Chair: Liz Beddoe
Binhua Chen
Raising Critical Consciousness in Social Work through Theatre of the Oppressed
Since the rise of radical and critical social work, social workers have been expected to critically analyse and act in response to structural problems challenging service users. Over the years, the concept of critical consciousness, developed by the popular educator Freire, has gained the attention of social work scholars. However, current research has focussed more on its aspect of critical reflection, and there is still a gap in how to cultivate critical action. Influenced by Freire, Augusto Boal developed the Theatre of the Oppressed (TO), an approach which he called a ‘rehearsal of the revolution’. The TO may be instructive in how we can move beyond the cognitive level of critical consciousness in the process of consciousness-raising. Based on my experience facilitating TO workshops with practitioners and service users over the last five years in China, this paper will present TO’s potential for developing critical consciousness and action in social work.
Lauren Devine
“Processing People”
The state’s role and purpose in categorising individual vulnerabilities is opaque. Vulnerability has many causal factors, from intrinsic (e.g. ageing, disability, illness, race, culture, diversity) to extrinsic (e.g. abuse, neglect, discrimination, injury, poverty). Hyper-managerialist approaches to health and social care provision rely on categorisation to ration and deliver restricted services, failing to acknowledge categorisation historically served to ration and restrict rights. As a function of categorisation, the phenomenon of “labelling” is entrenched across social work, medicine, psychology, psychiatry, and criminology. The labels perform a heuristic function enabling agencies to assess and deliver appropriate services, but also enable state agencies to assess and restrict individual autonomy and freedoms. The research presented in this paper uses Rose’s historical lens technique “using history rather than grand theory as a way of taking apart the self-evidence of the present.” (1987). This illustrates the opaqueness in the space between formalised categorisation and coercion.
Natasha Mariette
Reforming Adult Protection in BC: The Imperative for Social Work Leadership
This paper examines the adult protection framework in British Columbia (BC), Canada and argues that social work engagement is imperative at all levels of policy and practice to achieve a human rights and socially just approach to adult protection. Adult abuse, neglect, and self-neglect is a social justice issue with devastating consequences including loss of dignity, physical and psychological harm, premature admission to facility care, financial loss, and even death. Responses to adult abuse, neglect, and self-neglect vary across jurisdictions internationally and nationally. Within Canada, each province and territory are responsible for determining its own model of adult safeguarding. In BC, the Adult Guardianship Act (AGA) designates seven agencies to respond to reports of adult abuse, neglect, and self-neglect and are unable to seek support and assistance on their own. Despite the existence of adult protection legislation, the current model in BC experiences significant challenges in protecting vulnerable adults. These challenges stem from a disconnect between macro, mezzo, and micro levels of adult protection work. Effective adult safeguarding requires collaboration and coordination across all levels. Social workers' expertise in direct service provision, understanding the complex bio-psycho-social-spiritual factors that create and perpetuate vulnerability to abuse, neglect, and self-neglect, and commitment to creating systemic change makes social work leadership crucial in transforming adult protection work in BC. Active social work engagement and leadership across macro, mezzo, and micro levels of adult protection is needed to ensure a socially just approach to adult protection in BC.
