(Please note that due to the offensive nature of the name of the Washington D.C. NFL football team, I use the “R word” throughout. External links, however, may use it).
by Pat Shelly
The School of Social Work at the University at Buffalo has a Global Interest Group (GiG), which organizes events exploring social issues in a global context and bringing it into a local discussion. This encourages our MSW students to think outside the box of U.S. culture and look beyond its particular strategies for social change. At our monthly lunches, students, faculty, staff and community members listen an invited speaker, and join in the discussion that follows.
Topics for 2014-15 included working with survivors of torture, international field placement and its challenges, experiences of women in the Arab Gulf, social work issues in Tanzania, and immigration and human rights.
For the final Global to Local event of the academic year,”Social Work Responses to Jihadism: Promoting Peace and Human Rights” was held as an informal dinner discussion.
by Pat Shelly
Last week’s decision denying patent protection to a football team’s racist mascot image is progress of a sort.
But for Hilary Weaver, professor of Social Work at the University at Buffalo, the “R word” has impact far outside the sports arena.
(Please note that due to the offensive nature of the name of the Washington D.C. NFL football team, I use the “R word” throughout. External links, however, may use it).
The “R word” is still in daily use. And so are the effects of its painful legacy. Hilary Weaver (Lakota) is professor and associate dean for academic affairs in the School of Social Work, University at Buffalo (UB). She was interviewed by the UB Reporter about the U.S. Patent Office decision to deny trademark protection for a racist sports team logo. She spoke about what the “R word” means for her family.
Shortly after joining the UB faculty, she attended a conference at a local hotel. The Buffalo Bills, Buffalo’s professional football team, were playing the Washington D.C. team. “Welcome R——-” read a huge banner in the hotel, where the visiting team was housed.
Years later, she and her two children attended a Buffalo Bisons baseball game. The opposing team was named the Indians. The home town fans’ verbal abuse of all things Indian was insulting and hateful. Her efforts to instill pride in her children about their Native American ancestry were being challenged by this overwhelming display of hostility.
In the beginning of a Buffalo News Buffalo News interview with Weaver, columnist Don Esmonde writes, “Of course it is personal. How could it not be?…Yes, it’s personal when [she] is raising two kids in what she hopes will be a more tolerant, less ignorant America. [And] finally, it was in-your-face personal, the time when Weaver’s world collided head-on with [owner of the Washington D.C. football team] Dan Snyder’s racial myopia.”
We are all entitled to our human rights, including those pertaining to protection against discrimination and hate speech:
by Pat Shelly
A conference on trauma-informed care offers new perspectives on cultural competence and priorities in treating trauma survivors.
“Knowing that human beings are multiple in our identities, and that those identities are intersectional is foundational to cultural competence [but] not sufficient. Why is this? Because this only speaks to intellectual competence and I would argue that cultural competence is emotional competence. How do we hold the ambiguity of our own and our clients’ identities [and how they inform one another]? …trauma-informed and culturally competent care means good quality, compassionate, empathic, and attuned care.”
– excerpt from keynote address, Trauma Talks 2012: Advancing the Dialogue on Trauma-Informed Care,
by Laura S. Brown, Ph.D.
The above quote from the 2012 Trauma Talks conference and this article about a keynote from the 2014 conference demonstrate how trauma-informed care is continually developing to provide greater sensitivity while addressing complexities in treatment.
Cécile Rousseau, MD, gave a keynote at Trauma Talks 2014: Advancing Cultural Understandings in Trauma-Informed Care, entitled “Culture, trauma transmission and posttraumatic reconstruction.” Dr. Rousseau is the director of the Transcultural Child Psychiatry Clinic at Montreal Children’s Hospital, and a faculty member at McGill University. She works with children who are refugees, immigrants, and trauma survivors, and publishes widely on issues affecting these populations.
By Pat Shelly
Resources from the International Social Work #MacroSW Twitter Chat on May 22, 2014 are listed below.
A summary with an edited stream of tweets is at Storify .
Here is the link to the blog post that was the basis for this chat: “Global to Local: Social Work Goes International”
Resources mentioned in the chat are below at the end of the References/Resources section taken from the blog post.
References
Helpful Article
A Student’s Guide To Planning A Career In International Social Work by Ann Glusker, University of Pennsylvania http://www.sp2.upenn.edu/restes/isw/chapter52.html
Here’s a list of some areas that may involve international social work:
This list comes from presentation topics at the Joint World Conference on Social Work, Education and Social Development in Melbourne (July 2014). It is organized by by the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW), the International Council on Social Welfare (ICSW), and the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW).
International Social Work and Social Welfare Organizations
Global Impact (International Social Service Organization)
International Council on Social Welfare (ICSW)
International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW)
International Consortium for Social Development
International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW)
European Institute for Social Work
European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research (Vienna)
Latin American Network Information Center (LANIC)
U.S. National Organizations
Council on Social Work Education (CSWE):
Katherine A Kendall Institute for International Education
National Association of Social Workers (USA): International Resources
Association for Community Organization and Social Administration (ACOSA)
International Social Work Journals
United Nations Resources:
There are many excellent U.N. resources with important human rights, social welfare and social development reports, and the U.N. conventions on human rights.
General U.N. website www.un.org.
UN Children’s Rights & Emergency Relief Organization UNICEF www.unicef.org
UN Development Programme www.undp.org
Additional Links:
Podcasts
The Global Agenda for Social Work by David Niven http://socialworldpodcast.com/029-global-agenda-social-work/
Similarities and Differences between Social Work in the United States and the United Kingdom: Interview with David Niven http://socialworkpodcast.blogspot.com/2014/03/niven.html
Podsocs http://www.podsocs.com/ Has a number of related podcasts under its Global link
Profiles in Social Work (U. Toronto Podcasts): Gabriela Agatiello is a counselor with individuals who have survived torture and war: https://media.library.utoronto.ca/public/serve/QEiwb6oN6zSg.mp3
inSocialWork (U. Buffalo Podcasts):
Peeling the Fear from the Past: Building Community Capacities for Healing Refugee Trauma as a Human Rights Strategy. Dr. Patricia Shannon, Episode 76
Social Work and Human Rights. Dr. Elisabeth Reichert, Episode 41
Native Americans and a Human Rights and Trauma-Informed Perspective. Agnes Williams, Episode 129
Resources mentioned in the #MacroSW Chat 5-22-14:
Sources for Int’l SW jobs:
Placement Agency for International Jobs:
HCL Workforce Solutions http://www.hclworkforce.com/
an interview with a representative from this agency:
“How to Snag a Job in International Social Work”
http://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/career-jobs/How_to_Snag_a_Job_In_International_Social_Work/
So You Want to Work Abroad?
http://socialworkpodcast.blogspot.com/2010/04/so-you-want-to-work-abroad-interview.html
Organizations involving Int’l SW: in addition to those listed above
The Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition http://www.miracoalition.org/
Network for Social Work Management https://socialworkmanager.org/
United Nations Youth Delegates unyouth.com
By Pat Shelly
(The #MacroSW Twitter Chat on International Social Work was held May 22nd, 2014 .
UB facilitated the discussion. A summary of the chat can be found here.)
“Although what we do as social workers may look different around the globe, it’s WHY we do what we do that unites us. So what exactly are we trying to do? Drum roll, please…maximize human potential. Ta da! …