Diversity in Social Action

It is relevant to address diversity within social action movements. While social activism or social action is not synonymous to community organizing, often times effective community organizing will employ social action in order to accomplish goals for its constituency. When planning effective social actions there needs to be a cohesive community organizing practice where local stakeholders are trained to emerge as leaders, a variety of voices are considered, and community resources and strengths are assessed. 

Community organizing and social action are dynamic processes that ideally originates from within the pertaining community and its residents. The stakeholder's subjective experiences, shaped by race, gender, class, sexual orientation and disability, is crucial when assessing the origins of a social movement. In Celene Krauss article, Women of Color on the Front Line (2010), in Race, Class and Gender: An Anthology, women's differing roles in toxic waste protests and mobilizations are discussed. She employs a feminist lens to better understand how women's experiences and intentions in activism can be shaped by their roles and pre-existing social hierarchies.

White working class women were often drawn into toxic waste protests on behalf of their roles as mothers. A social work strengths based perspective is employed when Krauss considers how these women's extended social networks within their communities and families provided them with a vehicle for information dissemination and community organizing. Traditional female gatherings such as Tupperware parties, which might make most feminists including myself cringe, served as a catalyst when women in a Detroit suburb began to discuss negative health patterns in their community. Krauss's perspective allowed me to reconsider certain traditional female roles and expectation as potentials for strength and transformation. Kraus provided other examples of how white working class women tied their values to motherhood and democracy and these convictions helped them politicize and reconsider inequities related to power and gender. 

Pregnant women protest the use of harmful chemicals outside of German Chancellor Angela Merkel's office

(retrieved from http://www.greenpeace.org/eu-unit/en/campaigns/chemicals/)

Krauss points out that African American women's toxic waste protests originated from a different angle. Their involvement arose alongside issues of race inequality and political disenfranchisement. Similarly to the experiences of Native American women in environmental protests, their awareness of racial oppression connects to a wider political context where toxic waste is seen as "environmental racism". Within a social work perspective, its crucial to understand the subjective experiences of different groups of people and how they might approach and impact macro scale issues. Assessing strengths within different communities might vary according to people's experiences, roles and perceptions of themselves. 

Perspectives on Community Organizing

Conflict versus Consensus Organizing

Community organizing focuses on shifting inequitable balances of power which adversely effect and/or alienate a population. Conflict organizing & consensus organizing are two modes of community organizing that employ different strategies for community intervention. There is also differences in the projected outcome of these two approaches. 

Conflict organizing is often aimed at calling people's attention to a certain problem or condition and it assumes that the opposing side must concede to a demand. It might be based on contesting power hierarchies and battling for a specific or set of causes. Consensus organizing is focused on implementing a project that builds on the mutual self interest of both sides rather than forcing a concession from the opposing side. A consensus organizer can't necessarily afford to disrupt or demonize the other side as one of their main focuses will be based on finding common ground. Prof Hawkin's summarized one of his student's reflections on consensus organizing: "What Ive learned through this process is that I can better get what I want by figuring out how to help you get what you want". Essentially a consensus organizer must put themselves in the shoes of the person or organization they will be negotiating with.

Saul Alinsky, considered the grandfather of conflict organizing, urged activists to consider how symbols are used to convey messages. We discussed in Prof Hawkin's class how Alinsky was attuned to the idea that if you want to use a metafor to convey discontent then you must understand how that metaphor is going to be interpreted by the general public or target audience. Alinksy was opposed to the use of flag burning in opposition to the Vietnam war because it did not effectively communicate a solution or alternative to war and further offended and alienated the public from the anti-war movement.

One of the differences between the two different modes of community organizing is the outcome and strategy for achieving this outcome. At the end of conflict organizing you are trying to achieve a succession from the opposition. For example when Dolores Huerta and Cezar Chaves were organizing the Delano Grape Strike with the United Farm Workers they used boycotts and picketing efforts in order to establish a minimum wage and collective bargaining rights for immigrant farm workers. They collaborated with several other unions in order to achieve an effective and cohesive boycott, such as the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, who would not load nonunion grapes onto shipments. The boycott eventually lead to their victory against the DiGiorgio Corporation and Schenley Industries. 

