Daring Social Work: Challenging Norms for Justice Transformation

This blog was written by Kayla Smith, Systems Navigator for Social Work Awareness Month. Edited by Alisha Ostberg.

Introduction: Social Work Awareness Month

March is Social Work Awareness Month! In honour of that, I (Kayla, she/her) am reflecting on what it means to me to be a social worker and how working at SafeLink Alberta has impacted that. As a white cis woman, I am aware of how I experience the world through a privileged lens because of my whiteness and my cisness. This means that I have a personal responsibility and a professional one as a social worker to actively work to decolonize my beliefs.

“The harms of social work are not relegated to the past and as a social worker, I am a part of those harms.”

The Harms of Social Work are Not in the Past

One of the ways I do this is to hold the tension between the history of social work, the fact that it is a structural system that is rooted in colonialism, and the space of what social work could be. The harms of social work are not relegated to the past, and as a social worker, I am a part of those harms. I do not want to be complicit in systems of harm, and the first step is to acknowledge my role in those systems. I do this primarily through understanding that impact is more important than intent when it comes to the harm we cause. If we focus on “I did not mean to hurt you,” we lose the opportunity to take accountability for the harm we have caused. We then also lose the opportunity to make amends (where appropriate) and change our behaviour.

Accountability Over Intent: Acknowledging Our Role in Harm

To me, every social worker’s relationship to social work as a profession and as an institution should be complicated. It is not enough to critique the past; we need to critique the present. We need to be critical and question the systems we operate in; we need to be critical of ourselves. We cannot be so focused on ourselves as professionals that we lose sight of the fact that we are also just people too. We are constantly learning, and we will make mistakes. It is important to remember that we are not just accountable to our professional bodies; we are accountable first and foremost to the people we serve.

Justice as a Core Value: How SafeLink Alberta Embeds IDEA Principles

One of our core values at SafeLink Alberta is Justice. We acknowledge our role in dismantling systems of oppression, and the first step in this process is to learn about them. We have the IDEA Committee at SafeLink Alberta. IDEA stands for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility. What does this look like at SafeLink Alberta? We create opportunities for our staff to learn and integrate IDEA values into our work with staff training from both external community partners and our own education team. We have an “Unlearning Library” full of resources such as books, articles, podcasts, and videos on a variety of topics. We apply IDEA values to our policies and procedures and our hiring process.

To paraphrase my friend Hanako (absolute icon and SHIFT Systems Navigator) “the goal of the IDEA Committee is to not exist one day because the values of IDEA should be embedded into everything we do as an agency.” The values of inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility are critical to the integrity of our work in our communities and in our relationships with each other as coworkers or simply as people. The value of social justice in the ACSW Code of Ethics is deeply connected to inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility.

“We need to view ourselves as system disrupters, even if the system we must disrupt is our own.”

Advocacy Beyond Direct Service: The Role of Social Workers in Systemic Change

There is no justice without equity, without access. Many social workers work directly with individuals and communities while operating in systems not designed to meet the needs of the people and communities they serve. It is critical to advocate for and with our participants in our daily work. But it is just as critical that we, as social workers, advocate for policy and program changes. We must be a part of working to dismantle systems of oppression- and that includes the institution of social work. We must transform social work as we know it into something new. As social workers, I think it is harmful to view our work as “helping” people, now more than ever, we need to view ourselves as system disrupters, even if the system we must disrupt is our own.

For me, as a social worker working in harm reduction, it is important to not just acknowledge but also understand where this movement comes from. It is founded on the knowledge and labour of Indigenous people, Black people, racialized people, queer and trans people, immigrants, disabled people, sex workers, and people who use substances. Social work has been a part of co-opting this knowledge and these movements while removing from them their histories and the people at the heart of this movement. Many of the ideas I bring up in this blog are not mine; they are things I have learned from others I have worked with, such as brilliant scholars, authors, community activists, and organizers.

Some books that have impacted my practice as a social worker and guide my values:

• Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
• Abolish Social Work (As We Know It) edited by Craig Fortier, Edward Hon-Sing Wong, MJ Rwigema
• White Benevolence: Racism and Colonial Violence in the Helping Professions edited by Amanda Gebhard, Sheelah McLean, Verna St. Denis
• The Care We Dream Of: Liberatory and Transformative Approaches to LGBTQ+ Health by Zena Sharman
• Saving Our Own Lives: A Liberatory Practice of Harm Reduction by Shira Hassan

I invite you to continue to learn from perspectives that are not your own and rebuild your version of social work.

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