Green Social Work – Page 2 – Environmental Social Work

Personal Stance(s) on Social Welfare and the Intersection of Economic and Political Philosophies

By: Gabrielle Francis Conrad-Amlicke, MSW December 19, 2019February 12, 2020

social workdeep ecology, ecofeminism, ecological economics, Environmental, environmental justice, environmental policy, environmental racism, environmental social work, Green Social Work, INFJ Blogger, MSW, social work, social worker, systems of oppressionLeave a Comment

To provide further insight about my own social and cultural experiences -what serves as the driving force for my passions as a social worker is fueled by the discrepancies individuals face in regards to access- specifically that of which comes from the physical world; or Natural Environment. Having grown up in an upper middle class town in CT, my experience of the Natural world was therapeutic and rejuvenating, I unknowingly reaped the benefits of lacking things such as noise pollution and environmental toxins all of which leads to mental and physical health benefits. Through these experiences and my undergraduate courses in Ecopsychology, I believe that at the base of social welfare is the welfare of the environment. None of the authors focused on the connection between the Natural world and Social Welfare. I seek to advocate for environmental justice. Both as an ancient society and modern, humans have founds means to essentially rape the natural world of its resources and through this process; limit access. When access is limited social welfare is negatively affected producing rippling effects upon every member of the society. To me social welfare is defined as- the collective ability which each individual human has to access resources which allow them not only live but thrive, collectively this serves as a reflection of the overall health of the human cohort. I believe social welfare can be examined through a defined population, this is why the social welfare of high class citizens “haves” (higher socioeconomic level) is often better than the social welfare of the lower class citizens “have nots” (lower socioeconomic level) (Segal, 2007).

Wagner (2005) summarizes how labels not only categorize and create a means for distinguishing generalizable information about a person, but also contributes to how information (labels) can be actually be misinformation- consequently leading to stereotypes and negative self-perception. Due to the fact that children cannot choose things like, who they are born to, where they are born, what socioeconomic status they have, exc. I feel it is up to the government to impede upon and into the framework of our society; as much as needed- in order to make sure access to resources is fairly distributed…

Environmentally Displaced, Trauma, & Sensory Processing

By: Gabrielle Francis Conrad-Amlicke, MSW December 11, 2019February 12, 2020

Environmental Justice Researchenvironmental justice, environmental migration, environmental racism, environmental social work, Green Social Work, social workLeave a Comment

The 🗞 and 📺 are not where you want to to get information from… with that being said, scholarly research is costly. #socialworkers can’t advocate without access to research & yet we. lose access to peer reviewed academic articles when we no long hold a connection to the #academic world•

“Despite the lack of robust empirical evidence, a growing number of media reports attempt to link climate change to the ongoing violent conflicts in Syria and other parts of the world, as well as to the migration crisis in Europe…Our results indicate that climatic conditions, by affecting drought severity and the likelihood of armed conflict, played a significant role as an explanatory factor for asylum seeking in the period 2011–2015” (Abel et. Al, 2019)

Students who leave their homeplace environments left with trauma should be met with an education system that is sensitive to cultivating therapeutic sensory environments. Connecticut should implement a preemptive program that treats trauma in a cost-effective way and through a multidimensional treatment method such as the methods of ASI, which can be integrated into the everyday aspects of the classroom. with the theme of trauma and environment, displaced children experience trauma, possessing a heightened fight or flight response to a stimulus. A highly effective approach for treating sensory symptomology such as ASD diagnosis in children has been, Ayres Sensory Integration Intervention which is an Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) that goes beyond a purely medical model and considers physiological, psychological, and social effects of the diagnosis (Schoen, 2018). The duality to these diagnosis and treatment methods such as ASD diagnosis experience poor therapeutic intervention from pharmaceuticals alone (HHS, 2017) in support of this, refugee children as a minority group within the state are less likely to get adequate healthcare and diagnosis.
Excerpt From Fall 2019 Personally written literature review*

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Environmental Justice is a topic of global welfare – environmental social work is and must be on the rise. #educatingsocialresponsibility & #socialworkers is challenging as our education tends to lean away from #STEM & #statisticalanalysis and not to mention 👋 I don’t feel confident in my ability to #analyze this robust topic through my #academics which is sad • BUT I make up for it by researching on my own time 🕰

The Theory is There- Economic Value to the Question of Deep Ecology is not

By: Gabrielle Francis Conrad-Amlicke, MSW December 5, 2019December 5, 2019

Uncategorizeddeep ecology, deep nature, ecological, ecological economics, ecological self, ecology, environmental justice, environmental policy, environmental social work, Green Social Work, social work1 Comment

I did not learn the flaws of the criminal-justice system in law school or college or by reading about it. I grew up knowing the flaws and how it was disproportionately impacting the black community. It’s not academic for me.
-Kamala Harris

