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There exist ongoing calls among social work scholars and practitioners to cultivate applied knowledge of critical and emancipatory practice. In this paper, I explore the utility of text-based vignettes as instruments that can be used to elicit insight from marginalized service users on critical social work practice. To do this work, I draw on data from interviews with 20 transgender and gender diverse (TGD) social service users, along with 10 social workers, whose responses to a text-based vignette were originally used to build an understanding of the constituents of equitable social work practice with TGD people. Incorporating critical pragmatism as a conceptual framework and constructivist grounded theory as a methodological orientation, I analyze data from this study as an exemplar that substantiates the promise of using text-based vignettes in qualitative social work research to generate knowledge of critical social work practice. Specifically, I demonstrate how text-based vignettes in this study (1) contextualized the meaning, significance, and impact of oppression for service users, (2) built insight on practice that reflects solidarity and allyship, and (3) identified opportunities for social workers' reflexive use of professional power to effect change. Accounting for the tensions between empiricism and critical praxis in social work, I consider the promise of incorporating text-based vignettes to develop empirical social work literature that is rooted in the voices of marginalized service users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Peer support has been extensively studied in specific areas of community-based primary care such as mental health, substance use, HIV, homelessness, and Indigenous health. These programs are often built on the assumption that peers must share similar social identities or lived experiences of disease to be effective. However, it remains unclear how peers can be integrated in general primary care setting that serves people with a diversity of health conditions and social backgrounds. Methods: A participatory qualitative study was conducted between 2020 and 2022 to explore the feasibility, acceptability, and perceived effects of the integration of a peer support worker in a primary care setting in Montreal, Canada. A thematic analysis was performed based on semi-structured interviews (n = 18) with patients, relatives, clinicians, and a peer support worker. Findings: Findings show that peers connect with patients through sharing their own hardships and how they overcame them, rather than sharing similar health or social conditions. Peers provide social support and coaching beyond the care trajectory and link identified needs with available resources in the community, bridging the gap between health and social care. Primary care clinicians benefit from peer support work, as it helps overcome therapeutic impasses and facilitates communication of patient needs. However, integrating a peer into a primary care team can be challenging due to clinicians' understanding of the nature and limits of peer support work, financial compensation, and the absence of a formal status within healthcare system. Conclusion: Our results show that to establish a relationship of trust, a peer does not need to share similar health or social conditions. Instead, they leverage their experiential knowledge, strengths, and abilities to create meaningful relationships and reliable connections that bridge the gap between health and social care. This, in turn, instills patients with hope for a better life, empowers them to take an active role in their own care, and helps them achieve life goals beyond healthcare. Finally, integrating peers in primary care contributes in overcoming obstacles to prevention and care, reduce distrust of institutions, prioritize needs, and help patients navigate the complexities of healthcare services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The bond between mother and child is biological, genetic, spiritual, and unique. In times of intimate partner violence (IPV), mothering continues with efforts to protect and care for their children. The purpose of this project is to understand Indigenous mothering within the contexts of Indigenous identities, IPV, and rural, remote, and northern (RRN) places. Method: A secondary analysis of the Canadian Domestic Homicide Prevention for Vulnerable Populations Phase 3 Database revealed 16 cases identified as Indigenous mothers residing in RRN places. Grounded theory analyses explicated a preliminary theory of 'Colonial Pathways In, Indigenous Pathways Through' the social process of Indigenous mothering through IPV experiences in RRN places. Results: Indigenous mothering through IPV in RRN places is a responsive and embodied experience within a storied space, occurring through three pathways: Colonial pathways' into IPV; survival pathways during IPV; and recovery of cultural identity as providing an escape from IPV, expressed through themes of 1. comparative mothering, 2. continuous hypervigilance, protective nurturance, pursuit of safety, and 3. cultural recovery. Indigenous mothers demonstrates resilience in striving for safety while caring for their children within an IPV context. Conclusions: Indigenous mothering occurs even in the worst of times, such as during IPV. 'Colonial Pathways In, Indigenous Pathways Through' theory increases our understanding of Indigenous mothering in RRN places. Of significance is the occurrence of traumatic brain injury, pointing to the need for recognition that it is occurring and screening and treatment is required. Most of all, the study highlights the resilience, resistance, and resourcefulness of Indigenous mothers striving to keep themselves and their children safe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As part of the response to Canada's worsening overdose crisis driven by a toxic, adulterated drug supply, there has been increased attention to and expansion of drug treatment, options, including injectable opioid agonist treatment (iOAT). iOAT typically involves the, witnessed daily injection of opioids under healthcare provider supervision. There is a robust, evidence base on iOAT; however, there has been less focus on how people engage with this; treatment outside of clinical trials. This paper examines how people engage with iOAT programs, in expanded treatment settings in Canada, focusing on how the broader socio-structural context, shapes patient subjectivities in treatment. This study draws on critical ethnographic and community-based research approaches, conducted with people accessing four iOAT programs in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside; neighbourhood from May 2018 to November 2019. Data included in-depth baseline and followup, interviews and approximately 50 h of observation fieldwork conducted in one iOAT, program and with a subsample of participants in the surrounding neighbourhood. Analysis, leveraged the concepts of biological citizenship and structural vulnerability. This analysis characterized three narrative frames— regular long-term engagers, pain, patients, and sporadic and short-term engagers —through in-depth case presentations of participants with distinct types of engagement with iOAT programs. Participants within these, narrative frames described a dominant form of iOAT citizenship, an autonomous patient who, regularly engages in treatment and avoids pleasure. However, structural vulnerabilities, including, homelessness and housing instability, entrenched poverty, criminal-legal system engagement, and unmanaged pain, shaped the ability of participants to make claims to this normative model of citizenship. This study examined how structural vulnerabilities impact people's construction and ability to make iOAT citizenship claims. Findings point to the need for changes within and outside of iOAT programs, such as lower threshold treatment models, improved social services (e.g., secure housing), and pain management support. • Biological citizenship used to examine how people engage with iOAT. • Narrative frames used to explore patterns of iOAT engagement. • These served as alternate to iOAT citizenship framed by treatment. • Unmanaged pain, housing instability, and poverty impacted treatment engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]