Critical Clinical Social Work: Counterstorying for Social Justice. Catrina Brown & Judy E. MacDonald (Eds.). Canadian Scholars’ Press, 2020, 442 pages

2021 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 149
Author(s):  
Harjeet Kaur Badwall
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Clinical Social Work

scholarly journals COVID-19 and the calls of humanistic social work: Exploring the developmental-clinical social work concerns of the pandemic

2021 ◽  
pp. 002087282110079
Author(s):  
Robert K Chigangaidze
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Global Health ◽  
Technological Innovation ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Clinical Social Work ◽  
Health Community ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Face

Any health outbreak is beyond the biomedical approach. The COVID-19 pandemic exposes a calamitous need to address social inequalities prevalent in the global health community. Au fait with this, the impetus of this article is to explore the calls of humanistic social work in the face of the pandemic. It calls for the pursuit of social justice during the pandemic and after. It also calls for a holistic service provision, technological innovation and stewardship. Wrapping up, it challenges the global community to rethink their priorities – egotism or altruism. It emphasizes the ultimate way forward of addressing the social inequalities.

Critical Clinical Social Work and the Neoliberal Constraints on Social Justice in Mental Health

2021 ◽  
pp. 104973152098453
Author(s):  
Catrina Brown
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Professional Education ◽  
Clinical Social Work ◽  
Clinical Approach ◽  
Health Practice ◽  
Mental Health Practice ◽  
The Individual

Despite a strong history of social justice–based social work professional education in Canada, there has not been an intentional integration of direct critical clinical mental health practice with social justice–based theory. Progressive social work has tended to view clinical work as focusing on the individual and failing to contribute to social change. In this article, I elaborate upon a critical clinical social work approach influenced by postmodern critique, and feminist-, narrative-, and collaborative-based practice rooted in critical theory. Critical clinical practice disrupts the individual/social binary through counterviewing unhelpful dominant social discourses and producing counterstories that participate in social resistance. I explore the constraints of neoliberalism on social work mental health practice and its influence on the ability of social workers to practice social justice–based social work. Neoliberalism constrains social workers’ ability to address the social and structural determinants of mental health through its focus on economic rationalization, biomedicalization, and individual responsibilization, alongside rationalized practices that emphasize evidence-based and short-term efficiency-based models. I argue that social work is facing a crisis as a disempowered profession, as it attempts to reconcile its commitment to social justice and the importance of addressing inequity, marginalization, and oppression while often working in settings that demand the subordination of social work knowledge to neoliberal biomedicalism. Under these conditions, a critical clinical approach to mental health practice is needed now more than ever.

scholarly journals Clinical Social Workers: Advocates for Social Justice

10.18060/209 ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Marie McLaughlin
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Clinical Social Work ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Clinical Social Workers ◽  
Clinical Social Work Practice ◽  
Advocacy Role

Advocacy activities provide an avenue for all social workers to connect their practice with the profession’s aim of social justice. In fact, it is this social justice connection to the advocacy role that may distinguish social work from other professions. Yet advocacy remains a controversial practice for many clinical social workers. This study reports on one aspect of a larger study (McLaughlin, 2006), which examined how clinical social workers in mental health conceptualized social justice as part of their work. The data revealed a strong relationship exists between clinical social work practice, social justice and advocacy. The concept of advocacy that emerged from the data was multi-dimensional and included strategies that were instrumental, educational, and practical.

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