International Perspectives on Mental Health Social Work

Dear Colleagues,

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 understand 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 and practice. Another imperative is to move beyond Eurocentric approaches to mental health social work and to consider how professional ideologies and educational processes can be decolonialised in response to the consequences of the Black Lives Matter movement. We are also interested in contributions that can lead to our understanding and respect of the contribution of First Nations knowledge to social work, including First Nations perspectives. Contributions can be original research, policy analyses and critical commentaries.

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

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