Program objectives

Building skills and knowledge for socially just social work practice in the context of colonization, transnationalism, neoliberalism and Indigenous resurgence;
Promoting and enhancing skills and knowledge for socially just social work practice through the integration of students' own experiences and critical engagement with and analysis of social work knowledge and practice;
Advancing transformative knowledge and practice through the interrogation of dominant social work histories, structures, theories and actions;
Developing skills for critical, anti-oppressive, anti-racist and decolonizing knowledge production, application, evaluation and the articulation of new understandings to theorize practice;
Centering Indigenous social work knowledges and practices and research by Indigenous peoples;
Cultivating critical reflexivity to account for and address the impact of identity, positionality and intersectionality on social work knowledge and practice;
Engaging in collaborative and decolonizing relationships; and
Developing skills for critical, anti-oppressive and decolonizing social policy analysis.

Centre Indigenous culture, knowledge and understanding;
Build on students' own knowledge as experienced practitioners in Indigenous settings;
Develop critical awareness and capacity for analysis and apply these skills to practice and policy development in Indigenous service settings;
Develop the capacity to conduct research and contribute to Indigenous knowledge building and transmission;
Identify racism, colonization and oppression and contribute to liberating policies and practices;
Contribute to the development of culturally appropriate child welfare policies and practices;
Contribute to the development of healthy Indigenous communities;
Identify international connections between Indigenous peoples and their knowledge and experience; and
Develop leadership skills in policy development and administration in the context of Indigenous governance.

Develop critical self-reflection and critical analysis of social work from a variety of difference-centered theories, particularly Indigenous, critical race, post structural and feminist approaches;
Build on students' experience and understanding of the political conditions and contexts of social work practice and social policy;
Cultivate practice approaches for working across difference; and
Conceptualize and critique their critical social work practice framework.