Episode 36Guest: Nathan Stephens, MSWHost: Shimon Cohen, LCSW
www.dointhework.comListen/Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, SpotifyFollow on Twitter & Instagram, Like on FacebookJoin the mailing listSupport the podcastDownload transcript
If you love what we discuss on the podcast, then you will love our courses! We focus on frameworks, knowledge, and skills to engage in anti-racist, anti-oppressive, justice-based liberatory practice. CEs are available. Check out https://dointhework.com/courses/ to learn more and register. We hope you will join us!
This episode is sponsored by Designs by Tee, bringing you positive, socially conscious tees and accessories. There’s now a Doin’ The Work collection with hoodies, tees, tote bags, and mugs! Use code TeePod5 for $5 off your next order.
In this episode, I talk with Nathan Stephens, who is an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Illinois State University and a PhD candidate in Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis at the University of Missouri Columbia. Nathan gives a raw and vulnerable account of his experience from being in prison for selling drugs, to spirituality and healing, to social work. He shares about how he grew up and the trauma he experienced, as well as those who supported him, and how he wanted to find ways to give back to the community and help Black youth who are born into similar conditions as he was. Nathan highlights how school was a safe space for him to get away from the abuse he experienced at home, and that his academic performance was a strength, so he was excited to go back to college after prison, and he excelled. He discusses how he uses his life experience to inform his analysis, teaching, research, and community work, which includes creating programs for Black men, teaching a course in a prison called Social Justice in Social Work, and working with Black male youth groups in the community. Nathan further explains that his research looks at critical topics like racialized stress and the trauma from hypersexualization and sexual abuse of Black boys and men, and how we need to talk about these issues. We also discuss hypersurveillance by police in Black and Brown communities versus white suburbs and rural areas; who gets arrested, charged, and convicted; and how arrest records can be a major barrier to employment, including being a social worker. I hope this conversation inspires you to action.
Twitter: @TheN8StephensFacebook: Mister Nathan StephensLinkedIn: Nathan Stephens

Prison to Professor – Nathan Stephens, MSW

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Episode 66Guest: Amanda Wallace, BSWHost: Shimon Cohen, LCSW
www.dointhework.comListen/Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, SpotifyFollow on Twitter & Instagram, Like on FacebookJoin the mailing listSupport the podcastDownload transcript
If you love what we discuss on the podcast, then you will love our courses! We focus on frameworks, knowledge, and skills to engage in anti-racist, anti-oppressive, justice-based liberatory practice. CEs are available. Check out https://dointhework.com/courses/ to learn more and register. We hope you will join us!
Are you a fully-licensed clinician interested in private practice? Alma and Headway make it super easy! I’ve been using them to manage my private practice. Both handle insurance credentialing and provide you with an electronic health record. If you are interested in learning more, use my referral links for each and they will contact you.AlmaHeadway
Thank you to this episode’s sponsor! The University of Houston has a phenomenal social work program that offers face-to-face master's and doctorate degrees, as well as an online and hybrid MSW. They offer one of the country’s only Political Social Work programs and an Abolitionist Focused Learning Opportunity. Located in the heart of Houston, the program is guided by their bold vision to achieve social, racial, economic, and political justice, local to global. In the classroom and through research, they are committed to challenging systems and reimagining ways to achieve justice and liberation. Go to http://www.uh.edu/socialwork to learn more.
In this episode, I talk with Amanda Wallace, who is the Founder and Executive Director of Operation Stop CPS, based in Durham, North Carolina. We talk about how the family policing system surveils and regulates families, especially Black families, under the guise of child protection. Amanda shares how she worked in child protective services for 10 years, with the original good intentions of helping, but realized the harm that was being done to children and families. As she began to advocate for change within that system, specifically providing parents with information about their rights and how the system works, she faced retaliation and lost her job. Amanda discusses the work of Operation Stop CPS, how they intervene to assist families being affected by the system, families who have had their children taken from them — family separation — and families facing this state-sanctioned kidnapping. Amanda explains how this system is rooted in anti-Black racism, both historically and present-day. She shares the hope of building a movement to end family policing while providing the needed education, advocacy, and support for families right now. I hope this conversation inspires you to action.Instagram operationstopcpsFacebook OperationStopCPSwww.operationstopcps.comInvest www.operationstopcps.com/donate
 