One of the first figure that comes to my mind when I think about community organizing in the United States is Dolores Huerta. She is an accomplished community organizer that lead stikes and political rallies mobilizing Latinos towards union organizing, labour rights, gender equality and political representation. Along with Cesar Chaves she cofounded the National Farmworkers Association in 1962. Her foundation's mission is "to create a network of organized communities pursuing social justice through systemic and structural transformation". 

National Women's Hall of Fame video about D. Huerta

I found the following excerpts especially relevant to the social work values of employing a strengths based approach, acknowledging the self determination of your client and working to help people empower themselves. “As an organizer you also have to keep in mind that....when people get involved they really transform, they get stronger and the work that they do transforms other people and that makes the community stronger and our world stronger.”

Huerta, shortly after receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom

While not all the contents of this next TED video below are relevant to this post, starting at minute 6:45 Emiliano Salinas describes an example of coordinated civil action or non violent community organizing that is startling and effective in the face of terrorism and fear.

I was having a hard time thinking of how a consensus approach could be employed in situations where entities are fundamentally at odds, human rights have been violated and oppressive practices employed.  I then remembered the amnesty decision during Brasil's transition from dictatorship to democracy. In order for the country to transition as a cohesive unit and collaborate in establishing a democracy, both sides of the long standing conflict between the authoritative military power establishment and the opposition that often times employed violence to oppose the regime, were pardoned of their crimes. This enabled both sides to work together in the future and established some common ground. If there had not been vocal and effective opposition to the military regime via conflict organizing, the opportunity for consensus organizing might not have occurred. Perhaps the necessity and use of these two different modes are reflective of unique moments in history, such that successful conflict organizing can lay the framework for future consensus organizing. 

Community Practice

Strategies for Community Outreach 
(discussed on Nov 4th 2012 by Prof. Hawkins/University of Pittsburgh)

Three modes of community outreach will be discussed within a social work perspective in this post. It remains necessary while considering these distinct modes, to recognize how often times these approaches can be employed simultaneously. Social work practice does not exist in a vacuum and dynamic interlinked practices can strengthen and build upon each other. 

Locality Development

One of the primary goals within a locality development framework is to engage distinct members of a community within a common space. A vehicle for this is to create a physical place where people come together to share a sense of community. This mode of community practice attempts to approach a previously fragmented neighborhood and foster a space where shared experiences, resources and information can be exchanged. The settlement house movement beginning in the late 1800's is an early representation of effective locality development. Jane Adam's 'Hull House' settlement in Chicago is an example of this type of intervention, embodying the value that an individual should be considered and 'treated' within their environment. A person in the environment (PIE) perspective is a key social work value employed within locality development, urging social workers to reform the social and economic environment rather than individually diagnosing an alienated individual. 

Cultural and recreational centers such as the YMCA also fit into this paradigm of community outreach. These centers along with settlement houses were aimed at addressing diverse immigrant populations, assisting with their transition into American society. Initiatives aimed at creating common ground in order to adress rootlessness, disengaged citizens and weak social networks, created social and cultural capital. Accesible and cooperative civic spaces attempted to create a more cohesive society while simultaneously providing essential social services such as child care, medical care, vocational training, cultural workshops and more. Within this locality development, the target population is often viewed as 'citizens', due to a historical attempt to increase people's ability to cooperate and contribute as productive citizens. Within a strengths based approach, a responsible intervention would include different cultural and personal insights. 

Social Planning

Driving questions within a social planning perspective is: How can services be coordinated to better serve a community? What are the primarily gaps in services and resources in the community? Effectively addressing these questions implies a great deal of inter agency networking in order to both adress gaps and create a comprehensive continuum of care. It entails pulling together resources from different organizations to create a consistent intervention. This approach would view their target population either as clients or consumers because they would be generally coming for assistance or services on an individual or family basis. The Mon Valley Providers Council is a program of the Human Services Center Corporation in Turtle Creek, PA. The MVPC provides interagency links and formalizes an alliance between diverse service providers in the region. They discuss and strategize how to better serve the community by bridging gaps in services, creating a more cohesive network of servies, and establishing working groups on housing, health, employment and youth. A list of all their member organizations can be seen HERE. Connecting previously fragmented social service agencies into a cohesive and communicable alliance is a key goal within a social planning framework.

