Advancing Antiracist and Antioppressive Social Work Research

Transcript:

Amanda Moore McBride:

Welcome to Episode 11 of the Brave Ideas for Social Change Podcast series, produced by the University of Denver Graduate School of Social Work. The series draws on GSSW faculty expertise for fast-moving discussions on emerging research, practice and policy innovations to spur social change. Today’s guest is Professor and Associate Dean for Research and Faculty Development Jennifer Bellamy. She’s here today to discuss advancing antiracist and antioppressive social work research. Her own research centers on the engagement of fathers in child and family services as well as evidence-based practice. She has published extensively in the area of evidence-based social work practice and is currently engaged in the development and testing of interventions to better serve fathers and home visiting in child welfare services. She teaches research and theory courses at GSSW and has been working to advance social and racial justice in social work practice and in social work education and research, both within our school, the larger university, and the broader academy. Advancing antiracist and antioppressive research is such a timely and necessary conversation. Thanks so much, Jenn, for being here.

Jenn Bellamy:

Thank you, Amanda. I’m really excited and honored to be with you here today and have this conversation. As you know, I’ve been working on a lot of roles as a researcher, as associate dean, as a teacher, as an associate editor, on antiracist and antioppressive social work research. But one of the most influential experiences I’ve had recently has been working with the Research Capacity and Development Committee of the Society for Social Work and Research [SSWR]. I know we’re going to talk more about that, but before we get too far into the conversation, I do want to start by acknowledging my own positionality as a white cis-gender woman, and in that, also acknowledge that many, many other social work scholars — particularly scholars of color and others with minoritized identities — have been calling for social work to center antiracist and antioppressive research for many, many years. Nicole Corley at VCU [Virginia Commonwealth University], Henrika McCoy, who recently joined the faculty at UT Austin. I really want to put that out front because I do think that an important piece of engaging in antiracist and antioppressive research is really recognizing our own positionality and acknowledging the work of many that have come before us.

Amanda Moore McBride:

Jenn, thank you so much for centering this work in that way. It’s an honor to serve with you on the SSWR board in my capacity as vice president, and I am just so grateful for how you listened to those calls from the field and put so many important programs and initiatives in place for social work. You know, I have to say, we’ve heard this call to confront structural and systemic racism for a long time — not only within the profession, but across higher education and across scholarship, broadly defined. I'd love to hear from you; you know, there’s been little progress. I do think there’s been an acceleration the last few years, but in general, there’s so much more to be done. What do you think has been standing in the way of the change that is needed?

Jenn Bellamy:

Yeah, I think that’s such a great question, and I'll point to a recent commentary that I and other members of the Research Capacity and Development Committee of SSWR recently published, and I think overarchingly, one of the big answers to that question is that we lack a clear framework for antiracist and antioppressive research. So without that clear and shared definition, I think there’s both a lot of confusion about exactly what we mean when we say antiracist and antioppressive research. And we also have, unfortunately, what feels like performative acknowledgment of the need for antiracist and antioppressive research but no clear structure or direction in terms of, what does that look like in practice? And so that we can critique those things that we have in place and move forward toward a specific vision.

Amanda Moore McBride:

So, connected to this is accountability, of course. I think accountability can be challenging when there’s little awareness or agreement, as you say, on what constitutes antiracist and antioppressive research. What are your thoughts about how we move past this challenge, and quite frankly, how do we move past it more rapidly?

Jenn Bellamy:

Yeah, I think, you know, as you said, in recent years we’ve really seen a stronger call to this work. And there is a lot of great work going on out there, but it feels fragmented. So I see ideas and specific frameworks in particular areas. We have folks that are doing work around how we present data in an antiracist and antioppressive way. So, Boston University has a center for antiracist research, including a racial data lab with some great resources. We have more and more journals requiring positionality statements, which I know my colleagues that do qualitative research have done that for years to acknowledge their positionality just as I did at the start of our conversation. And now I’m seeing that as a requirement for quantitative research publication as well. Zoë Hammatt, who’s at the Office of Research Integrity for the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, has a great piece on harmonizing work with institutional review boards — so those that guide our research ethics and interactions with human subjects. But, we’ve really got to put these pieces together and build that shared framework and structure so that all of these specific efforts are coordinated and moving toward a larger, broader vision.

Amanda Moore McBride:

I love that you mentioned institutional review boards and, for our listeners, I just have to call it out, Jenn. Jenn Bellamy is the chair of the University of Denver’s Institutional Review Board — the first social worker to hold that role. [I am] so grateful for how you are bringing this need to the University level and actualizing change for the entire University.

I want us to think more broadly, if we can. Let’s take this conversation one step further and think about education, training, larger, you know, systemic, possibilities for change. So, tell us, what are some of the other things that you’ve been thinking about, writing about, in this area?

