Events in the recent past – perhaps over the last ten years – have left me with questions about the future of social work practice and social work education. Events in the more distant past provide some clues about progressive ways forward, or at least some pointers about approaches which are best avoided. As I have argued in this blog space for some time, the origins of child and family social work are linked to late nineteenth century responses to problems inherent to the capitalist mode of development (Ferguson, 2004).
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What is social policy?
This is an RSW experiment in providing resources for the educational commons that are freely available to all using creative commons licensing.
In this case we are releasing a podcast interview. Neil Ballantyne (Open Polytechnic of New Zealand) interviews Liz Beddoe (University of Auckland) about the social policy text she edited with Jane Maidment (Maidment & Beddoe, 2016). Neil asks Liz three questions:
- What is social policy?
- What is unique about social policy in Aotearoa?
- Why do social work students need to study social policy?
Post a comment to let us know what you think and tell us if we should create more resources like this one.
This podcast is copyright RSW Collective and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. You are free to download it and embed it in your own teaching and learning resources, so long as you attribute it to “RSW Collective (2021, January) https://www.reimaginingsocialwork.nz/2021/01/what-is-social-policy/”
Reference
Maidment, J. & Beddoe, L. (Eds.) (2016). Social Policy for social work and human services in Aotearoa New Zealand: Diverse perspectives. University of Canterbury Press.
Photo by ConvertKit on Unsplash
Podcast music: cello pizz 01 by Morusque (c) copyright 2019 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
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Goodbye to 2020
A disturbing year of disruption and trouble is drawing in. Summer sunshine is wrapping us in light once again as we take breath for the road ahead. We have been so lucky of course and those of us who would live in more equal and compassionate ways, are hoping – as we must – that better collective futures will be built and that lessons will be learned. We live in daunting and exciting times which call for solidarity, courage and care – a valuing of the gifts we all bring and a sharing of the burdens we carry. The following is a mix of thoughts from members of our collective – we trust there is something in here for each and all.
Look after one another as we front up to 2021 – we are human beasts in a living world of joy and pain: Laugh when you can, cry when you must. Time moves.
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Courage and Convictions
The exemplary work of anti-racist researcher and children’s rights activist Dr Oliver Sutherland and his associates in ACORD (Auckland Committee on Racism and Discrimination) documents a deeply disturbing history of abusive state care in the 1970s and 80s. The following discussion draws on a witness statement, dated October 4th, 2019, which Dr Sutherland presented to the current Royal Commission into Historical Abuse in State Care and the Care of Faith Based Institutions.
The aim of this post is to encourage some reflection on the role of advocacy organisations in bringing hidden injustice and suffering to light. None of this happened very long ago and it happened here in Aotearoa; at the hands, or at least under the noses, of state social workers. There are some lessons in here for us all in my humble opinion.
We are still at the cross-roads with child welfare and the wider movement for social justice but the momentum for radical change is building. I have seen bits and pieces from the Kempe Center Virtual International Conference: A Call to Action to Change Child Welfare. It is challenging and refreshing to see workers from other countries wrestling with the burning need for child protection reform. Child abuse is a social problem that is entwined with wider issues. The current risk-saturated, procedure-driven, surveillance-orientated child protection paradigm delivers unequal outcomes, in Aotearoa and everywhere else where this system is administered. Why wouldn’t it? *And what is to be done?