Social Action

Also known as 'community action', a social action paradigm frequently focuses on advocacy and thus it views its target population as constituents. A primary goal of social action is to call the pubic's attention to social problems that are otherwise out of sight. Education, lobbying and mobilization are all tools for social action. Social Action will be further discussed in an ensuing post. 

And finally

Its worth remembering that each mode of community organizing will have distinct ways of interacting with its target population. Within a general social work practice, we refer to the people we are professionally interacting with as clients, constituents, consumers and citizens. Each label carries with it a set of expectations and implications that fall on a spectrum ranging from voluntary to involuntary relationships. There has been a general trend to adress clients as consumers since the title 'consumer' implies a voluntary and perhaps empowering transaction, or at the very least acknowledges a person's choice in services.  Therefore we should remain attuned to how professionals label their target populations, as that provides  valuable information on the nature of their professional interaction and frames their practice within the different modes of social work practice. 

Narrative Nature of Social Work Assessment

Social work assessments can often embody a narrative nature in order to best draw out a client's story. There are several questions a social worker must adress, answer and assess by the end of the assessment process, ranging from micro to macro level problems, strengths and resources. 

retrieved from http://ocw.usu.edu/university_extension/conversation-on-instructional-design/index.html

A narrative assessment should enable your client to make their own discoveries and notice patterns in behaviors or events. When addressing a problematic behavior, it is essential to ask your client: What is the outcome of the behavior? This question is especially important as it can empower the client to self-adress the outcome, aftermath or consequences of a behavior. A social worker's goal within a direct practice paradigm often might entail encouraging self-awareness via self-reflection. This relates to the key social work value of self determination. At best a narrative extends a client's awareness beyond what they have thought about previously by encouraging the assessment to be a discovery process. 

Dynamic questions should help the client create a narrative or story about their behavior which moves them beyond a fragmented view of actions and events to a cohesive story and reflective mode. If people are conscious of their behavior, that gives them something concrete to work with. This moves the social worker beyond passivity,  as they must remain an active listener to help address these questions while giving the client tools to solve a problem. Assessment questions encourage the client to become self reflective regarding their problems and why they are seeing you by tying together different fragments of a problem into a narrative. 

In order to avoid a "one size fits all" mentality within your intervention, a personal and comprehensive assessment must be conducted! 

The Social Work Assessment Process

There are three initial topics social workers must address within direct practice assessments:

1. In the client's perspective, what is his or her primary goal and/or concern?
2. Are there legal mandates that must be met by the social worker and client?
3. Are there immediate or chronic health and safety concerns?
(Hepworth, Rooney, Rooney, and Strom-Gottfried. Direct Social Work Practice: Theory and Skill. 173-174 ) 


How is the Assessment Process linked to Core Social Work Values?

Tools for assessment should remain tightly knit to core social work values. At the top of our list: social workers must address and acknowledge their client's right to self-determination. The client needs to be invested in the process in order to make progress. The social worker's pre-assessment goals might not necessarily be critical within the client's perspective. By encouraging the client to explain and establish their concerns, mutual reciprocity within the client/provider relationship can be established. In addition to having someone listen and empathize with you, it is empowering to find your voice. With the heightened awareness of your client's right to self-determination, social workers should encourage their clients to voice their goals and problems. Within a problem solving mode with another person, a social worker must bridge the needs and objectives of the client with imposed agency or mandated goals. 

