Conceptualization, Implementation, and Evaluation of Anti-Racist Supervision

Addressing racism and bias within social work practice is crucial, given the social justice mandate of the profession and the profession's history of complicity in oppressive policies. Despite explicit anti-racism standards expected to guide social work practice, social workers in the US are socialized within a racially-oppressive, settler colonial society. Settler colonialism is conceptualized as "a structure, not an event...characterized by the simultaneous erasure of Indigenous peoples, and the dehumanization of other peoples, captured and enslaved for labor...[with] undergirded ideologies of White supremacy...and heteropatriarchy" (Tuck & Guishard, 2013, pp. 11-12). This socialization is a product of exposure to false dominant, socially-constructed narratives that invisibly contour individuals' frameworks under the guise of universal truths (e.g. the myth of meritocracy). It informs and shapes their worldview and practice. Further, social work historically and currently functions as an extension of the state, governing individuals as a "regulator of gendered and racialized systems of morality and social control" (Kaur Badwall, 2013, p. 11, 59). The professionalization of social work (concentrating power and control over certain activities that comprise its practice) creates an inherent contradiction with social justice (Chambon et al., 1999). Thus, addressing racism in social work practice is highly problematic for social work supervisors.

Supervisors are imbued with the responsibility of supporting and guiding supervisees towards effective and engaged social work practice that aligns with and promotes social work values and ethics. It is unclear if and from where supervisors get guidance to do this. The practitioner/supervisor dyad, similar to the therapeutic relationship, is a microcosm of society as a whole "wherein...interpersonal behavior and conditioned patterns of perceiving and feeling are manifested" (Hepworth, Rooney, Dewberry Rooney, Strom-Gottfried & Larsen, 2009, p. 552). Consequently, forces of racial oppression and race-based power differentials within US society play out within interactions between the supervisor and the practitioner (Lee & Bhuyan, 2013; Nadan et al., 2016). Race-neutral approaches to supervision may fail to appreciate the role that race in the US plays as a signifier of accumulated unearned advantage and disadvantage (C. W. Mills, 2017). In order to achieve anti-racism methods, supervisors must seek to do so, because they are as likely as their supervisees to emulate the culture of whiteness (Hair, 2015). Few examined methods, guidance, trainings, and tools exist to support supervisors in addressing racism with their supervisees. This impedes clinician development and silences a political aspect of practice (Kaul, 2016; S. Singh, 2014; Varghese, 2013). Further, it represents a lost opportunity for moving the profession away from oppressive practice.

This roundtable session will consider potential strategies for engaging in and evaluating the efficacy of anti-racist/anti-oppressive social work supervision, drawing from the presenters' research, and experiences in social work education, field instruction, and social work supervision (clinical and otherwise). Participants will have the opportunity to examine and workshop how identity, context, relationship, and intentionality facilitate and/or constrict anti-racist practice, with particular emphasis on the supervisory dyad. Implications for social work education and research will also be considered.