growing the vision

It's so exciting to be connecting with other social workers who share this vision!!  

As a practitioner of anti-oppressive social work, I truly believe that critical, reflective practice is a necessary component of this work. This is something I hope the Social Work Activist Reader can delve into. There are so many rich learning opportunities in each day of practice. While I have participated in many inspiring and meaningful forums for formalized continuing education, I also see clearly that there are so many ways to continue growing and learning in our work outside of traditional learning environments. We learn from folks accessing SW services and from the privilege of being able to hear and witness the stories people share with us of their life, experience, need and dreams.  We learn from our mistakes and also our successes. We learn from students, colleagues, peers, supervisors and mentors. From those who share our framework whose practice we would like to align with, and from those whose practice foundation is one we would not choose to model. We learn from the system barriers and from our own daily decisions about how to navigate the systems, policies, institutions and agencies we work in.

I also believe we must do this work in community. We need mentors and allies, others to support our learning and to encourage us to dream and grow. To hold the vision of justice and to speak our truth.

The deadline to submit for the first zine publication will be June 21st and I'll be taking blog submissions on an ongoing basis and will publish as folks are able to submit. So far inquiries have come from Oregon, Kansas, New York, New Orleans, Alaska and Mississippi, with more to come.  I would most love people to write about the things that seem most meaningful and relevant.  My vision of this site is to have it be an open forum for exploring justice--and our vision for SW/practice--through a justice lens. All are welcome to participate, it is simply important for writers to have a commitment to justice and equality, a willingness to be a critical thinker (and encourage critical thinking), and have the intention of submitting something that will ultimately encourage others SWers to grow as justice-centered practitioners.  Welcome Community!