Meeting Description:

This meeting is a call to action. As a profession, we can be part of a leadership cohort that dislodges the “silence” on organizational inequities, and help to develop, implement and evaluate meaningful changes directed at long-term organizational transformation.

We have inherited a social work legacy that informs us that this can occur.

Post Meeting Assignment:
The interval until the next session can be a period of exploration, contemplation, and reflection. We can remain in the question through the practice of contemplation, reflection, and personal analysis. Please note, this is not a blaming process rather a learning and potentially a transformative process. The following is a guide for undertaking this inquiry.

We begin with Donald A. Schon’s reflective practice techniques:“…reflective conversation with the situation.” “This technique can be used to identify oppressive traces of the dominant ideology or discourse that may be present in our narrative of domination and subordination in our social work practices. Critical self-reflection is a form of ‘internal criticism’ a never-ending questioning of our social, economic, political and cultural beliefs and assumptions, and actions.” Mullaly & West, Chapter 10: Critical Self-Reflection section, (p. 369.)

I offer some questions from which you can select to guide your reflective process related to your professional location(s):

• What is the dominant ideology which limits my view of what is present and the operative actions that result in oppression and/or dehumanization?
• How does this ideology limit my and others freedom?
• What is our location within this ideology and how am I a participant within maintaining its existence?
• Does my social beliefs, values, and attitudes conform with what is, wholly, partially, or differ?
• What do I do on a daily basis at work that might contribute to inequality?
• What have I learned about how to perceive or how to relate to members of my own group compared to how I relate to People of Color?
• What do I know about relating to and interpreting the behavior of People of Color, what are similar to as well as different from my own?
• What do I know about my conscious intentions when I interact with clients who are People of Color?
• When do the consequences or outcomes of my actions not fit with or match my good intentions?

To watch the recording, click here.

Part one of 'A Time to Act', our Anti-Racist Work Group, was an introduction to several concepts including mental models, oppression, and racism and how these concepts become operationalized within our socio-economic structures. We heard literary accounts of how the above is represented in service delivery that has deleterious outcomes for People of Color. A guiding premise in the presentation was utilizing Peter Senge’s rubber band analogy of the gap between “what is” and the “vision.”

In our next meeting, we will focus on the “what is” pertaining to the human service sector that has embedded within its socio-cultural practices institutionalized oppression and privilege. We will examine how privilege grants those who are in its domain the power to design program guidelines, eligibility criteria, policies and procedures that are structured to ensure People of Color conform to a Eurocentric paradigm. This power and its aligned pressure to adhere to organizational precepts for receipt of services, can result in negative outcomes for People of Color which can have far reaching negative outcomes beyond the initial scope of services.

Currently, we are in a climate of change where there is an expanded awareness amongst the white population, some of whom occupy decision making positions, who recognize and support the need for change in an array socio-political, economic, and cultural institutions. We are now in the midst of “an idea whose time has come.” Thus, in next few months, we will seize the time by identifying, creating, and advocating for institutional changes that we feel will be representative of a social justice action plan that is groundbreaking and simultaneously reasonable within the confines of available resources and short-term implementation.

We hope you will be able to continue the journey with us.

Racial Justice Forum:
The Racial Justice Forum is a platform to engage in facilitated small group discussions with the purpose of providing an opportunity for self-reflection and training on how each of us can improve our anti-racism practice.⁠
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We know broader systemic change within the profession is not possible unless individual social workers, and we as a collective profession, do the work to confront, examine, and unlearn the racism we perpetuate. The Racial Justice Forum aims to provide a deeper understanding of social justice issues for participating social workers as well as knowledge about the clients we work with through open discussion in a safe forum. The Racial Justice Forum was created to promote change within ourselves and our communities, with the ultimate goal of making inclusiveness a habit practiced by the profession as a whole. ⁠

We would like to thank our Diversity Committee members for their work in developing this platform, and for the time they have committed to moderating these discussions. We are humbled by their commitment to this field, and motivated by their fight to hold NASW-NYS, and social workers at large, accountable to anti-racist practices.

A Continued Exploration on:  “What Is”

To watch the recording, click here

When: Aug 24, 2020 06:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Topic: Anti-Racism Action Work-group Series III

This is the second webinar exploring “What Is.”  As noted in the introductory webinar, we are utilizing the strategy  Dr. King employed as characterized by Peter Senge (The Fifth Discipline.)  In a visionary/change process the first step is to establish “what is.”  It is from this backdrop that the envisioned future is created followed by constructing change processes that will transform what is into a new reality.  The challenge is not to reduce the envisioned future due to skepticism in its obtainment, but rather to have dexterity, commitment, and faith that the envisioned future is achievable.

Thus, following a broad review of oppression pertaining to how it is embedded in our personal, socio-cultural and institutional practices, it is essential that an exploration of white privilege is also examined.  As noted by Mullaly, they comprise both sides of the same coin.  We cannot fully understand the parameters oppression without its corollary: white privilege. They are interrelated.   As with oppression, what has been explored and will be examine in this upcoming webinar, are introductory analyses.  What will be highlighted are: how do we recognize white privilege within the personal, cultural and institutional domains within this country;  why is white privilege invisible to the dominant group;  what benefits ensue from white privilege; and how does it impact social work practice?

“Whiteness is everywhere in U.S. culture, but it is very hard to see…To identify, analyze, and oppose the destructive consequences of whiteness,…require(s) and understanding of the existence and the destructive consequences of the possessive investment in whiteness that surreptitiously shapes so much of our public and private lives.”

George Lipsitz, “The Possessive Investment in Whiteness” in Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, 4^th ed.  Ed.  Maurianne Adams, et al.

To watch the recording, click HERE

Topic: Anti-Racism Action Study-group Series IV

WHAT CAN BE?

In the previous three webinars, the focus was on “What Is” pertaining to oppression and white privilege, creating the foundation of the ACT Now undertaking.  We will now venture into the realm of “What can be,”  a process whereby we envision the future through identifying possibilities contained within a common purpose.  The exigencies of 2020 “calls” for us to create the future and although it may seem that the future may be a long way off, it is created within the present.

The shift in this webinar is to envision how our professional locations can be void of oppression and privilege whereby they become settings where equality (to be determine how this will show up) is the norm.  To have this next pursuit grounded in enthusiasm, hope and faith that change is possible will require us to loosen any mental models of “it can never happen” to “why not.”  Thus, in this webinar you will have an opportunity to engage with other colleagues in this visioning process.  After some initial commentary on the visioning process, you will enter into a discussion groups to create a picture of how the social work profession can be a force of change in transforming our professional locations.  You will have the opportunity to explore what will be operative that will be the cause for us to declare: “We Pulled It Off!”

To watch the recording, click HERE