Following the NASW's tweet supporting Executive Order on Safe Policing for Safe Communities and after announcing its support for social workers cooperating with the police in an editorial for the Wall Street Journal, clinical social worker Kim Young wrote a sample letter to the NASW demanding they take accountability for complying with oppressive systems. From the letter:
"We have an obligation to end white supremacy, supporting this Executive Order counters the core of who we are as social workers. I demand that the NASW rescind support of the Executive Order, acknowledge the role social work plays in upholding systems of oppression and publicly commit to deconstructing racist systems."
The NASW Instagram account blocked Young after she publicly criticized the institution demanding meaningful change and accountability, and only unblocked her after other social workers contacted the NASW. This is a perplexing response to demands from within the field for true reckoning and committed action.
On August 26th a petition was sent by Social Service Workers United-Chicago to the National Association of Social Workers demanding they take meaningful action to support abolition and address the white supremacist roots of social work. Although over 1,700 people signed on to support SSWU-Chicago, as of September 25th 2020 the NASW has yet to respond to the following demands:
Our Demands
From Kim Young’s letter: “I demand the NASW rescind support of the Executive Order, acknowledge the role social work plays in upholding systems of oppression and publicly commit to deconstructing racist systems.”
The NASW endorses the #8ToAbolition movement
The NASW endorses student demands to remove law enforcement officers from K-12 schools and for colleges and universities to divest from campus police
The NASW commits to making social work training more accessible to marginalized people who are frequently already doing social work but are barred from many social work jobs due to an emphasis on requiring “professional” credentials.
At minimum, this means a clear plan to make BSW and MSW programs more affordable and accessible to underrepresented and marginalized students, including supporting Cost of Living Adjustments for graduate student workers, demanding more scholarships and grants for social work students, and requiring agencies to pay interns by not later than the start of the 2023–2024 school year.
However, the NASW should consider how to look beyond the field of higher education for solutions to make jobs in the profession more accessible. Esq. Apprentice provides an excellent framework for how social work can consider avenues of training outside of higher education in their program that “provide[s] low-income women of color with the tools needed to complete California’s legal apprenticeship program and become attorneys”.
The NASW commits to integrating anti-racist and anti-oppressive practices and racial-socioeconomic perspectives into any training or evaluation offered. These practices and perspectives should reflect the wide diversity of thought and tactics BIPOC communities have used to fight racism and oppression and should not rely on any one book or training.
The NASW makes necessary changes to the Code of Ethics to ensure free criticism and dissent in the field
The NASW condemns involuntary hospitalizations for mental health treatment, court-ordered drug treatment, and state-mandated participation in programs affiliated with child welfare services and provides a clear plan to completely abolish these coercive programs
The NASW publishes clear guidelines on outside programs offering CEUs, and prohibits CEUs affiliated with programs that violate the Code of Ethics, including the proposed ICE Citizens Academy.
The NASW condemns law enforcement agencies perpetuating harm through their use of agency grants at social service agencies. Many agencies receive funds from departments of Juvenile Justice, or the Office of Refugee Resettlement (which reports to ICE), and stipulations of funding mean that social workers are required to report to or otherwise collaborate with law enforcement, creating an ethical dilemma for social workers that does not need to exist.
On June 22nd 2020 Laura S. Abrams and Alan J. Dettlaff wrote an open letter to the NASW calling for them to embrace abolition and abolitionist social workers. The letter was signed by over 1,100 supporters, which led to another letter to the NASW reiterating the following demands:
Publicly endorse the national Black Lives Matter Petition to defund the police and reinvest “in our communities and the resources to ensure Black people not only survive, but thrive.”
Craft a position statement on the divestment and reinvestment of law enforcement budgets that excludes the expansion of law enforcement and instead supports community-driven alternatives to public safety.
Call for public comment among the members of NASW and allied organizations to add a racial justice ethic to our current code. Cultural competency will not address anti-Blackness and institutional racism, and it is time to change course.
Take seriously calls for abolition in our profession by hosting a public conversation with those who are working to completely transform harmful institutions, such as child welfare and policing.
Recognize social work’s historical role in perpetuating anti-Blackness and regulating the lives of Black, Brown and Indigenous families, such that any further expansion of our role in policing will compromise our already tenuous relationship with these communities.
On October 24th 2020, the American Public Health Association formally adopted a statement at their annual conference calling for steps to be taken "towards the abolition of carceral systems and building in their stead just and equitable structures that advance the public’s health." The statement was endorsed by over 30 organizations, and it lays out extensive rationale and evidence-based strategies for abolishing carceral systems and investing in preventative strategies. The APHA urges federal, state, tribal, territorial, and municipal governments and agencies to:
Immediately and urgently reduce the number of people incarcerated in jails, prisons, and detention centers, regardless of conviction, especially in light of pressing concerns related to COVID-19 transmission;
Immediately and urgently develop, implement, and support existing community-based programming interventions, including by using emergency funding, to address the medical and social needs of people who have been harmed by the criminal legal system, including those transitioning from incarceration, particularly those being released in response to COVID-19;
Re-allocate funding from the construction of new jails and prisons to the societal determinants of health, including affordable, quality, and accessible housing, healthcare, employment, education, and transportation;
Remove policies and practices that restrict access to stable employment and housing for formerly incarcerated people, including immediately investing in housing for quarantine purposes after release from carceral settings;
Meet patient rights requirements to be in the least restrictive environment for care, by redirecting funding and referrals from jails, prisons, and involuntary and/or court-mandated inpatient psychiatric institutions to inclusive, community-based living and support programs for people with mental illness and substance use disorder;
End the practice of cash bail and pretrial incarceration;
Develop, implement, and support non-carceral measures to ensure accountability, safety, and well-being (e.g., programs based in restorative and transformative justice);
Decriminalize activities shaped by the experience of marginalization, like substance use and possession, houselessness, and sex work;
Restore voting rights for all formerly or currently incarcerated people to ensure their basic democratic right to participate in elections.
Further, APHA urges that Congress, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to:
Fund research on the effectiveness of alternatives to incarceration (e.g. transformative justice);
Fund research on policy determinants of exposure to the carceral system, with a particular focus on policies that disproportionately target marginalized communities;
Put forth a set of recommendations that will decrease the population within carceral settings based on the principles of human rights and health justice.
Lastly, APHA calls on state and local health departments to:
Provide accurate, timely, and publicly available data on incarcerated and released populations at the state and facility-level, as well as COVID-19 testing, positive and resolved cases, and mortality.
Advocate for and support decarceration and defunding of all carceral facilities and systems.