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Living a life free from racism and discrimination is a human right. Yet, this right is far from a lived reality. The effects of racism are so far reaching that in April 2021, the CDC declared racism a public health emergency (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021). As an aim to address this crisis social work has recently been added antiracism practice as a specific area of focus to be incorporated across all social work competency areas. Fortuitously,, the invitation of this year’s theme of “Recentering & Democratizing Knowledge: The Next 30 Years of Social Work Science” is indeed a necessary call to action that invites social workers to take position at the forefront of conducting and reporting out research that emphasizes the recentering, prioritizing and reimagining of knowledge that is needed to critically intervene with clients who continue to experience the effects of racism. This presentation seeks to do this by recentering and prioritizing the voices of clinical social workers with a stated commitment towards antiracism praxis.
Though social work is committed to working with and on behalf of marginalized groups, the conversation on what it means to operationalize anti-racism in a way that has a significant impact on clinical practice is a recent discussion. Yet to be determined is how antiracism principles translate to micro level, direct clinical practice with clients. Additionally, to date, there is little empirical research exploring what it means to actualize anti-racism in clinical social work practice. In response to this gap, the proposed presentation reports preliminary findings from a qualitative exploration on translating teaching and learning about anti-racism principles into clinical social work practice. Principles of decoloniality will be integrated into discussion of findings. Emphasis is placed on identifying strategies to enhance clinical interventions and on decolonizing knowledge.
Methods
Eighteen clinical social work educators and clinicians with an identified commitment toward anti-racism participated in a qualitative study regarding their perspectives on translating anti-racism to clinical social work practice. All participants self-reported having a personal commitment toward advancing anti-racism in their work. Semi structured interviews were conducted to explore the methods by which anti racism principles were incorporated into their clinical practice with clients. Grounded theory analysis was used to identify core themes.
Results
Findings revealed that anti-racism has to be embraced as a lifestyle in order to be practiced. Emerged themes of intentional relationship, anti-racist boundaries, embodied commitment, mechanisms of accountability and levels of action will be explored in an effort to explore what antiracism as a lifestyle entails and how it may contribute to clinical social work practice and toward bridging the identified gap between theory and practice. These findings will be discussed through the lens of decolonial praxis, examining and reexamining how all ways of knowing, especially and including in research, are influenced by colonial thinking and will be critically explored.
Conclusion
Preliminary findings identify some of the gaps that exist between theory and practice, which has implications for social work in making anti-racism practice more explicit.