Rejecting God And Social Work
Term paper for History and Philosophy of Social Work
Fear, a psychological phenomenon often said to be the cause for emergence of god or religion is a quite old view, as... more Fear, a psychological phenomenon often said to be the cause for emergence of god or religion is a quite old view, as old as ancient Greeks and Romans. Ancient Roman philosopher and poet Lucretius contended that “the belief in gods was based on illusion and that fear was the root of religion”.
Download (.docx) Queering Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services: The Subversion of Heteronormativity in Practice
published in: Children & Society
Keywords: adultism; classism; heteronormativity; intersectionality; mad studies; sanism; sexism; sexuality
This article explores the exercise of heterosexist-infused power relations within a Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) inpatient unit in the UK. The ways in which heterosexism may wield its power within CAMHS in conjunction with the support of sexism, adultism, classism and sanism are discussed. That is, this article contributes to the understanding and subverting of heteronormativity in practice. With this focus in mind, other forms of intersecting oppressions are detailed to highlight the role they play in both controlling young people and teaching them about the workings of patriarchy and social norms. The aim of the article is to contribute to the disruption of the heteronormativity inherent in the arrangements within CAMHS and the dominant normative practice that produces multiple subjectivities in this setting.
The dominance of risk assessment in child protection: Is it risky?
2003. Social Work Review: Vol. 15, No. 1/2, pp33-36
Engaging practitioners with critical reflection: issues and dilemmas
Reflective Practice: 2007. Vol. 8, No. 1, pp61-74
This paper presents a reflective account of my teaching practice with health practitioners who work as school nurses... more This paper presents a reflective account of my teaching practice with health practitioners who work as school nurses in the secondary education system in regional Victoria, Australia. It highlights some of the issues and dilemmas that emerged during my experiences, as a social work educator, facilitating workshops about critically reflective learning as a cross-disciplinary enterprise. Using critical reflection, this paper also raises questions regarding how we might respond to some of the challenges to improve future approaches to teaching critical reflection.
Towards critical social work practice in mental health
Journal of Progressive Human Services: successor to catalyst: a social journal of the social services: 2003. Vol. 14, No. 1, pp61-84
Progressive social work perspectives that draw on both critical theories and postmodern thought, provide highly... more Progressive social work perspectives that draw on both critical theories and postmodern thought, provide highly relevant and appropriate frameworks to inform social work practice in the mental health field. Despite this, the literature overviewed indicates that the majority of social work practice conducted in mental health settings reflects an uncritical embrace of the medical model of psychiatric illness, and therefore largely neglects social work approaches which utilize critical principles. The following article explores the possibilities for applying a critical model of social work practice to the mental health field, and argues the necessity for social workers to actively engage with critical practice, even in medically dominated settings, to effectively work towards the espoused social justice ethics and mission of the social work profession.
Repositioning Social Work in Mental Health: Challenges and Opportunities for Critical Practice
with Salma MacFarlane, in Critical Social Work: 2010. Vol. 11, No. 2, pp.46-59
This paper emerges in response to the recent initiative by the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) to... more This paper emerges in response to the recent initiative by the Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) to mandate the inclusion of specific, clinically based mental health curriculum into qualifying social work programs across Australia. Whilst the authors affirm the importance of an emphasis of mental health in social work education, we further suggest that the professional repositioning of social work in mental health must be informed by critical/postmodern theoretical approaches. If social work is to engender and maintain its unique and vital role in problematising simplistic, depoliticised and individualising constructions of mental health and illness, we need to promote more contextualised and holistic understandings of people’s experiences. The paper concludes by offering an example of critical mental health curriculum.
Diseased Race, Racialized Disease: The Story of the Negro Project of American Social Hygiene Association Against the Backdrop of the Tuskegee Syphilis …
Published in Journal of African American Studies, 2010, Vol. 14, No. 2, 247-262.
This article traces the history of the Negro Project of American Social Hygiene Association, which began in the early... more This article traces the history of the Negro Project of American Social Hygiene Association, which began in the early 1940s and faded away into obscurity by the middle of the decade. The article then compares and contrasts the story of the Negro Project with that of the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, and argues that the stereotypical and predominant notions of racial black masculinity in the United States were at the root of the reason why the Negro Project failed while the Tuskegee study prospered. While the Tuskegee study conformed to the grand narrative of racial black masculinity, the Negro Project constructed itself as counter-hegemonic to that grand narrative, contributing to its premature termination. The juxtaposition of the two stories reveals the complexity of the narrative of African American masculinity within the United States.