Abstract
Over the past decade, there has been substantial growth in empirical evidence supporting that proper assessment and treatment of trauma using evidence-based practices can effectively reduce a wide range of symptoms in both children and adults. Given the complex nature of trauma treatment, trauma-based educational programming in social work is most commonly found at the graduate level. Yet, to date, there has been little discussion calling for the inclusion of trauma content in BSW education. In this paper, we examine the current state of trauma-content inclusion in social work education, and offer a guiding framework for integrating core trauma content into the BSW curriculum that is based on the core principles of trauma-informed care.
Highlights
The continued presence of racism and white supremacy has risen to a crisis level as today’s global pandemic, police abuse targeting Black, Indigenous and other people of color (BIPOC) communities, and mass urban uprisings rock the nation
While academia has always served as a battlefront for the ideological tug-of-war between the political divides that shape and reshape this nation, the words white supremacy have emerged as signifiers of the “problem,” on the one hand, and the framework of critical race theory (CRT) as a possible pathway to repair, on the other
When I started as a full-time tenure track professor at CSULB School of Social Work, I was heartened by the embrace of the traditions of community organizing which I knew from the job search barely held legitimacy in academic social work
Summary
Some academic disciplines have centered white supremacy and the concept of CRT for decades, social work as an academic discipline has been a late comer to these discussions. The multicultural frame embedded within the two primary organizations of the social work field promotes the acknowledgement of differences, disparities, and the prioritization of vulnerable populations and until recently has fallen short of identifying racism, white supremacy, and their intersections with other categories of identity as systems of ongoing oppression (Abrams & Gibson, 2007; Jeyasingham, 2012) This stance of inclusion often reduces to an occasional mention of named marginalized others, leaving unstated the centrality of race-neutral, implicitly meaning white-centered, perspectives on social work and its sub-disciplines (Abrams & Moio, 2009; Nadan & Ben-Ari, 2012). Given the exploratory nature of the inquiry into transformational change in schools of social work, we use this case study to: (1) highlight the centrality of CRT as a guiding framework for our social change work, centered on internal transformations within our SSW; (2) employ the use of counternarratives as an example of a CRT tenet that informs this paper’s methods, and (3) draw out lessons learned from our on-the-ground experience that echo Crenshaw’s insistence that CRT not remain an intellectual exercise but, rather, serves the greater goal of social change
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