Learning and leading authentic anti-racism ...messages over time

This is how it began as an attempt to find a way to work in partnership as a leader with students. The need to make my intention visible, needed to be well timed, well focussed, sensitive and with the best of intentions. My team were and are my shapers, supporters, critics and my friends. Working on a daily basis with the incredible people that are both my students and my team is the very best example of 'Ubuntu' - I am because we are.

Dear Students,

For us as Social Workers and as a team the events that have unfolded since the death of George Floyd in the last week or two are central in our thoughts, and anti-racist practice and decolonised teaching is at the heart of our provision as we move forward into the next academic year. Last week I delivered a presentation the Brookes Teaching and Learning conference on the journey we have travelled as a programme in our work to Decolonise the Curriculum in Social Work, including reflecting on all the bumps that we have experienced in delivering this work along the way.

We are committed to the principles that social work must respond with action the importance of not being silent at such a time because speaking out and naming inequality, injustice and direct and indirect Racism needs to be at the heart of what we do as Social Workers. For many of us talking about Race and Racism is hard to get right and is uncomfortable and disrupting and means we need to look at ourselves critically in order to achieve better outcomes, we are committed to doing this, and we will continue our work on Decolonising the Curriculum in our staff team away day




Dear Students,

 

This is a message of support and solidarity. The racist attacks this week after the England football game bring into focus as an anti racist provision our need to speak out explicitly against this abhorrent behavior. Although I am outraged by both direct racist attacks and indeed more subtle microaggressions,  myself and the wider team firmly stand strong as allies. Our society in the UK remains one that is entrenched by structural inequality and racism. The University has developed a Race Equality Strategy and has convened a Race Equality Charter team, but there is much work still to do. You can find information on this here; https://www.brookes.ac.uk/staff/human-resources/equality-diversity-and-inclusion/race-equality/. In addition here's a link to the Oxford Brookes Equality Diversity and Inclusion Wellbeing resources https://www.brookes.ac.uk/students/wellbeing/edi/. As well as this article about developing anti racism in Social Work https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2020/12/16/anti-racism-social-work-questions-just-actions-please/

 

Dear Students,


A really warm welcome back. And...it is with excitement that it really seems that we will be back face to face teaching you.

 To further our commitment as an antiracist programme, we will introduce MANDELA model across your studies  https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/229310239.pdf. We are also working towards the principles of this model as a staff team in out interactions with you as our students.



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