Assessments consider a "person in the environment" perspective. The social worker should investigate the client's environmental conditions. The following questions should be adressed as part of the assessment:  What is your client's habitat and what specific roles (their niche) do they play in their habitat? What social systems impact them and how do these impact them positively and/or negatively? What are social safety nets that the client relies on for support? What additional social safety nets might your client be able to connect with in order to receive more support?  People do not exist in a vacuum! Thus it is essential to understand the interconnected systems that impact your client and vice versa.  Cultural competency is a key social work value and skill during this part of the process.  In order to gain a holistic view of the client's habitat the social worker must consider different cultural norms and roles in addition to barriers this client's group might face. Drawing  an ecomap, such as the one below, with the client might be a useful tool during the assessment process. 

image from: http://home.earthlink.net/~mattaini/Ecosystems.html

Understanding your client's habitat allows the social worker to more effectively employ a strengths based approach during the assessment process.  Personal and environmental strengths should be considered. Personal strengths might include: resilience in the face of stress and hardship, confronting rather than avoiding problems, knowing when to seek help and being resourceful. Environmental strengths might include: support groups, family, friends, religious affiliations, institutional affiliations and community involvement such as volunteerism.  

Diagnosis versus Assessment-

While social workers might rely on both of these tools, it is important to highlight their clear differences. Social work assessments posit a holistic view of the client, considering people do not live in a vacum and people's individual problems exist in a wider social context. It accounts for the several different formal and informal systems interacting with your client as potential sources of strength or stress. Diagnosis takes a symptoms based approach to label a condition, such as a medical or mental health condition. Diagnostic tools can sometimes be used as part of a comprehensive assessment. Diagnosis and assessment are not interchangeable terms or processes.     

Micro, Mezzo and Macro Social Work

Micro, Mezzo and Macro Social Work  -

Micro Level practice focuses on personal interaction with your client or consumer on an individual level or with a couple or family. A micro-level intervention could entail a clinical social worker interacting with a client at a mental health facility. Alternatively, it could encompass a school social worker counseling a truant student or a caseworker working one on one with a client at a homeless shelter.

Mezzo Level intervention entails bringing people together who are not as intimate as a couple or family members, but might mutually build and benefit from this social or resource network. It might directly change the system that is affecting a client, such as a classroom or neighborhood group. Examples of mezzo scale work includes group therapy counseling, self-help groups or neighborhood community associations. 

Macro Level practice focuses on systemic issues. It might include creating and maintaining a network of service providers in order to establish a continuum of care. Macro level intervention can intersect with the political realm by creating and lobbying for policy changes. The planning, implementation and maintenance of a social programs are also processes which macro scale practice is aplicable. Coordinating multiple services and policy work offers an opportunity to address several intersecting social problems. 

http://savedsister7.blogspot.com/2012/03/you-knowthose-people.html

Ecological System's HABITAT and NICHE

Keep in mind: "Ecological systems theory posits that individuals constantly engage in transactions with other humans and with other systems in the environment, and that these individuals and systems reciprocally influence each other" (Hepworth, Rooney, Rooney, and Strom-Gottfried. Direct Social Work Practice: Theory and Skill. 15). Considering this perspective, comprehensively understanding and actively considering your client's environment is a crucial social work skill. 

Habitat- A person's habitat includes the different physical places they inhabit, the social systems that they interact with and the formal and informal institutional affiliations they have. For example, a person's habitat might include their educational institution, their religious affiliation, their neighborhood, their friends, their professional environment and/or their family.

Niche- A niche describes that person's role in their habitat. People have multiple roles within their different habitats, providing them with contextual meanings. A person might derive self-worth and dignity from their functions or alternatively their niche might highlight oppressive and disenfranchising situations. Within an educational institution, someone might be an instructor, while simultaneously being a volunteer at their local food pantry. A person's niche contextualizes different hierarchies, contributes to their identity and modulates social and institutional interactions. 

Socially Engaged Art

Art and Activism

I mentioned my interest in the intersections between art and activism in my first blog post.  I want to take a moment to give this topic some more attention and provide some examples of artists who use their profession as a platform for social change.

The Yes Men

The Yes Men are often considered performance artists. In my mind they are primarily activists who use performance art, technology and social media to debunk corporate lies, bring awareness to environmental and human rights issues and thus incite social change. Their masterfully crafted "pranks" bring to light corporate abuses that otherwise might never make it to the main stream media. In the video above (a personal favorite) Andy Bichlbaum, one of the two Yes Men, is posing as Jude Finisterra a DOW Chemicals spokesman during an interview for the BBC. He claims responsibility for the Union Carbide Bhopal  gas leak in India, which killed and debilitated thousands of people living near the chemical plant. 


