Session: The Role of Social Work in Advancing Equitable Development (Society for Social Work and Research 21st Annual Conference - Ensure Healthy Development for all Youth)

This symposium aims to illuminate multiple roles for social workers to advance equitable development agendas in their communities. PolicyLink defines equitable development as policies and practices that “combine people-based and place-based strategies; create new tools and instruments to enable low- income residents to gain an equity stake in the revitalization of their communities; and actively build the voice of residents so that they become agents of change in the development process” (2001). It today’s cities, racial and economic inequities are more stark than in recent history. In the last year, scholars concluded that urban neighborhoods are now gentrifying at twice the rate of the 1990s (Maciag, 2015), and during that same time wealth inequality among neighborhoods also dramatically increased (Pendall & Hedman, 2015). Inequitable development remains the status quo in U.S. cities: the distribution of risks and opportunities are steeply slanted to benefit affluent and disproportionately white residents, to the detriment of poorer communities and communities of color.  

Through the presentation of four empirical case studies, this session will illustrate how macro practice approaches, including community development, community organizing, planning, and systems change—can be used to advance equitable development in the city.  These studies include 1) an analysis of the Flint, MI water crisis – where every child in the city was exposed to poisoned water while General Motors was provided clean water – and how community organizing efforts by Flint residents drew a national and global call for accountability; 2) a community-engaged teaching/learning project that joined students and neighborhood change-makers in studying the effects of gentrification and advocating policy responses; 3) a study of health-effects of gentrification experienced by Black and Latino residents in Boston, MA, the findings of which were used to advance policy discourse on healthy development, and 4) the evaluation of the Neighborhood Story Project, a place-based intervention to gentrification aimed at addressing cultural, social, and political displacements in Nashville, TN. These oral presentations will be followed by an interactive dialogue that hopes to inspire increased engagement of social workers in macro practice responses to urban inequality.

This session is paramount to SSWR members for two related reasons. First, given our field’s ethical commitment to social justice and a holistic theoretical orientation to people and places, social work is uniquely positioned to shift urban development policies and practices towards justice. Social workers can make critical contributions to shaping the way cities grow and develop, broadening the conversation of who cities are designed to serve and benefit, and ensuring that the risks and opportunities provided in cities are equitably shared. Second, social work has a distinct responsibility to engage in sites of neighborhood inequity. Indeed, confronting these place-based inequities is integral to moving the needle on the ‘grand challenges’ for social work. Equitable development offers a framework for working to end homelessness, reduce extreme economic inequality, achieve equal opportunity and justice, eradicate social isolation, and close the health gap.