Both/And or Either/Or: Social Work and Policing

[Episode 127]. Today’s episode is the audio recording of a Facebook Live discussion that happened on Tuesday, July 14, 2020 called Both/And or Either/Or: Social Work and Policing. Following the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 and countless other Black people by police over the past 200 plus years, two perspectives have emerged about social work's role with law enforcement. To be sure, these perspectives have been articulated for years. But in the midst of the largest and most sustained period of protests against systemic racism and support for Black Lives, these two perspectives gained particular traction after social work leaders published opinion pieces on Medium.com. The either/or perspective, articulated by UCLA social work chair Laura Abrams and University of Houston social work Dean Alan Dettlaff in a June 18, 2020 open letter to NASW and Allied Organizations, argued that "social work can either continue to invest in and collaborate with police OR affirm that #BlackLivesMatter." This letter was signed by over 1,400 social workers (full transparency, I was one of the signatories) and delivered to NASW. The Both/And perspective was articulated in a Medium.com post on June 30, 2020 by Darlyne Bailey, Charles E. Lewis, Steve Burghardt, and Terry Mizrahi. They argued that "we need to break from binary slogans of 'defunding' and replace them with a transformative platform tied to  reinvesting in social services, training guardians not warriors, and ending all forms of racial injustice in law enforcement, sentencing, incarceration, parole and probation." 

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Identifying and Responding to Sex-Trafficking Victims in Social Service Settings: Interview with Rebecca J. Macy, Ph.D.

[Episode 81] In today's social work podcast I spoke with Rebecca J. Macy, Ph.D., ACSW, LCSW. Rebecca is the L. Richardson Preyer Distinguished Chair for Strengthening Families and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the UNC at Chapel Hill School of Social Work.

I started our conversation asking Rebecca how she became interested in identification of sex trafficking victims in human service delivery. Most of our conversation focused on how to identify and respond to victims of sex trafficking. We talked about the interdisciplinary nature of sex trafficking; how it involves representatives from law, medicine, social services, and how social workers can and should take the lead in coordinating efforts to help victims. And, as is the custom, we ended our conversation with resources for social workers, the Polaris project in particular. Rebecca was kind enough to send me a list of references and resources that I have posted to the socialworkpodcast.com website.

Since 2004 there has been a 150% increase in the number of searches for the term "sex trafficking." During the same period, there has been no appreciable change in the number of searches for the terms "modern day slavery" or "labor trafficking."

Social Workers in Court: Interview with Allan Barsky, JD, MSW, PhD

[Episode 76] In today’s interview, Allan and I talked about what it means for a social worker to be “court ready,” especially for social workers whose jobs do not typically involve going to court. We talked about the difference between forensic social workers and social workers who have to appear in court. Allan talked about the difference between client confidentiality and client privilege, between being a witness and an expert witness, and between preparing for legal proceedings and disciplinary proceedings. He gave some pointers on how social workers should respond to a subpoena. I asked him about what for many clinicians is the most stressful part of going to court - examination and cross-examination. We talked about how social workers can prepare for it, including some strategies for dealing with “tough questions” during a cross-examination. We ended our conversation with Allan providing some resources for social workers who want to know more. If you want to find additional references and resources, as well as a transcript of my conversation with Allan, please go to the Social Work Podcast website at socialworkpodcast.com. If you want to join the conversation about clinicians in court, go to our Facebook page at Facebook.com/swpodcast. If you’re on Twitter, you can follow the podcast at twitter.com/socworkpodcast. And now, without further ado, on to Episode 76 of the Social Work Podcast: Social Workers in Court: Interview with Allan Barsky.