I knew I wanted to write about poverty for this blog and had already started writing it when someone mentioned to me on a training course about being anti racist that one of the chapters in the anti-racist social worker in practice book is about the link between racism and poverty. I did not want to write about poverty without thinking about the connection or different experiences people can have due to other factors and how the same as other characteristics about people can link via Intersectionality poverty is something that will be experienced differently based on characteristics such as race. Within that chapter it talks about the changes to tax benefits from a survey completed in 2023 by We Are Citizens Advice which shows how different families are impacted money wise. I was extremely surprised that black families are impacted by over triple the amount of white families and Asian families almost double the amount of white families. I understand that we are in a cost of livin...
This blog follows on from my last one about racism so if you have not read that one I recommend reading it first. That talks about my observations and discussions with colleagues. In this blog I want to think a bit more about racism but in terms of how embedded it is into society and what can we do to advocate for or be an ally to people who experience it as well as further observations on information I have learnt since I wrote the previous blog. Since I wrote the last blog I attended a session with Dr Prospera Tedam which focused on how we can build anti-racist practice cultures in Social Work. Some of the points she made were extremely interesting but also made me think deeper about my own practice and approaches that I have seen within Social Work. You would think as a profession who are so focused on Human Rights, Equality, Values and Ethics that racism or discrimination would not be a problem within teams whereas some of the statistics discussed in this session highlight th...