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Abolition in Social Work: Imagining New Modalities of Anti-Racist Practice
Michelle E. Grier
Vivianne Guevara
Cameron W. Rasmussen
Brianna Suslovic
Social workers must take a closer look at our complicity in carceral systems, including the family regulation system (a system upheld by the field). In this space, members of the Network to Advance Abolition in Social Work (NAASW) facilitate a workshop sharing how they and their comrades in the field are imagining ways to decarcerate care and move toward abolitionist and supportive practices. Mariame Kaba says “Hope is a discipline.” At this moment where folks are fighting to find hope, come be in community, share and learn about the ways organizers and practitioners are getting creative by holding abolition + social work as intertwined modes of anti-racist praxis.
ECCHO: Engaging Communities to Change Health Outcomes
Kadijha Marquardt-Davis
ECCHO is a civic engagement training program that seeks to improve community health outcomes by engaging those most impacted by generational and systemic racism in Dane, Milwaukee, and Rock county. During the 2 year training program, participants work together as a cohort to design and implement a community-based project that meets the health and civic health needs of their community.
The Intersectionality of Social Work and Immigration: A Complex Crisis
Fabiola Hamdan
This session will explore the complex interplay between social work and immigration, focusing on the needs of vulnerable immigrant populations. Participants will engage in discussions about the various layers of challenges these individuals face and the importance of a collaborative, holistic approach to support.
Organizing to Build Power and Make Change
Stephon Whitley
This is a workshop on Power. The objective is to help participants understand and grapple with the concept of power. This workshop is meant to help individuals understand the key element of affecting change.
Palestine and Social Work Collective Action
This workshop will explore social work’s relationship to the accelerated genocide in Gaza, and consider feminist abolitionist praxis for social work collective action.
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Abortion Funds as Collective Care: Organizing for Reproductive Justice in a Post-Dobbs America
Alison Dreith
Irma Garcia
Kelsea McLain
Ali Muldrow
Porsha Pinder
Celina Doria (facilitator)
Access to abortion is a critical part of achieving reproductive justice; yet accessing such essential healthcare has been curtailed by rising anti-abortion legislation and compounded by social and economic inequities. Abortion funds have played a critical role in filling this gap by providing support to pregnant people seeking access to abortion care. They do so by offering logistical and financial support, including by paying for abortion procedures, medications, travel-related costs, lodging, and childcare support. The grassroots organizing of abortion funds is rooted in the principles of mutual aid, collective care, and reproductive justice, as they support the right to bodily autonomy and safe, supported communities. In this panel, we will hear from panelists representing abortion funds in several states, ranging from Wisconsin and Maryland to Alabama and Texas, as they share their expertise on how to organize for reproductive justice in a post-Dobbs environment.
Building Trust, Cultivating Liberation: Lessons from Immigrant Community Organizing During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Jenni Martinez-Lorenzo
Alejandra Perez
This workshop explores relationship and trust-building with immigrant communities by learning from and with movements, bringing social movement practices into social work and education. Participants will engage with two case studies—a COVID-19 vaccine clinic for Latinx immigrants and a COVID-19 Relief Fund for undocumented immigrants—to explore community organizing tactics during the pandemic. Together, we will uncover how trust is cultivated as a foundation for collective survival and envisioning new possibilities for liberation. Join us to reflect on lessons from these efforts and explore how to integrate them into educational and organizing spaces.
Developing Abolitionist Perspectives in School Social Work
Dr. Krystal Folk-Nagua
Dr. Brandon Mitchell
The educational system continues to be oriented around punitive, deficit-based, culturally oppressive, and pathologizing trends – that are intricately related to educational inequities, academic exclusion, and hostility toward youth. Although school social workers (SSWs) receive education and training oriented around ethics, ecology, equity, and justice – their practice, at times, may reinforce the status quo and exacerbate inequities. To re-imagine youth-centered, holistic support and justice-oriented practice, we bring forward abolitionist perspectives in SSW to shift from punishing frameworks toward mechanisms of healing.
In this session, we open up conversations between the presenters and participants to discuss the history of the profession and contemporary challenges in SSW and outline avenues toward abolishing punishing frameworks with attention to uprooting racial inequities. We delve deep into a review of the literature, analyze a case study behavioral vignette, and build collaborative tools to uplift and heal youth. Confronting racial injustice in schools demands that our attention shift toward an assessment of the punitive frameworks to outline justice-oriented practice that abolishes the misguided perception that youth are the problem in need of correction or intervention. Seeing youth as the solution can help us promote inclusivity, equity, and healing mechanisms.
Mutual Aid--Our Survival and Our Liberation
Myranda (Rand) Warden
This presentation will engage participants in the process of mutual aid, highlighting the history of the concept and practice, the nine dynamics of the mutual aid process as articulated by Steinberg (2014), and how social workers can engage mutual aid at every level of practice.
Transforming Mental Health: Histories of Resistance and Cross-Movement Strategies for a Liberatory Future
Noah Gokul
Nia Nelson
The Institute for the Development of Human Arts (IDHA) is a transformative mental health training institute dedicated to systemic change and holistic care. In this workshop, we will examine the carceral underpinnings of the mental health system – how it perpetuates white supremacy, racial hierarchies, and logics of surveillance, coercion, and control – while exploring opportunities for systemic transformation. Through an intersectional lens, participants will engage with histories of resistance, both within and outside the formal mental health system, that center lived experience and address the root causes of trauma and distress. Uplifting a cross-movement approach, this session will draw connections between movements for mental health liberation, disability justice, racial justice, and more, inviting participants to envision and co-create pathways toward care systems grounded in justice, autonomy, and collective liberation.