Jenn Bellamy:

Yeah. Thank you. I think, I want to acknowledge that many of my broader recommendations come from that Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research commentary I recently wrote with several colleagues from the Research Capacity and Development Committee, led by Bernadine Waller, Arati Maleku and many others. But, in that piece, we really talk about beginning with acknowledging social work’s role in upholding white supremacy. Our failure to address oppression and, frankly, inflicting harm, and really taking a clear and intentional look at that history in the larger context, which includes our own positionality, and, it’s going to require critical self-reflections.

So, there’s that broader acknowledgment in the social work field. There is our individual work on our own positionality and critical self-reflection. And then there’s the specific antiracist research methods, and it needs to be framed as both what we do as individual scholars, but I would argue, more importantly in sort of structural and systemic issues. And we’ve got to think about that from, you know, as good social workers do, from the micro to the macro and the mezzo spaces in between. How can we place specific practices in all of those spaces and take those structures to the systems of academia and knowledge production?

Amanda Moore McBride:

Let’s give our listeners some examples. I so appreciate partnering with you around this agenda at GSSW, but also, again, noting your larger role at DU. What examples do you have for us on how we can actualize these changes?

Jenn Bellamy:

Yeah. You know, GSSW is a really special place because we are engaging critically in this work and putting things into tangible practice. As you know, we have been addressing issues of power, privilege and oppression in our curriculum, and what I particularly want to call out is that we do so in our research courses as well. And for many years I’ve observed this sort of argument that, well, research is objective, or it should strive to be, and therefore conversations about antiracism and antioppression just don’t apply. And here at GSSW, we know that’s not true. And we’ve worked hard to train our students in how to think critically about these issues within the context of research. And so we, you know, review our syllabi for that content. And research classes don’t get a pass. They are as much a part of this conversation about antiracism and antioppression as our clinical courses or other training that we provide to our students.

The other thing that I think is really an important part of this conversation is — and is highlighted in the commentary as well — is that this work must be done in community. And one of the things that I really love about GSSW in particular is that our faculty are so deeply engaged in community research. And not just, you know, ticking off the box of doing community research, but longstanding community collaboration. And I do think that is what is required to do antiracist and antioppressive research. We can’t do it alone in the ivory tower. It takes those partnerships.

So, there are those pieces, there’s the training piece, there’s how we engage in community, and then there’s also a lot of structural work that needs to be done. We are deeply in this conversation at GSSW right now around promotion and tenure guidelines. Do those guidelines not only allow for radical research, community-engaged work, but do they actually uplift those contributions as highly valuable and as aligned with what we envision to be antiracist and antioppressive research moving forward?

And so, those structures are really important, and those of us that have the opportunity, who have the power and the privilege to push for change in those spaces, in my role as IRB [institutional review board] chair as well. All of those structures that are part of this process have to be reviewed, critiqued and changed in the direction that we want to see.

Amanda Moore McBride:

When I think about these changes and reflect on students who have talked to me about their research classes, what I love is that they so dread it before the class, and then afterwards, whether it’s your jazz hands during the class or it’s actually the content — and I do think it’s the content —they walk out realizing that it’s everything from how we conceptualize problems and ask questions, to how the research is actually conducted. But it’s that foundational critical questioning of how we even approach the inquiry process. It’s really powerful how this shows up in our curriculum, and I appreciate how you also talked about how it’s showing up in P&T [promotion and tenure] processes.

I’d love for you to talk a bit more, you know, [about] whether it’s your IRB role or just thinking more generally about social science, you know, you’re an editor at the [Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research]. Help us think through what needs to be done more beyond schools of social work to move the academy forward?

Jenn Bellamy:

Yeah. I think that’s a great question and also reflective of some of the barriers that I have observed and heard others speak about over the years. You know, we do have the opportunity to shape things like promotion and tenure processes and IRB processes at the university and at the school level. But we all have to interact with these other systems. For example, the academic publishing process. As you mentioned, I’m an associate editor for the Journal of the Society for Social Work and Research, and the Journal of Family Violence as well.

And, if you think about the process of publishing, those journals set out standards and processes that impact these things. So I’ll give an example. Recently, the Journal [of] the Society for Social Work and Research, we revisited the mission statement for that journal to specifically call out antiracist and antioppressive research as a priority for the journal. And that’s a small example, but it’s an important example because it is sending a message to the field that this kind of work is a priority and is of interest. And, and I’ve certainly worked with colleagues who make decisions about what they pursue in terms of research, thinking several steps forward. Am I going to be able to find a journal who will publish this work? So, if journals are specifically uplifting and calling for submissions in these areas, that’s a signal to scholars that there’s a space and a home for your work once, you know, you’ve produced that knowledge.

