From L to R: NSCSW’s Crystal Hill & Naj Siritsky with student Leurette Labobe at the Mi’kmaq Wolastoqiyik Association of Social Workers’ 2022 conference
ACTIONS SPROUTING FROM ACKNOWLEDGEMENT A report from the Decolonizing Social Work committee We began our collaboration as a working group, and blossomed into a committee in 2022; co-chairs Jacklyn Paul and Crystal Hill, RSW, came together with Mi’kmaw social workers and community leaders to begin to reflect upon how to support and guide the NSCSW and its members in beginning the necessary labour toward reconciliation. While still in formation, this committee has begun to identify a number of issues that need to be addressed in order to begin to decolonize the profession of social work; these will inform the structure and work plan that we are developing. Our profession has a unique responsibility to understand what was done and do what we can to work toward decolonization. In its statement of apology and commitment to reconciliation the Canadian Association of Social Workers (CASW)
22 Connection | Spring 2023
acknowledges its role in supporting the implementation of residential schools, and in affirming the approach to child welfare that led to the 60s scoop through the promotion of discriminatory policies. The underlying motivation in the development of these policies was to dispossess Indigenous peoples from their land. The CASW has apologized for contributing to the injustices imposed on Indigenous peoples and, in this statement, seeks to highlight some of the ways in which the professional bodies they represent were – and in many ways still are – responsible for the systemic denial and inequality that has been apparent in the field of social work. As such, it has begun to reach out to Indigenous communities across Canada, to partner with them in beginning the work of decolonization and reconciliation.