Foundations of Social Work: Decolonized and Anti-Oppressive Practice Notes

Guiding Principles

• Four guiding principles: kindness, honesty, sharing, and strength, forming the basis for respectful and healing practices.
  • Kindness: fosters a supportive, nonjudgmental environment that enables open dialogue.
  • Honesty: encourages truthful engagement, accountability, and transparency in interactions.
  • Sharing: promotes mutual aid, collaboration, and the co-creation of knowledge.
  • Strength: emphasizes resilience, empowerment, and capacity-building in individuals and communities.

Decolonized and Anti-Oppressive Lens

• The chapters introduce the foundations of social work through a decolonized and anti-oppressive lens.
• This lens shapes questions, methods, and goals to challenge colonial legacies within practice.

Colonization and Canada’s Social Services

• Students explore how colonization shaped Canada's social services.
• Key focal points include:
  • Residential schools and their ongoing impacts.
  • Cultural genocide as a consequence of colonial policies.
  • Intergenerational trauma resulting from disruption of families and communities.

Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC)

• The TRC's work is discussed within this framework.
• A central message: reconciliation requires action, not just apology.
• The content invites consideration of how to implement Calls to Action in practice and policy (as implied by the emphasis on action).

Key Concepts: Colonial Privilege, Racism, and Systemic Oppression

• Introduction to concepts that remain embedded in contemporary institutions:
  • Colonial privilege
  • Racism
  • Systemic oppression
• These concepts help explain how power operates within current social services and policy structures.

Patriarchal Privilege and Gender Inequality

• Examination of patriarchal privilege and gender inequality.
• Highlights the prevalence of violence against women.
• Emphasizes the importance of feminist frameworks for challenging these injustices and guiding practice.

Historical Roots of Social Work

• Social work emerged alongside capitalism and colonialism.
• The field often reinforced social hierarchies rather than promoting justice.
• This historical critique motivates rethinking social work toward equity and inclusion.

Activities: Power Mapping and Reimagining Institutions

• Mapping systems of power as a pedagogical activity to reveal how privilege operates.
• Reimagining institutions to explore alternative, more just configurations.
• Encourages critical engagement with privilege and the ways resistance can create change.

Goals for Practice: Challenging Oppressive Systems and Supporting Indigenous Leadership

• Aim to challenge oppressive systems at structural and everyday levels.
• Support Indigenous knowledge and leadership within social services and policy.
• Work toward equitable and inclusive social services that honor diverse communities.

Ethical, Philosophical, and Practical Implications

• Ethical implications: duty to act on what reconciliation and anti-oppressive practice require.
• Philosophical implications: rethinking justice, power, and knowledge in social work.
• Practical implications: integration of Indigenous leadership, decolonized methods, and anti-racist practices into curricula, fieldwork, and service delivery.

Connections to Foundational Principles and Real-World Relevance

• Aligns with foundational principles of equity, dignity, and social justice in social work.
• Bridges theory with real-world relevance by examining how systems operate and how change can be enacted in communities and institutions.
• Encourages ongoing reflection on how to translate ethical commitments into concrete actions in policy, practice, and community engagement.