Introduction to Social Work in Canada: Histories, Contexts, and Practices

This comprehensive introduction integrates perspectives from English, French, and Indigenous Canada to provide an inclusive treatment of the history, foundational skills, and specific fields of social work practice and research. Emphasizing diversity and drawing extensively on Canadian statistics and scholarship, this is the ideal text for introduction to social work courses.

Nicole Ives holds a PhD in Social Welfare from the University of Pennsylvania. Currently an Associate Professor at McGill University School of Social Work, she has been working with refugee populations in the resettlement context for the past 12 years. Her research and teaching areas are focused on exploring social, economic, cultural, and political integration of marginalized populations in order to inform or transform practice, programming, and policies affecting these populations. Across all research and teaching, she incorporates historical contexts in order to inform contemporary social work practice with various populations. Specific projects include the exploration of the lived experience of social policies in the Inuit territory of Nunavik, Quebec; experiences of newcomer women across the homelessness spectrum in Canada; Bosnian refugee resettlement; congregational sponsorship of refugees; and refugee family reunification. She has published 21 scholarly works, including 8 journal articles and 4 book chapters. Myriam Denov holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge where she was a Commonwealth Scholar. She currently holds the Canada Research Chair in Youth, Gender, and Armed Conflict (Tier 1) and is a professor in the School of Social Work at McGill University. Her areas of expertise lie in the realms of international social work, and children and youth in adversity, with an emphasis on children in armed conflict, independent child migration, youth in conflict with the law, and gender-based violence. She has authored over 45 scholarly journal articles, book chapters, and reports on issues concerning marginalized children both nationally and internationally. In addition, she is the author of 4 books and edited collections, including Child Soldiers: Sierra Leone's Revolutionary United Front (Cambridge University Press); Children Rights and International Development (Palgrave Macmillan Press); and Perspectives on Female Sex Offending (Ashgate Publishing). Denov has broad fieldwork experience studying and working with children in conflict zones in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. She has presented expert evidence in court on child soldiers and has served as an advisor to government and NGOs on children in armed conflict and girls in fighting forces. Tamara Sussman holds a PhD in Social Work from the University of Toronto. She is currently an Associate Professor in the School of Social Work at McGill University. She has over 20 years of practice experience with individuals, families, and small groups in a variety of health and social service settings. Her research and teaching fall within two realms: social gerontology and social work pedagogy. As a social gerontologist she has conducted research and published articles on older adults' experiences within Canadian health and social services at different points in the continuum of care (acute care, community care, and long-term care). As a researcher in social work education, she has published articles and book chapters on identifying, supporting, and developing best practice knowledge in social work field education. Most recently, her research on the foundational knowledge and skills expected of graduating BSW students informed the development of a new social work field evaluation at McGill University. Sussman co-developed and currently teaches an integrative seminar at the Bachelor of Social Work level aimed at helping students identify and integrate foundational knowledge with practice skills.