Mission Statement
The UNH Department of Social Work is committed to the pursuit of social justice and dismantling systems of oppression through education, scholarship, research, and community outreach that foster the ongoing development of critical consciousness and steadfast engagement in reflective practice.
Anti-Oppressive Practice
The UNH Social Work Department strives to operate from an Anti-Oppressive Lens and promote Anti-Oppressive Practice (AOP) in both the classroom and in internship placements. Anti-Oppressive Practice (AOP) is one of the central social justice-oriented approaches in social work. It recognizes the structural origins of oppression and promotes social transformation by utilizing critical theories including feminist, Marxist, postmodernist, indigenous, poststructuralist, anti-colonial, and anti-racist theories, among others (Baines, 2011). More information can be found here: Anti-Oppressive Practice (AOP) — Critically Infused Social Work (criticallyinfusedsw.com)
IDEA² Framework
The IDEA² Framework is a living, active framework grounded in the principles of social justice, and is used to organize the way we demonstrate principles in social work. IDEA2 is not designed to be finite or static, but to evolve with the ever-changing definitions that represent our unique social work populations. It is designed to be a stable framework that guides the curriculum of social work and social justice to ensure that students have the tools to engage in equitable practice across social work settings.
Inclusion requires us to ask the questions “Has everyone been heard? Has everyone been seen? “Is it a place that promotes belonging and acknowledges and seeks to minimize harm?” Inclusion is the active and intentional process of creating environments where individuals and groups are engaged, respected, valued, and supported through the elimination of practices and behaviors that result in marginalization.
Diversity asks the question “Who’s in the room?” It insists that individuals holding different identities (i.e., age, class, race), are acknowledged and valued. Diversity means difference across the mosaic of various social dimensions. These include, but are not limited to: age, class, color, culture, disability and ability, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, immigration status, marital status, political ideology, race, religion/spirituality, sex assigned at birth, sexual orientation, and tribal sovereign status. Diversity also recognizes and embraces the intersectional identities (define online) that individuals can hold.
Equity asks the question “Who is trying to get in the room, but cannot?” and “Whose presence in the room is under persistent threat of erasure?” Equity requires fair and just inclusion of all individuals. Equity exists when marginalized groups have equal access to opportunities, power, participation, and resources. Equity promotes justice and fairness in procedures, processes, practices, and policies. Actively addressing equity issues requires ongoing reflection and an understanding of the historical causes of outcome disparities in our society and action to remedy imbalances.
Antiracism asks the question “Whose culture is being ignored or marginalized?” and “What conditions are perpetuating white supremacy?” Antiracism is an active process of identifying, interrogating, and challenging racism and redistributing power in an equitable manner. This is done by changing policies and practices within systems and organizations, as well as critically evaluating the validity of one's own beliefs, values, assumptions, attitudes, behaviors, and understanding how an historically oppressive system may have influenced those values.
A person who practices anti-racism is someone who works to become aware of:
- How racism affects the lived experience of people of color and Indigenous people;
- How racism is woven into the fabric of society and used as a tool, historically and today, to systematically ignore, marginalize, and justify violence against and oppression of people of color, whether through individual attitudes, public rhetoric, or informally and formally through policies and practices within institutions.
- How we may be knowingly or unknowingly participating in and/or perpetuating racism through individual attitudes, actions, and inactions and what steps to take to eliminate related assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors.
Anti-oppression asks the question “Whose safety is being minimized and/or threatened?” “Whose ideas and cultural beliefs are not taken seriously?” and “Who is being exploited?” Oppression is a phenomenon that disempowers, marginalizes, silences, exploits, subordinates, and even eradicates certain individuals or social groups, to further empower and/or privilege the oppressing socially dominant group. In contrast, an anti-oppressive framework includes actions which provide equitable approaches and practices to actively challenge and ultimately upend systems of oppression.
