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This narrative reflects my journey as a White woman who is part of a team of leaders in a school of social work while developing and implementing an inwards-facing racial justice accountability initiative. This initiative was focused on developing an institutional strategy for confronting, addressing, and dismantling racism within our School of Social Work at Salem State University. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This narrative documents the early stages of a collective called #SWEDUACTS. We are four White, female social work educators who have led the planning of a teach-in event held in October of 2020 and subsequent monthly drop-in, peer-led Professional Learning Community meetings drawing dozens of participants over nine months. We reflect here on how engaging in the planning and delivery of the drop-in sessions helps ground our commitment to anti-racist pedagogy as well as facilitates the capacity of other social work instructors to build their own capabilities as anti-racist social work pedagogues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the call for social work professionals to develop their Disability cultural competence with priorities on inclusion and antiableism as of January 2023. Topics covered include social work's alignment with the intersectional Disability Justice movement, ableism integration with social work education, and four steps to realize antiableism. Also noted are the steps of ableism recognition, generation of relevant data, supporting leadership, and promoting partnerships.

Many intersections exist between communities of colour, the disability community, and other social identity groups. For example, one in four Black or African American members in the United States are disabled. Disability is also more prevalent in queer communities. Yet, social workers in the helping professions rarely make these connections. The application of an intersectional, anti-oppressive, "critically culturally competence" theoretical practice framework for empowerment-oriented work with the disability community is presented. Specific guidance is provided for addressing how social service providers can develop their "disability lenses" in pursuit of anti-racist and anti-ableist practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Despite evidence that standard substance use disorder (SUD) treatment may be less effective in people with intellectual disability (ID), there is an absence of appropriate clinical tools with which to support them., Objectives: This study examined the clinical utility of an alcohol and other drug refusal skills intervention designed to be cognitively accessible to adults with ID METHODS: Thirty individuals at high risk for or in recovery from a SUD in developmental disability services (DDS) community residential and day habilitation settings participated in the two-week refusal skills group. Measures included pretest versus posttest improvement in refusal skill competency and baseline performance on a standardized verbal learning test., Results: There was a strong effect for refusal skill acquisition (p < .001); and the magnitude of skill acquisition was predicted by group attendance (p < .001) and not by individual differences in verbal learning ability (p = .074) or efficiency (p = .35)., Conclusions: The Refusal Skills Group is developmentally appropriate for people with mild ID in that: (1) they can learn and demonstrate refusal skills and (2) their skill acquisition is predicted more strongly by exposure to the intervention than by individual differences in learning characteristics. Delivering refusal skills in DDS settings familiar to clients increased their access to services and minimized disruption to their usual routines and schedules., (Copyright © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)