Another example is, for that same journal, we have gotten much more specific for our associate editors and for our reviewers in terms of how data is described, how populations and identities are described to really change the language so that it is more centered on antiracist and antioppressive descriptions of research. It’s another small example, but that’s the kind of … you know, we need this shared framework, this specific definition of what we mean when we say antiracist and antioppressive work. And then we can take that frame to these very specific activities, critique what we have in place, and envision something different that reflects that framework, which is why the frame is so important.

And, we can carry that idea forth to other systems. Funding agencies are another one. They have tremendous influence on the decisions that scholars make in terms of where to put their energies as researchers. So, in those processes and spaces, you know, there’s another opportunity for change. So those are just a few specific examples.

Amanda Moore McBride:

Let’s stay in the examples. Jenn, you’re an incredibly accomplished scholar. I have to just congratulate you on being inducted as a fellow into the Academy for Social Work and Social Welfare, and it’s a testament to the work that you have done to advance interventions. What are some examples or observations from your own area of research as it relates to antiracist and antioppressive research?

Jenn Bellamy:

Thank you for that congratulations. That was a lovely surprise and honor, and I will say, in my recent work, as you know, I do a lot around engaging fathers, and particularly fathers of color in child and family service systems, and one of the most exciting projects I’ve been a part of for the last four or five years has been the Fathers in Continuous Learning Project with Mathematica. And that uses what’s called a Breakthrough Series Collaborative methodology to really shape big system change around sticky problems. And a longstanding sticky problem has been well-engaging fathers and paternal relatives in child welfare.

So, we used that methodology, and a centerpiece of that methodology is a framework for change that really articulates a vision for what would the system look like if we were to be successful in our work? And a specific element of that framework ... so, this was pre-pandemic, prior to events such as the murder of George Floyd and other things that really brought racial justice to the forefront. Before all of that happened, we had a framework in place that specifically called out the need for racial justice for fathers in child welfare. And that framework really held us to that center throughout the project and, you know, engaging fathers in child welfare, that’s a complicated sticky problem with a lot of elements involved. And we found that a lot of the child welfare jurisdictions were attending to other elements. They were attending to identifying fathers and providing supports and things and we kept coming back to the question of: Yes, but, how are we addressing racial justice for fathers? And that sort of comes back to that framework idea. If we don’t get very specific that racial justice, that antiracist research, antioppressive research is central to our work, you lose that opportunity to continue to call people back to that issue. Because it’s hard work, and people shy away from it and will ... not everyone, but some will avoid it if it’s not called out so specifically.

So, that really taught me an important lesson as a researcher and how with every project, I see so clearly that we call out in our vision, in our work as researchers, specifically issues of racial justice and make that part of the vision so we can come back to it and hold ourselves accountable, frankly.

Amanda Moore McBride:

Jenn, thanks for sharing. I’m just so grateful for all the ways that you’re helping to change social science as well as policy and practice. So let’s talk about practice a little bit. I suspect we may have a few listeners who are like, “Gosh, this was really about research today.” Let’s talk about what are the implications for advancing antiracism and anti-oppression in social work practice?

Jenn Bellamy:

Yeah. I mean, I think that a lot of work that I’ve been talking about really applies to us all. And, one of the great joys of doing intervention research is I get to keep a toe in practice. And, as practitioners, I think we have a responsibility, just as researchers do, to understand social work’s history. And that includes places where we have not only missed opportunities to lead in antiracist and antioppressive work, but where we have done damage. And it’s our responsibility as practitioners to understand that history, to acknowledge it, and to think critically about how we’re going to shape our practice such that we don't miss those opportunities and we don't do damage moving forward.

But, but that takes, you know — we get two years, most of us, in training as practitioners. If you have a BSW, you’ve got more than that, which is fantastic, but our training formally in educational systems is limited. And so I really call upon all of us to dig into social work histories. I’ve worked a lot with Justin Harty who’s now on faculty at Arizona State University and takes a historical perspective and the contributions of Black social workers, which, frankly, was not well reflected in my training as a practitioner. So, that investment and understanding the profession, its history, our context, and doing that critical self-reflective work, ongoing is important. Like, this is a lifelong practice. There’s no arrival. I, you know, we’re not going to earn a button that we can put on our sweater vests as social workers that says, you know, I’ve arrived at being antiracist and antioppressive. It’s a continual practice, and I think that’s true for researchers and practitioners, policymakers, all of us as social workers. And then once you’re grounded in that context and that self-reflection, I think it becomes clearer the many opportunities that we all have to stand up for these values and ideals in small moments and also in advocating for larger processes and opportunities as practitioners as well.

Amanda Moore McBride:

Jenn, you’re so inspiring. Thank you for sharing your perspective and helping to raise awareness and increase urgency around this issue.

Jenn Bellamy:

Thank you. It was wonderful to have this conversation with you today. I so appreciate the opportunity.

Amanda Moore McBride:

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