Transforming social work’s potential in the field: a radical framework

Abstract

ABSTRACT If social work’s ethical commitment to social justice activism unearths and eradicates the root causes of inequity, then radical practice should describe the field of social work. Stemming from this commitment, social workers have an obligation to interrogate and deconstruct barriers to radical practice within themselves, their relationships, and societal structures. Two persistent tensions pose a challenge to social work’s professional identity and to reaching its radical potential: how social work vacillates between being a mechanism of social control and source of liberation; and, the false dichotomy between micro practice and macro-social justice efforts. The Transformative Potential Development Model presents a framework for resolving these tensions that are transferable across contexts and practice settings. This model grew out of critical consciousness scholarship which posits that awareness of and action against inequitable sociopolitical forces serve as an antidote to the toxicity and harm of oppression. It is comprised of four prongs, developing: critical consciousness, responsibility, efficacy, and action. This paper introduces the model as a framework through which social workers may engage in the liberatory practice. Concrete, US practice-based examples of each prong are offered, and strategies to leverage the model to engage social work students, educators, and practitioners are proposed.