Social Work And The Visual Imagination

Images are inscribed in the memory more easily than words, and some remain with the viewer for a lifetime. Combining hindsight, insight and foresight, the chapters in this book turn a spotlight onto various aspects of health, social work and socially engaged arts practice. The visual imagination is evoked in this book to help practitioners see beneath the surface of contentious and problematic issues facing human services today. Risk assessment, child sexual abuse, work-life balance, old age, dementia, substance misuse, recovery, sex work, homelessness, isolation, biography, death and dying, grief, loss, vulnerability, care, and the function of the museum as a preserver of memory, all come under the sustained gaze and examination of the contributors. Grounded in the arts and humanities, the visual sense as a gateway to empathy is explored throughout these chapters. References are included to visual art, curating dramatic performance, poetry, film, dance, photography, diary entries, and public exhibitions. In an age when people increasingly compose their lives by staring into various screens, this book celebrates the visual modality that can humanise services with ‘human-seeings’. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Social Work Practice.

How are we to understand how the dominance of visual images and representations in late modernity affects Social Work practice, research and education? Social workers are increasingly using still and moving images to illustrate their work, to create new knowledge, and to further specific groups’ interests. As a profession in which communication is central, visual practices are becoming ever more significant as they seek to carry out their work with, and for, the marginalised and disenfranchised. It is time for the profession to gain more critical, analytical, and practical knowledge of visual culture and communication, in order to use and create images in accordance with its central principle of social justice. That requires an understanding of them beyond representation. As important as this is, it is also where the profession’s scholarly work in this area has remained and halted, and thus understanding of the work of images in our practices is limited. In order to more fully understand images and their effects – both ideologically and experientially – social workers need to bring to bear other areas of study such as reception studies, visual phenomenology, and the gaze. These other analytical frames enable a consideration not only of images per se, but also of their effect on the viewer, the human spectators, and the subjects at the heart of Social Work. By bringing understandings and experiences in Film, Media, and Communications, Visual Communication for Social Work Practice provides the reader with a wide range of critically analytical frames for practitioners, activists, educators, and researchers as they use and create images. This invites a deeper knowledge and familiarity with the power dimensions of the image, thus aligning with the social justice dimension of Social Work. Examples are provided from cinema, popular media, but more importantly from Social Work practitioners themselves to demonstrate what has already been made possible as they create and use images to further the interpersonal, communal, and justice dimensions of their work. This book will be of interest to scholars, students, and social workers, particularly those with an interest in critical and creative methodologies.

This book is a timely review of scholarship in social work supervision; re-examining the state of knowledge, research and practice; and asking if it is time for a new paradigm for the field. The contributors present a universal paradigm in social work around what we understand social work to be, not only through its practice of supervision but also what this contributes to the challenge of any dominant ideas or ideals about the supervision agenda in an increasingly globalised social work context. Capturing new developments from different regions of the world, the book shows how these can inform critical practice, professional development and well-being, and have a wider impact on accountability, effectiveness and work performance. The book will be appreciated by people needing or using services, novice or learner social workers, and those responsible for training or educating in supervision knowledge and skills or preparing to take up this important role. With applications for both academic research and practitioner-based learning, this book will help to ensure the best quality and supportive practice within the workforce and community it serves. This book was originally published as a special issue of the European Journal of Social Work.

Drawing on contributions from Canada, England and Utrecht this book illustrates the transforming effect of creatively applied thinking to social problems - both for those living with social issues and professionals working with them.

How are we to understand how the dominance of visual images and representations in late modernity affects Social Work practice, research and education? Social workers are increasingly using still and moving images to illustrate their work, to create new knowledge, and to further specific groups' interests. As a profession in which communication is central, visual practices are becoming ever more significant as they seek to carry out their work with, and for, the marginalised and disenfranchised. It is time for the profession to gain more critical, analytical, and practical knowledge of visual culture and communication, in order to use and create images in accordance with its central principle of social justice. That requires an understanding of them beyond representation. As important as this is, it is also where the profession's scholarly work in this area has remained and halted, and thus understanding of the work of images in our practices is limited. In order to more fully understand images and their effects - both ideologically and experientially - social workers need to bring to bear other areas of study such as reception studies, visual phenomenology, and the gaze. These other analytical frames enable a consideration not only of images per se, but also of their effect on the viewer, the human spectators, and the subjects at the heart of Social Work. By bringing understandings and experiences in Film, Media, and Communications, Visual Communication for Social Work Practice provides the reader with a wide range of critically analytical frames for practitioners, activists, educators, and researchers as they use and create images. This invites a deeper knowledge and familiarity with the power dimensions of the image, thus aligning with the social justice dimension of Social Work. Examples are provided from cinema, popular media, but more importantly from Social Work practitioners themselves to demonstrate what has already been made possible as they create and use images to further the interpersonal, communal, and justice dimensions of their work. This book will be of interest to scholars, students, and social workers, particularly those with an interest in critical and creative methodologies.

Tomiyama Taeko, a Japanese visual artist born in 1921, is changing the way World War II is remembered in Japan, Asia, and the world. Her work deals with complicated moral and emotional issues of empire and war responsibility that cannot be summed up in simple slogans, which makes it compelling for more than just its considerable beauty. Japanese today are still grappling with the effects of World War II, and, largely because of the inconsistent and ambivalent actions of the government, they are widely seen as resistant to accepting responsibility for their nation’s violent actions against others during the decades of colonialism and war. Yet some individuals, such as Tomiyama, have produced nuanced and reflective commentaries on those experiences, and on the difficulty of disentangling herself from the priorities of the nation despite her lifelong political dissent. Tomiyama’s sophisticated visual commentary on Japan’s history—and on the global history in which Asia is embedded—provides a compelling guide through the difficult terrain of modern historical remembrance, in a distinctively Japanese voice.

"This collection of writings on social work and the arts was borne during extraordinary and uncertain times. The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic had brought the world to a standstill - most of us were hunkered down, if lucky, able to work from home yet feeling isolated and collectively lonely; others lost their jobs and yet others were on the frontlines fighting a heretofore unknown yet perniciously contagious disease. At the same time, precipitated by sequential killings of several black men and women at the hands of law enforcement, racial tensions in the U. S. erupted. Fueled by a culture more politically divided than ever, people defied the virus taking to the streets demanding racial equity, justice, and inspiring hope that social change was (is?) possible"--

This book takes a creative approach in examining one of the biggest crises of our time: that of mental suffering, distress and anxiety. By bringing together essays and dialogues from thinkers and artists across a range of disciplines, it re-imagines approaches to crisis, support, and care. Amid growing recognition that mental health is not only the province of psychiatry and the health sector, but a concern for the whole community, the book opens up critical new ways of thinking about our internal lives and the forces that affect them. The book significantly advances the way we think about cultural responses to mental health and the understanding of the struggles of inner life. Featuring both theoretical and practical examples of the value of using imagination in response to trauma, anxiety, and depression, The Big Anxiety shows how creativity is not a luxury, but a means of survival.