 2005 to present to identify what salient publications were available about women’s health and then connected them to the current themes of the Grand Challenges and SDGs. There are no more articles to review in the social work literature. Using a feminist social work framework, we summarize the topics covered in these articles and define a call to action for more scholarly work on women’s health in the context of current national and global conversations about this social justice issue.

Themes in a history of the social work profession

1992 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine Wilson Martin
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

‘[W]e Find Families for Children, Not Children for Families’: An Incident in the Long and Unhappy History of Relations between Social Workers and Adoptive Parents

2012 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 415-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marian Quartly
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Adoptive Parents ◽  
Adoptive Parent ◽  
Inclusive Practice ◽  
Australian State ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Relatively little work on adoption focuses on the role of social workers. This article gives an account of the conflict between social workers and prospective adoptive parents which developed in Australia in the 1970s, taking as a case study the conflicting roles of adoptive parent advocates and professional social workers within the Standing Committee on Adoption in the Australian state of Victoria. Its overarching concern lies with the historical attitudes of the social work profession towards adoption, both domestic and intercountry, as these have changed from an embrace of both adoption and adoptive parents to mutual alienation. It concludes that the inclusive practice of radical social work could only briefly contain contesting client groups.

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