Insights For Social Workers: Recognizing Black History Month

• Black-Focused Social Prescribing / Afrocentric Approach (2024)
  Focus: Examines culturally grounded social prescribing models that center Afrocentric values and respond to health and social needs of Black communities.
  Use: Supports practice innovation, program design, and culturally safe engagement.
• Making Social Work Research Black – Beyond Number Politics (Patricia Bailey-Brown, 2025)
  Focus: Challenges Eurocentric research methods and centers Black epistemologies and lived experience.
  Use: Research training, academic discussions, equity-centred practice.
• Social Workers’ Perspectives on Anti-Black Racism and Parenting Outcomes (Journal of Social Work, 2024)
  Focus: Examines structural anti-Black racism across child welfare, healthcare, and criminal legal systems.
  Use: Supports reflective practice and systems-level advocacy.
• Mapping Disparities for Black Families in the Child Welfare System
  Focus: Documents systemic drivers of disproportionality in Ontario child welfare.
  Use: Anti-racist training, policy reform, program redesign.

These show voices and lived experience of Black social workers / practitioners:

• Queens of Social Work Podcast
  Focus: Practice, burnout, identity, and career pathways for Black and BIPOC social workers.
• Social Workers Matter Podcast
  Focus: Anti-racist supervision, systemic challenges, practice wisdom.
  Use: Professional development and reflective practice groups.

• National Africentric Social Work Circles (CASW)
  Focus: Monthly community of practice for Black social workers and allies.
  Applicability: Ongoing learning and networking through 2026.
• CASW Webinar – It’s Time to Take a Stand
  Focus: Anti-Black racism, mental health, Africentric practice.
  Use: Training, in-service learning, continuing education.

• Doing Anti-Oppressive Social Work (4th edition) — Baines, Clark & Bennett
  Focus: Examining power, racism, colonialism in social work systems.
  Use: Anti-oppressive and accountability-based practice.
• My Grandmother’s Hands — Resmaa Menakem
  Focus: Racialized trauma and embodied healing.
  Use: Trauma-informed care and reflective practice.
• Abolition and Social Work — Kim, Rasmussen & Washington
  Focus: Abolitionist frameworks and critiques of carceral systems.
  Use: Anti-carceral practice discussions and policy redesign.
• Decolonizing Therapy — Dr. Jennifer Mullan
  Focus: Interrupting colonial dynamics in therapeutic settings.
  Use: Anti-racist and liberation-oriented practice.