Blog - Strengthening Practice

Weaponizing white heteronormative privilege

Weaponizing white heteronormative privilege By Monalesia Earle PhD A white woman in a small California town angrily paints over large yellow letters on a roadway that spells out ‘Black Lives Matter’. There are a handful of protesters demanding to know why she is...

Coming Out in the Social Care System: LGBTQI+ youth navigating the existential panic of heteronormativity

Monalesia Earle, PhD (she/her) In a previous blog I discussed romantic relationships among homeless LGBTQI+ people and how because of their identity, they are differentially impacted when it comes to the provision of community...

Visible Invisibility: homelessness and romantic relationships – a look at Samuel R. Delany’s Bread & Wine

Monalesia Earle, PhD (she/her) Romantic relationships in LGBTQI+ communities are not all that different from those enjoyed by heterosexual couples. As human beings in a world of just over seven billion people, relationships are how we stay connected and thrive....

Blackness in the time of COVID-19

Blog by Monalesia Earle, PhD (she/her) The above image of a black man wearing a face mask with ‘Don’t Shoot’ written on it is an unnecessary, yet visceral reminder to people of colour that wearing a mask in the time of COVID-19 is likely to get us profiled,...

Pronouns in the Workplace

In our first blog we talked about pronouns; how they help us to self-identify, how others use pronouns to identify us, and the complexities of identity in an ever-changing world. Today’s blog locates our world in the workplace and asks the following questions: how do...

Pronouns

Our first LGBTQI+ blog is about pronouns; how we use them in referring to ourselves and to others, and how a broader and more inclusive range of pronouns are rapidly becoming part of an expanded social lexicon. But what is a pronoun? Well, the formal definition,...

What’s on your mind? Social media and child protection – an ethical challenge

We've been having a bit of a debate here at Strengthening Practice about the way in which social media is used by social workers in relation to child protection. Having a somewhat vested interest in the topic, and mindful of the upcoming World Social Work Day's focus...

The Cycle of Change

Last week, we brought you a Social Toon by Jo Fox entitled “The Cycle of Change” which delved into Prochaska and DiClemente’s Transtheoretical Model of Change. An important point raised during the animation was that this model relies upon change being within your...

Poverty – 2020 vision?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that January is a tight month; the cost of Christmas leaving most of us with modest sums in our bank accounts and even less in our pockets. It’s a time of indulgence and treats and family time; meals together and outings. Many of...

New-born Removal – a last resort?

On the 15th of October, this story broke in the media with the shocking headline “Sharp rise in babies facing being taken into care”. It concerns the latest findings of the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory (NJFO) “Born into Care: new-borns and infants in care...