Chapter Activities for Racial Justice

Join social workers and adjustment counselors from across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts at our Annual School Social Work Conference. Every year, the NASW-MA’s School Social Work Conference Committee brings together school social workers, adjustment counselors, and other youth-focused professionals from across the state, who work with youth in all levels of schools and beyond.

The Racial Justice Forum is a series of facilitated small group discussions with the purpose of providing opportunities for self-reflection, training on how each of us can improve our anti-racism lens, as well as preparation on how to have these conversations in life and practice.⁠ The topic for this Racial Justice Forum will be White Fragility and Black Rage.⁠

Through Revolutionize the Profession, BIPOC social workers requested a mechanism to engage in peer support. The Town Halls are a vehicle to identify, define, and describe how racism manifests in social work practice. While white counterparts are invited to the Revolution, they do not speak. BIPOC social workers desire a space that is theirs to process daily acts of racism. The Revolution has successfully connected BIPOC social workers across the world.

This series of Town Halls is focused on the following:

1. Acknowledging the history and current ways that white supremacy and racism exist in social work practice;
2. Creating goals to achieve a racially just profession;
3. The development and implementation of an action plan and action groups to achieve these goals.

Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome (P.T.S.S.) is a theory that explains the etiology of many of the adaptive survival behaviors in African American communities throughout the United States and the Diaspora. It is a condition that exists as a consequence of multigenerational oppression of Africans and their descendants resulting from centuries of chattel slavery, a form of slavery which was predicated on the belief that African Americans were inherently/genetically inferior to whites.

Participants will learn strategies to combat institutionalized racism and promote healing.

Join us for another session of NASW-NYS’ Revolutionize the Profession. This series of Town Halls is focused on the following:

1. Acknowledging the history and current ways that white supremacy and racism exist in social work practice;
2. Creating goals to achieve a racially just profession;
3. The development and implementation of an action plan and action groups to achieve these goals.

Do you believe social injustice is linked to the way individuals think? Do you believe
the way people feel and behave towards others is a reflection of their mindset? History has shown that people exhibit behavior that is birthed from their way of thinking. Cognitive Behavioral Theory proposes that people's perceptions and thoughts about situations and people influences their emotional and behavioral reactions.

The idea that a majority segment of our society has privilege and minority segments of our society are underprivileged, is a basic, yet uncomfortable premise in identifying as a Black person. This workshop will investigate the influence of oppression on shaping identity, expectations, and self-view of some Black clients.

In his book, The Psychology of Oppression, E.J.R. David writes "...it is very likely that all of us have witnessed oppression, experienced oppression, inflicted oppression, felt the negative consequences of oppression, or all of the above." This live webinar looks at how certain segments of history can influence forms of oppression (stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination) and how oppression could show up in Black clients' interactions, relationships, and views.

Being a social worker does not absolve you from being racist. Does this make you feel uncomfortable? Do you disagree? Are you feeling defensive? Let's lean into the discomfort together.⁠