UNSETTLING CONCEPTIONS OF POWER THROUGH TEACHING AND LEARNING CRITICAL REFLECTION ON SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE

Social work education is expected to offer students the opportunity to develop the skills necessary for critical self-reflection as it relates to professional practice. In this paper, we will describe how a model of critical reflection is taught and practiced within our MSW program in a Canadian School of Social Work. As a professor and student within the course, we describe our experience of engaging with the incident that the student used to learn the underlying theories and process of critical reflection. Her experience involved recognizing previously taken-for-granted conceptions of power, which she explored in her final paper for the course. We continued to critically reflect together following completion of the course, and our explorations are presented and expanded upon in this paper as an example of the potential of critical reflection, and as a reminder of the importance to continually reflect upon the complexity of power. Although we began with differing conceptions of power, we agree that power is neither solely ‘bad’ nor ‘good,’ but rather is complex, fluid, and relational. The paper provides an example of the benefits of incorporating opportunities for sustained critical reflection in social work education and concludes with implications for social work practice.La formation en travail social se doit d’offrir aux étudiant(e)s la possibilité de développer la capacité d’autoréflexion critique sur la pratique professionnelle. Dans cet article, les auteures décrivent l’enseignement et la mise en pratique d’un modèle de réflexion critique dans un programme de maîtrise en travail social dans une école canadienne de travail social. Les auteures, une professeure et une étudiante du cours, décrivent leur expérience d’engagement à analyser un incident vécu par l’étudiante afin d’apprendre les théories sous-jacentes et le processus de réflexion critique. Dans le cadre du travail final du cours, l’étudiante a remis en question des idées préconçues au sujet de la notion de pouvoir. La professeure et l’étudiante ont par la suite poursuivi leur réflexion critique ensemble, et leurs explorations sont présentées et développées dans cet article, comme exemple du potentiel de la réflexion critique et comme rappel de l’importance de réfléchir continuellement à la complexité inhérente au pouvoir. Bien qu’elles aient commencé leur réflexion commune avec des conceptions différentes du pouvoir, elles s’entendent sur le fait que le pouvoir n’est ni « mauvais » ni « bon », mais qu’il est plutôt complexe, fluide et relationnel. Cet article présente des avantages de l’intégration de la réflexion critique soutenue dans la formation en travail social et les implications pour la pratique du travail social

Use of Arts-based Research to Uncover Racism

The article provides an overview of arts-based research (ABR) within social work and general healthcare practice in Canada, and how it can be used to uncover racism within vulnerable populations, particularly youth, women, immigrants and refugees, the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex  (LGBTQI) community, and Indigenous peoples. This is a general review of the literature. A literature search was conducted using the University of Western Ontario’s Summons database, with coverage from January 2000 to February 2019. Data exploring participant experiences, personal identity, voice, and invisible powers were extracted, and analyzed using a critical race lens to examine the intersection of societal and cultural practice with race and power.Results indicate that ABR can support therapeutic recovery from oppression by enhancing self-expression of feelings and thoughts, and affording participants the agency to reclaim and reframe their personal narrative. ABR can further generate a sense of community by creating connections between participants with similar oppressions to overcome disconnection and marginalization. Within a broader community context, ABR permits the sharing of stories and insights with others, which can generate dialogue on important social issues to expose areas of social inequity and oppression alongside potential solutions for transformative social action. This dialogue can also extend to discussions with policy makers on the impact of social inequities to guide recommendations that address system gaps for broader community-level change. The paper concludes that ABR can move beyond merely reflecting on social conditions toward actively addressing them by promoting sustainable social change. The voices expressed through ABR illustrate possible solutions to overcome racism through inclusive social practice, deconstruction of the racial status quo, and movement toward an equitable distribution of power

Exploring the association of interleukin polymorphisms with aggression and internalizing behaviors in children and adolescents

Abstract Background There is growing evidence that inflammation influences mental health. Blood interleukin levels, which regulate inflammation, have been linked to aggression and internalizing behaviors. We performed a hypothesis‐driven genetic study to (1) evaluate the association of IL1B, IL2, and IL6 gene variants with aggression and internalizing behaviors and (2) explore gene–environment interactions with childhood adversity in a deeply phenotyped childhood‐onset aggression sample including 255 cases and 226 controls of European ancestry. Methods We evaluated the association of putative functional and tag SNPs within IL1B, IL2, and IL6 with aggression case status, parent‐reported internalizing problems, self‐reported anxiety symptoms, and self‐reported depressive symptoms in our sample. We also performed exploratory GxE analyses within cases, testing for statistical interaction between interleukin SNP genotype and childhood adversity for depressive symptoms. Results No significant association was observed between any of the interleukin SNPs and childhood‐onset aggression. We observed association of IL6 variant rs2069827 with depressive symptoms (p = 7.15×10–4), and trends for an interaction between severe childhood adversity and SNPs in IL1B and IL2 for depressive symptoms. Conclusions Our findings provide preliminary evidence that common variation in IL6 may be associated with depressive symptoms in children and adolescents, and that common variation in interleukin genes may sensitize individuals to the depressogenic effects of traumatic life experiences. Replication in independent samples is needed

Sirukumab: A Potential Treatment for Mood Disorders?

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