Ai Weiwei 

In light of social media's highlighted importance in Prof. Hawkin's Generalist Social Work Class, I thought Ai Weiwei's art would be especially relevant to discuss. Ai Weiwei has repeatedly stressed the role of social media in democracy, and much of his art relies on it. Via electronic collaboration and hands on community investigation, he gathered 5,000 student's names who perished during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, due to the collapse of poorly built government schools. In relation to this incident, he also published findings on corruption and the withholding of victim numbers and names by the government. His influential blog was blacklisted and blocked shortly after. In the recent documentary, Ai Weiwei, Never Sorry, he stresses the belief that all artist should be concerned with protecting freedom of expression. In his piece Sunflowers, installed at the Tate Modern, he commissioned 100 million hand painted porcelain sunflower seeds to be spread on the gallery's floor. This piece brings to light issues surrounding mass consumption, loss of identity and industrial labour. He is a globally influential figure who is constantly using his position to speak out for freedom of speech and expression. His TED talk (shown above) is worth watching.

Links to relevant projects -

Waiting for Godot New Orleans

Conflict Kitchen

Waffle Shop

And finally: A little bit of theory goes a long way -

"Questions emerge from the perception that social work and socially engaged art are interchangeable or at least that an action in one area may successfully become meaningful in another. It is true that in some cases a social work project that effects change in a positive manner in a community could also fall under the subject  of artwork. Similarly, an artist may share the same or similar values with a social worker, making some forms of SEA appear indistinguishable from social work, which further complicates the blurring between the two areas.
However, social work and SEA, while they operate in the same ecosystems and can look strikingly similar, differ widely in their goals. Social work is a value-based profession based on a tradition of beliefs and systems that aim for the betterment of humanity and support ideals such as social justice, the defense of human dignity and worth, and the strengthening of human relationships. An artist, in contrast, may subscribe to the same values but make work that ironizes, problematizes,and even enhances tensions around those subjects, in order to provoke reflection".
-Pablo Helguera from his book Education for Socially Engaged Art (page 35) 

Images of Social Work

What images do others have of social work as a profession?


In preparation for this blog entry I asked peers, strangers and relatives what they think a social worker's profession entails. As you might imagine, I did not receive an unanimous answer, although there was a recurring theme. The similarities mostly surrounded the notion that a social worker must have the capacity for empathy. Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines empathy as: "the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner".   I will provide some background on three of the people I spoke to and summarize their images of social workers.

Betsy:A middle-aged woman who has weekly contact with the mental health system while caring for her mother suffering from severe major depressive disorder. Betsy was well aware of a Licensed Clinical Social Worker's role in administering psychotherapy. She is a very lively and personable woman, and thus had spoken to her mother's therapist on several occasions. The therapist once complained to her about the poor wages she was earning. Thus, due to this particular interaction, Betsy relayed to me that she felt social workers were probably underpaid. She also thought social workers could be found in many NGOs, adoption agencies, aid organizations, and public schools. 


Cassandra:
A young successful woman working at an investment bank who has had little exposure to the role of a social worker. Cassandra told me she had recently seen a TED video (Technology, Education and Design conferences whose content is shared online) by a social work professor and researcher at the University of Houston called Brené Brown. This video changed her view of the role of a social worker. Cassandra expressed she understood that the social work proffesion entailed research in a field she previously thought was primarily practiced by psychology researchers. I watched the TED videos afterwards, and listened to Brown talk about vulnerabilty, shame and empathy. She focused mostly on shame though, and I found these excerpts, from "Listening to shame" to be particularly relevant to a social worker: We "cannot talk about race without talking about privilege and when people start talking about privilege they get paralized by shame" & "Shame is highly, highly correlated with addiction, depression, violence, agression, bullying, suicide, eating disorders". I recommend viewing her TED talks:

Brené Brown: Listening to shame

Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability 

Ralph:
A young man who is finishing his PhD in Neuroscience. He expressed his conception of a social worker as someone who works one-on-one with people such as with children in a city school, adults trying to find employment, or as a caseworker in an urban setting. He also thought they work with groups of people such as a community organizers and activists lobbying on behalf of social justice concerns. He mentioned specifically that he imagined they could be "someone who knows how to effectively voice the concerns of a minority or disadvantaged group". Ralph's image of social work is a more popularly shared understanding of the profession, according to other people I spoke to during the past two weeks.   

