GSSWSR students, faculty, and staff attended the Council On Social Work Education conference this year in Denver, Colorado. The GSSWSR community was involved in presenting sessions, participating in CSOGIE, and joining together to participate in a reception co-sponsored by the Mid-Atlantic Schools of Social Work. Check out a few presentations below.
Doctoral students Carolyn Solo, Maisy Hughes and Briana Bogue gave a presentation on MSW field placements in community mental health settings: emphasizing the urban context of community mental health and the importance of teaching students to understand community mental health through the lenses of internal colonial theory and critical whiteness theory. Approximately 18% of MSW field placements are in community mental health, the most common field site (CSWE, 2017). Community mental health centers, as Medicaid providers, treat individuals who have been chronically and systemically marginalized. Their presentation provided context of the urban community mental health setting, give an overview of current models of teaching multiculturalism and diversity in social work education and discuss the deficiencies in those models. They provided an alternative approach to these models that address these deficiencies, through the critical lens of internal colonial theory and critical whiteness theory. Acase example from our community mental health practice experience was included, and the presenters applied this critical praxis approach to the case. Finally, suggestions for how to use this new critical praxis in the social work classroom were given.
Dr. Darlyne Bailey led a session in her role as the co-chair of the Special Commission to Advance Macro Practice in Social Work. The session was entitled “Revitalizing a movement for macro education and practice: Historic moments and future directions”. A didactic and interactive session, it highlighted the history and envisioned future of the partnership among social work organizations and individuals to strengthen macro education, practice, and research. This now six-year-old Special Commission to Advance Macro Practice in Social Work ( the SC) truly went from a moment in time to a national movement developed among social work educators, researchers, and practitioners. Members of the SC shared lessons and hopes from this collaboration with CSWE and with many other major professional organizations. Looking forward, with a standing room only group of highly engaged attendees, the session examined new and emerging challenges and opportunities to support the SC’s goal of 20% of all students in MSW programs to select macro specializations by the year 2020, and explored the steps needed to continue to sustain progress made in this direction.