Doing Anti-Oppressive Social Work: Rethinking Theory and Practice

Doing Anti-Oppressive Social Work brings together critical social work authors to passionately engage with pressing social issues, and to pose new solutions, practices and analysis in the context of growing inequities and the need for reconciliation, decolonization and far-reaching change. The book presents strong intersectional perspectives and practice, engaging closely with decolonization, re-Indigenization, resistance and social justice. Like the first three editions, the 4th edition foregrounds the voices of those less heard in social work academia and to provide cutting-edge critical reflection and skills, including social work’s relationship to the state, and social work’s responsibility to individuals, communities and its own ethics and standards of practice. Indigenous, Black, racialized, transgender, (dis)Ability and allied scholars offer identity-engaged and intersectional analyses on a wide-range of issues facing those working with intersectional cultural humility, racism and child welfare, poverty and single mothers, critical gerontology and older people, and immigrant and racialized families. This 4th edition of Doing Anti-Oppressive Social Work goes well beyond its predecessors, updating and revising popular chapters, but also problematizing AOP and engaging closely with new and emerging issues.

Donna Baines is the director and a professor in the School of Social Work at the University of British Columbia. She is editor of Doing Anti-Oppressive Practice, co-editor (with Stephen McBride) of Orchestrating Austerity and co-author of Case Critical. Her research and teaching interests include anti-oppressive theory and practice, paid and unpaid care work and social justice change.

Natalie Clark’s practice, research and activism is informed and mobilized through her interconnected identities including her Settler ancestry and her Secwepemc and Métis kinship – as grandmother, mother, auntie and community member. Natalie is a Full Professor in the School of Social Work and Human Service at Thompson Rivers University, Co-Chair of the Gender Equity committee, and continues to practice as a violence counsellor and girls group facilitator with children, youth and families.

Bindi Bennett is a Gamilaraay cisgender mother, researcher and social worker. She is an associate professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Bond University. She has over twenty years’ practice experience in the fields of Aboriginal social work, child and adolescent mental health, schools and health.

Raven Sinclair (Ótiskewápíwskew) is Cree/Assinniboine/Saulteaux from Gordon’s First Nation. She is a professor of social work at the University of Regina.

Dr. Thomas Bernard has had a long and distinguished career in the field of social work. Dr. Thomas Bernard has worked in mental health at the Nova Scotia Hospital, in rural community practice with the Family Services Association, and since 1990, has been a professor at the Dalhousie School of Social Work, where she has held the position of Director since 2001. She is a Founding Member of the Association of Black Social Workers and is its current President, a member of the Board of Directors of Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada, and a previous member of the Board of Accreditation of the Canadian Association of Schools of Social Work. Dr. Thomas Bernard has received numerous awards, certificates and recognition over the years for her trendsetting work. Some of her awards include the Ron Stafford Memorial Award from the Nova Scotia Association of Social Work for effective community leadership and development work. She also received the Canada 125 medal for outstanding contributions to the country, and Dr. Thomas Bernard was awarded the Order of Canada Award by Governor General, Adrienne Clarkson in June 2005.