Music credit:"District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Operation Stop CPS – Amanda Wallace, BSW

Episode 65Guest: Dawn Belkin Martinez, PhD, LICSWHost: Shimon Cohen, LCSW
www.dointhework.comListen/Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, SpotifyFollow on Twitter & Instagram, Like on FacebookJoin the mailing listSupport the podcastDownload transcript
If you love what we discuss on the podcast, then you will love our courses! We focus on frameworks, knowledge, and skills to engage in anti-racist, anti-oppressive, justice-based liberatory practice. CEs are available. Check out https://dointhework.com/courses/ to learn more and register. We hope you will join us!
Are you a fully-licensed clinician interested in private practice? Alma and Headway make it super easy! I’ve been using them to manage my private practice. Both handle insurance credentialing and provide you with an electronic health record. If you are interested in learning more, use my referral links for each and they will contact you.AlmaHeadway
Thank you to this episode’s sponsor! The University of Houston has a phenomenal social work program that offers face-to-face master's and doctorate degrees, as well as an online and hybrid MSW. They offer one of the country’s only Political Social Work programs and an Abolitionist Focused Learning Opportunity. Located in the heart of Houston, the program is guided by their bold vision to achieve social, racial, economic, and political justice, local to global. In the classroom and through research, they are committed to challenging systems and reimagining ways to achieve justice and liberation. Go to http://www.uh.edu/socialwork to learn more.
In this episode, I talk with Dr. Dawn Belkin Martinez, who is the Associate Dean for Equity and Inclusion and a Clinical Professor at Boston University School of Social Work. Dr. Martinez explains the Liberation Health Model, which she co-created, as an approach that utilizes a sociopolitical framework for assessment of what is causing problems for people, and intervention techniques to help them live better. She shares the incredibly interesting history of the model, which started in a hospital inpatient psych unit in collaboration with patients and their families. You need to hear the story directly from her, but the model is rooted in a mix of transformative liberatory approaches Brazilian mental health practitioners were using at the time, as well as radical counseling and social work, Black feminism, and Marxist theory that Dr. Martinez, Nelson Ochoa, and colleagues studied together. Dr. Martinez breaks down how to use the model, explaining the assessment process using what is called the Liberation Health Triangle, and intervention tools and techniques, such as deconstructing dominant worldview messages and rescuing the historical memory of change. She shares examples and stories from her own experience applying the model. In addition to the sociopolitical analysis, assessment, and intervention techniques, I love how the model encourages practitioners to engage with clients in ways that feel much more authentic, the transformative approach of action for change once clients feel ready, and how it is deeply rooted in collective liberation. Additionally, it is flexible enough to incorporate various approaches within the model, as long as they are connected to the larger approach. Dr. Martinez and I get into all of this, as well as how to learn more and get involved. I hope this conversation inspires you to action.
www.bostonliberationhealth.orgEmail dawnbm@bu.edu
 
Music credit:"District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Liberation Health Model – Dawn Belkin Martinez, PhD, LICSW