This is the second time the term "social justice" has come up in this blog; thus I want to take the opportunity to define what I am referring to. I attempted to define it before reading about its historical background, and this is what I came up with: "An awareness of multiple forms of oppression and the lack of equality on the micro to the macro scale. The individual, institutional and global support of rights and policies for all people to access their culture, religion & language, to economic empowerment, education, health care, democracy, dignity, self expression and self actualization." 

Michael Reisch's "Defining Social Justice in a Socially Unjust World" from Families in Society introduced me to this topic's extensive background and contemporary significance. I felt an affinity towards the liberal view which "focuses on the distribution of benefits and burdens and the protection of persons' rights particularly at the level of individuals and others, it also involves the assignment of fundamental rights and duties, economic opportunities and social conditions, and incorporates a principle of compensation or redress (p. 350)." I found redress particularly relevant within the liberal approach to social justice. Reisch explains what John Rawls coined the "principle of redress", as the philosophical foundation for further distribution of wealth and power in order to compensate for inequalities outside of one's control.  This was a daunting exercise and I am certain of its imperfection. In fact, I was hesitant to post this initial definition, but I decided to label it a work in progress allowing me to revisit in the near future.

Origins

What brings you to social work?

Where have you been?

Where are you going?

Social Work has the potential to combine several interests: social justice, mental health and art. I studied Psychology and Fine Arts and was interested in following a career in clinical psychology and maintaining a studio practice in conceptual art in the mediums of painting, sculpture and video. I am interested in psychotherapy and counseling, and I believe it is fundamental for a society to provide readily available access to mental health practices. Social Work emerges as a field I hope to contextualize and build upon these interests. I am currently a MSW (Masters in Social Work) student at the University of Pittsburgh.

Similar to the notion that access to mental health treatment should be universal, I also believe access to art and vehicles for free expression are fundamental. Perhaps this idea is better explained as the possibility for an individual to express her or himself and to share her or his artistic practice. I participated in creating and teaching a free process oriented art program for children in Chinatown called Upstairs83 (more information is available on our kickstarter page and website). This collective continues to offer art education that goes beyond a product oriented approach to art making. We were deeply influenced by reading, Pablo Helguera's book "Education for Socially Engaged Art" (http://www.pintobooks.com/newbooks20ESEA.html). I am inspired by examples of how art and social activism intersect in order to address and combat oppression. 

image credit: upside-down-map.com

I was born and raised in Sao Paulo, Brasil, where daily exposure to blatant inequalities stirred up frustrations surrounding apathy and injustice. While poverty might be more  invisible in the "first world", it is far more difficult to ignore in Sao Paulo. Being from the “Global South” has certainly shaped my understanding of the connections between neo-colonialism, oppression and poverty. While still living in Brasil, I participated in a project at the Western most tip of the country, in an Amazon Rainforest state called Acre. We developed a conference and educational seminars where over 50 teachers were brought together in the town of Thaumaturgo to improve educational conditions via peer exchange. Seminars were held based on chapters of the book “Where there is No Doctor” by David Werner. We delivered basic school, art and first aid supplies to approximately 55 schools. Another key experience that lead me to the Social Work profession was volunteering at an NGO in Ghana called Pro-Link, counseling recently rescued child trafficking victims and  assisting their academic and social transitions back in to the community. I found myself thinking about how strength and creativity can emerge in the most adverse circumstances. 

I don't yet know where my MSW will lead me, but I will continue to be influenced by the themes I have discussed in this post. I look forward to learning more about Clinical Social Work and sharing some insights on this blog, though I am open and excited to learn about Social Work in its diverse capacities and implementations.