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Disability Justice Shared Interest Group
Purpose: This SIG is a space for social workers who are members of the disability community with support from our social work allies to come together to advocate for policies, actions and programming that advance the disability justice framework that has been developed by the disability community.
To subscribe to our mailing list, click here: DisabilityJusticeSIG+subscribe@groups.io
https://groups.io/g/DisabilityJusticeSIG
For more information, please contact: Elspeth Slayter, MSW, PhD, Salem State University faculty at eslayter@salemstate.edu
Justification for SIG: 27% of the adult U.S. population self-identify as disabled (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021), and 4.3% of children in the U.S. are disabled (United States Census, 2021). In Massachusetts, 24% of the population is estimated to have a disability (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021). Disability transcends race, ethnicity and other social identities (Courtney-Long, Romano and Carroll, 2017). Disability is a widely recognized element of diversity. While disability civil rights movements and laws exist, the ableism, sanism and overall oppression faced by the disability community is significant (The Council on Quality and Leadership, 2021). This presents a major set of challenges for the social work profession to be responsive to vis-a-vis both work with clients and with colleagues. Also of note is that disabled social workers are not always encouraged to engage in the profession, are not always accommodated appropriately and are not adequately supported in their work due to ableist assumptions and actions (Kiesel, DeZelar and Lightfoot, 2019). Finally, almost thirty years of scholarship documents ableism and sanism experienced by disabled students in social work programs as well as a dearth of coverage of disability topics in social work curricula suggesting the need for reforms (Neely-Barnes, McCabe and Barnes, 2014; Bernard, Fairlough, Fletcher and Ahmet, 2013; Cole, Christ & Light, 2103; Baron, Phillips and Stakler, 1996; Cole and Cain, 1996).
Taken together, these facts justify the need of a disability justice shared interest group.
References
Baron, S., Phillips, R. and Stalker, K. (1996) Barriers to Training for Disabled Social Work Students, Disability & Society, 11:3, 361-378, DOI: 10.1080/09687599627660
Bernard, C., Fairlough, A., Fletcher, J., & Ahmet, A. (2014). A Qualitative Study of Marginalized Social Work Students’ Views of Social Work Education and Learning. British Journal of Social Work, 44(7), 1934–1949. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bct055
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2021). Disability Prevalence. http://www.cdc.gov. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/disabilityandhealth/infographic-disability-impacts-all.html
Cole, B.S., & Cain, M.W. (1996). Social Work Students with Disabilities: A Proactive Approach to Accommodation. Journal of Social Work Education, 32, 339-349.
Cole, B., Christ, C., and Light, T. (2013). Social work education and students with disabilities: Implications of section 504 and the ADA. Journal of Social Work Education. 31(2): 261-268. DOI:10.1080/10437797.1995.10672262
Courtney-Long, E.A., Romano, S.D., Carroll, D.D. et al. (2017). Socioeconomic Factors at the Intersection of Race and Ethnicity Influencing Health Risks for People with Disabilities. Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. 4: 213.
Kiesel, L., DeZelar, S. and Lightfoot, E. (2019). Equity in social work employment: opportunity and challenge for social workers with disabilities in the United States. Disability and Society. 34(9), 1399–1418.
Neely-Barnes, S. L., McCabe, H. A., & Barnes, C. P. (2014). Seven rules to live by: accommodations in social work education and the field. Journal of social work in disability & rehabilitation, 13(4), 279–296. https://doi.org/10.1080/1536710X.2014.961113
United States Census/Young, N. (2021). Childhood disability in the United States: 2019. United States Census. https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/acs/acsbr-006.html
Goals:
- Goal 1: To promote better disability accessibility in all NASW-MA sponsored activities, events and services, as well as in the general day-to-day operation of the organization
- Objective 1a: To advocate for the improvement of NASW-MA webinar accessibility
- Objective 2a: To determine what are NASW-MA’s accessibility policies and procedures regarding online and in-person activities, events, services and operations regarding access for the disability community in all of its diversity
- Goal 2: To foster better disability awareness, “disability cultural competence” and ableism awareness by the social work profession in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts through programming efforts
- Objective 2a: To offer twice yearly “disability cultural competence” workshops for the NASW-MA membership community, with outreach to get people “in the room”
- Objective 2b: To develop an advanced workshop on addressing one’s own ableism as a social work practitioner for people who have been through a “disability cultural competence” workshop
- Objective 2c: To advocate with accredited Schools of Social Work to promote the teaching of disability studies topics from the perspective of the disability community
- Objective 2d: To provide education on ableist language and the emerging language debates related to ableist language or identity first vs. person first language in the disability community to the social work profession, given the importance of these issues to the community
- Objective 2e: To draft a policy statement on best practices for work with the disability community in social work
- Goal 3: To encourage the embrace of disability justice principles by NASW-MA as an organization, by NASW-MA members and by the social work profession
- Objective 3a: To educate NASW-MA on the disability framework through continuing education events, activities and articles
- Objective 3b: To encourage NASW-MA to use a disability justice lens in their strategic planning process, akin to how they have used a racial justice lens
- Objective 3c: To partner with regional and national NASW organizations in the disability justice effort
- Objective 3d: To advocate with accredited Schools of Social Work to promote the teaching of the disability justice principles
- Goal 4: To advocate for legislation that supports disability justice principles and the disability community
- Objective 5a: To monitor existing proposed legislation for items that the SIG might support as part of a legislative agenda that meets disability justice criteria, or does not!
- Objective 5b: To work with NASW-MA to get SIG-supported legislation on NASW-MA’s annual legislative priority bills agenda
- Goal 5: To value disabled social workers in the profession
- Objective 6a: To eliminate ableist barriers to social work education for future social workers in both academic and field settings
- Objective 6b: To value the lived experiences of disabled social workers in the profession
- Objective 6c: To eliminate ableist barriers to social work employment for social workers
Disability Justice Shared Interest Group 