Dear Colleagues,

This is the second Special Issue that we will be editing, following the success of the first: International Perspectives on Mental Health and Mental Health Social Work (Campbell, J., Brophy, L., & Davidson, G. (2022). International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(12), 7387; https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/12/7387/htm.)

We wish to build upon the first Special Issue by focusing particularly on the mental health social work role, social work policies and social work education in local, national and international contexts. There are many forms of mental health services across the world, and within these services mental health social workers carry out a range of functions. Conventional approaches to understanding these roles tend to be informed by role domains that have evolved in Western models of delivery over the last hundred years. For example, in some jurisdictions, mental health social workers carry out prescribed legal duties in assessing risk and capacity. In other contexts, the role is more likely to be defined by types of therapeutic intervention or community-based approaches to assessing need. Increasingly, mental health social workers, as with other professions in this field, are expected to redress traditional imbalances of power with service users and their families. These conventional ways of describing the role are now being challenged by new paradigms, for example in terms of engagement with new social movements and green politics, and the opportunities that social media and technological advances create for policy, practice and education. Another imperative is to move beyond Eurocentric approaches to mental health social work, and to consider how professional ideologies and educational process can be decolonialised in response to the consequences of Black Lives Matter. We are also interested in contributions that can lead to our understanding of, and respecting, the contribution of First Nations knowledge to social work including these First Nations perspectives. Contributions can be in the form of original research, policy analysis and critical commentaries.

Prof. Dr. Jim Campbell
Prof. Dr. Lisa Brophy
Prof. Dr. Gavin Davidson
Guest Editors

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• mental health social work
• mental health law
• therapeutic interventions
• recovery approaches
• assessing and managing risk
• anti-oppressive practice
• service evaluation
• community based interventions