CRITICAL CLINICAL SOCIAL WORK Counterstorying for social justice in Nova Scotia BY DR. CATRINA BROWN, RSW & DR. JUDY MACDONALD, RSW
We have co-edited a book entitled Critical Clinical Social Work: Counterstorying for Social Justice which will be published by Canadian Scholars’ Press in May, 2020. The book is an edited collection by the faculty from the School of Social Work at Dalhousie University and includes their respective colleagues across Canada covering topics such as critical clinical theory and ethics, working with complex trauma and diagnosis; men who use violence; women who struggle with substance use; girls and women who experience violence; women suffering with chronic pain; veterans; and older people. We also explore animal informed intervention, intercultural child welfare practices and critical
14 Connection | Fall 2019
risk assessment, post-colonial, decolonizing and Africentric spiritual practices, AIDS and HIV criminalization, and the development of the School of Social Work Community Clinic. Case vignettes are used to demonstrate approaches to critical clinical practice. Consistent with social justice based approaches to mental health and addiction, these approaches do not medicalize or pathologize people’s struggles, but situate them within the social contexts and inequities in which they emerge. As such, there is a focus on making sense of people’s struggles and adopting a relational and collaborative approach to the clinical relationship.