Episode 64Guests: Ashleigh Washington, JD & Ruth Cusick, JDHost: Shimon Cohen, LCSW
www.dointhework.comListen/Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, SpotifyFollow on Twitter & Instagram, Like on FacebookJoin the mailing listSupport the podcastDownload transcript
If you love what we discuss on the podcast, then you will love our courses! We focus on frameworks, knowledge, and skills to engage in anti-racist, anti-oppressive, justice-based liberatory practice. CEs are available. Check out https://dointhework.com/courses/ to learn more and register. We hope you will join us!
Are you a fully-licensed clinician interested in private practice? Alma and Headway make it super easy! I’ve been using them to manage my private practice. Both handle insurance credentialing and provide you with an electronic health record. If you are interested in learning more, use my referral links for each and they will contact you.AlmaHeadway
Thank you to this episode’s sponsor! The University of Houston has a phenomenal social work program that offers face-to-face master's and doctorate degrees, as well as an online and hybrid MSW. They offer one of the country’s only Political Social Work programs and an Abolitionist Focused Learning Opportunity. Located in the heart of Houston, the program is guided by their bold vision to achieve social, racial, economic, and political justice, local to global. In the classroom and through research, they are committed to challenging systems and reimagining ways to achieve justice and liberation. Go to http://www.uh.edu/socialwork to learn more.
In this episode, I talk with Ashleigh Washington and Ruth Cusick, both co-founders of C4LL, The Collective for Liberatory Lawyering, about their work as movement lawyers to end the school-to-prison pipeline. I did a previous episode with C4LL collective member, Nicole Bates, and organizers Jewel Patterson at COPE and Edgar Ibarria at CADRE, where we focused more on the organizing approach, but in this episode, we get more into the movement lawyering work. Ashleigh and Ruth talk about how they use legal strategies in conjunction with organizing models and push the legal profession to use legal work in service of community liberation. They discuss how law and policy can be used as part of a larger organizing strategy to improve the material conditions for Black, Brown, Indigenous, disabled, and other marginalized students and families. They explain, using examples, how policy change is often not enough, without an organizing approach to ensure the policy change is upheld, as well as addressing harm that happens yet is considered legal. Ashleigh and Ruth talk about their shift from working in legal direct services, representing students and families being negatively impacted by the school-to-prison pipeline to their shift to movement lawyering in coalition with organizers, and the distinction between civil rights and education as a human right, where power must be built not just from a legal framework, but from a community shared-governance power model. They get into specific examples of how they respond when anti-Black racist harm is done in schools. Ashleigh and Ruth explain their new interdisciplinary practice approach called Barefoot Lawyering. They also share what is happening with LA Police Free Schools. I hope this conversation inspires you to action.
www.c4ll-ca.orgInstagram liberatorylawyerscaLinkedIn @The Collective for Liberatory Lawyering
Police Free LAUSD Coalition ReportFrom Criminalization to Education: A Community Vision for Safe Schools in LAUSD
 
Music credit:"District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Liberatory Lawyering to End the School-to-Prison Pipeline – Ashleigh Washington, JD & Ruth Cusick, JD

Episode 63Guest: Yoosun Park, MSW, PhDHost: Shimon Cohen, LCSW
www.dointhework.comListen/Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, SpotifyFollow on Twitter & Instagram, Like on FacebookJoin the mailing listSupport the podcastDownload transcript
If you love what we discuss on the podcast, then you will love our courses! We focus on frameworks, knowledge, and skills to engage in anti-racist, anti-oppressive, justice-based liberatory practice. CEs are available. Check out https://dointhework.com/courses/ to learn more and register. We hope you will join us!
Are you a fully-licensed clinician interested in private practice? Alma and Headway make it super easy! I’ve been using them to manage my private practice. Both handle insurance credentialing and provide you with an electronic health record. If you are interested in learning more, use my referral links for each and they will contact you.AlmaHeadway
Thank you to this episode’s sponsor! The University of Houston has a phenomenal social work program that offers face-to-face master's and doctorate degrees, as well as an online and hybrid MSW. They offer one of the country’s only Political Social Work programs and an Abolitionist Focused Learning Opportunity. Located in the heart of Houston, the program is guided by their bold vision to achieve social, racial, economic, and political justice, local to global. In the classroom and through research, they are committed to challenging systems and reimagining ways to achieve justice and liberation. Go to http://www.uh.edu/socialwork to learn more.
In this episode, I talk with Dr. Yoosun Park, who is an Associate Professor in the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania. We talk about her article, co-authored with Michael Reisch, entitled: To “Elevate, Humanize, Christianize, Americanize”: Social Work, White Supremacy, and the Americanization Movement, 1880–1930, in the October 2022 issue of Social Service Review. I cannot say enough about the level of research and analysis in this article. We are very fortunate because the article is going to become a book. Dr. Park explains the key points of the article: how social work was a major part of the Americanization movement, which was a national project rooted in whiteness, aimed at defining what it means to be an American and who gets to be an American, along with the full rights of American citizenship and the ability to enact those rights. Dr. Park breaks down how the Americanization movement, which included many White social reformers and social work leaders, viewed European immigrants as Americanizable, or White, whereas Indigenous Peoples and Africans, along with Asian and Mexican immigrants – and even this wording is problematic because the U.S. took parts of Mexico – were seen as un-Americanizable and the Other. We discuss how many of these same white supremacist beliefs, policies, and practices show up in social work today. I hope this conversation inspires you to action.
UPenn Faculty ProfileGoogle Scholar ProfileResearchGateTwitter @yoosun_p
 
