Two Sides of the Same Coin: Adopting a Decolonial Stance in Teaching Clinical Social Work Students to Intervene on Anti-Black Racism

Abstract

As the social work landscape rapidly changes to more directly address the effects of racism, colonialism and all areas of oppression on individuals, communities and systems, the delivery of responsive clinical social work services is being called to radically transform. This transformation starts with social work education, both in curriculum and in pedagogy, and must include an emphasis on anti-Blackness, starting with raising consciousness and increasing awareness of its prevalence and then deciding how to move beyond awareness. Although clinical social work educators are charged with the task of training emerging social workers to effectively translate theory into practice, missing is guidance on how to do so with an anti-Black, decolonial sensitivity. In 2022, the authors introduced a model – the Trajectory of Awareness (ToA) – to address an aspect of anti-Black racism and in this paper, we return to the ToA model, incorporating decolonial principles. Decoloniality is very much aligned with teaching about anti-Black racism and developing a skill set in teaching about anti-Black racism from a decolonial perspective is essential.