Music credit:"District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Constructing a White Nation: Social Work in the Americanization Movement – Yoosun Park, MSW, PhD

Episode 62Guests: Beth Wagner, Claire Mancuso, Natalia Norzagaray & Parham DaghighiHost: Shimon Cohen, LCSW
www.dointhework.comListen/Subscribe on: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, SpotifyFollow on Twitter & Instagram, Like on FacebookJoin the mailing listSupport the podcastDownload transcript
If you love what we discuss on the podcast, then you will love our courses! We focus on frameworks, knowledge, and skills to engage in anti-racist, anti-oppressive, justice-based liberatory practice. CEs are available. Check out https://dointhework.com/courses/ to learn more and register. We hope you will join us!
Are you a fully-licensed clinician interested in private practice? Alma and Headway make it super easy! I’ve been using them to manage my private practice. Both handle insurance credentialing and provide you with an electronic health record. If you are interested in learning more, use my referral links for each and they will contact you.AlmaHeadway
Thank you to this episode’s sponsor! The University of Houston has a phenomenal social work program that offers face-to-face master's and doctorate degrees, as well as an online and hybrid MSW. They offer one of the country’s only Political Social Work programs and an Abolitionist Focused Learning Opportunity. Located in the heart of Houston, the program is guided by their bold vision to achieve social, racial, economic, and political justice, local to global. In the classroom and through research, they are committed to challenging systems and reimagining ways to achieve justice and liberation. Go to http://www.uh.edu/socialwork to learn more.
In this episode, I talk with Beth Wagner, Claire Mancuso, Natalia Norzagaray, and Parham Daghighi, all MSW students at the University of Texas - Austin and members of the group FED UP, which is organizing for paid social work internships. This episode is Part 2 of a two-part series on social work students organizing for paid internships. They talk about how they created FED UP and how they organize, including how they frame their approach and strategies they use. They also talk about resistance they have faced and how they’ve responded. The FED UP members share their guiding principles and organizational structure, which are really interesting and can serve as models for others. We break down statements often said from social work administrators and faculty, such as, “Didn’t you know what you were getting into?” and “but you’re getting an educational experience.” The members discuss some of the challenges of unpaid internships for them and their peers, with a focus on how unpaid internships negatively impact students’ well-being. We also draw connections to issues of equity in the larger social work profession and how social work is devalued in society. I hope this conversation inspires you to action.
Link to Part 1: Paid Social Work Internships Part 1 Payment 4 Placements – Matt Dargay, MSW & Arie Davey, LLMSW
Instagram utfedupEmail utfedup@gmail.com
Payment 4 Placements NationalInstagram p4pnationalEmail p4p.national@gmail.com
 
Music credit:"District Four" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 Licensehttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Prison to Professor – Nathan Stephens, MSW

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