This quote continues to resonate with me as I answer the questions as to what brought me to environmental justice. The wealth of #deepnature or Deep Ecology … an ecological and environmental philosophy promoting the inherent worth of all humans- later this within modern society and it came to be; my values and ethics simply didn’t understand how our modern society built in such a way that takes nature from who it inherently belongs to be forever interconnected with…
“Deep ecology argues that the natural world is a subtle balance of complex inter-relationships in which the existence of organisms is dependent on the existence of others within ecosystems…Human interference with or destruction of the natural world poses a threat therefore not only to humans but to all organisms constituting the natural order” (Deep Ecology definition)

The relationship between health and nature is a hard topic to research. There are a vast amount of variables that limit the rigor of studies on the subject. Have faith, there is some evidence. The way I see social workers engaging with this at a macro level is questioning why more funding is not going into this topic. The theory is there. Yet, Economic value or incentive to the answer question of deep ecology is not. Economic value is rooted in cultural values. When we don’t value the specific population, we also don’t appreciate what it is they lack. The house on the ocean, in the mountains, within profound secluded nature, is costly. That cost is the outcome of the way we value those spaces… even if we can’t quantify why.

bypass on EnvironmentalSW AdvocacyDecember 6, 2020
drive
radpaddy on Creating space: ecological social workJune 11, 2020
Thought provoking! Would you say a person has a higher chance of having a positive feedback loop with his/her/their environment…
Gabrielle Francis on Who will win? Man or nature? A Timeless QuestionJune 11, 2020
Thank You!. Will DO!
Gabrielle Conrad-Amlicke | the_environmentalsocialworker on Who will win? Man or nature? A Timeless QuestionJanuary 18, 2020
Thank You!!!! It seriously means so much to know people are enjoying my thoughts within this space. Nice to meet…
socdoc4u on Who will win? Man or nature? A Timeless QuestionJanuary 18, 2020
Keep these good articles coming.

The Relevance of Innovation | Ceditability of Problem Solving for Social Workers at Mezzo & Macro Levels

By: Gabrielle Francis Conrad-Amlicke, MSW December 1, 2019December 5, 2019

Uncategorizedcreditability, environmental social work, Green Social Work, innovation, macro and mezzo social work, MSW, problem solving, social work, Social Work BlogLeave a Comment

Social Workers solve problems as do many other professions. Collaboration between professionals in this day and age is necessary to address environmental changes occurring at this moment. To collaborate, Social Workers must go beyond our historic and formalized path. Rationally speaking, this seems obvious.

Yet, I am met with so many dificulties as I approach next steps in reguards to my career paths.

I wonder if other MSW’s or Social Workers not on a clinical path are experiencing the same as I engage with content from various sources, I see the connection between the Social Work methodology. Yet, Language is often symbolic of credibility the person holds, usually a degree.

“When you start to understand global inequality at the local level, it changes how you think about interventions.
If the goal is for low-income countries to close the gap with high-income countries, then the average is all that matters. Many governments and development organizations have concentrated on reaching those who are easiest to reach. As a result, life typically gets better for the best-off first, and then, gradually, for everyone else. Eventually, over the course of decades or centuries, the poorest mostly catch up”
FROM: We Need a More Targeted Approach to Combatting Global Inequality

This quote struck me because of the integration of the word “intervention” – interventions are distinctive of social workers working with individuals, but when we cross over to a mezzo/macro use- this is the same as program analysis and development. The development of interventions to solve a solution for a given population. Does my degree hold the same power as I apply for positions which outline these needs? Or is the content of my resume questioned merely because at face value people stereotype “Masters of Social Work” as a variable of someone’s intellectual knowledge which has credibility through clinical work?

How Did we Come to Regulate Almost Every Aspect of Life Through Policy, Yet, Fail to Properly Politicize the Earth’s Raw-Resources? (sigh)

Bill Clinton could have elaborated, “It’s the political economy, stupid!”
Czech, 2013

The more resourceful humans became with piles of earth capital the longer we survived and the uptake of recourses followed suit. My claim is not irrational and out of it I percive the following–

Expansion of ancient civilizations is the same expansion we see today, however, present-day economics and social structures never imposed a limit to expansion. Or have we? Modern civilization is based on a network of limits imposed upon us through the way we partake in political/social engagements. You stop at a stop sign because you were conditioned to limit your actions through the establishment of rules, which come to us in the form of policy. Our lives, the lives of our clients, are ruled, directed, and governed by policy.

Piles of earth outputs were harvested and capitalized upon from day one. I would argue that earth’s first people did not intend to abuse this capital as they lived so closely with the land that the raw resources sourced from the earth were honored and widely recognized as “sacred” to early civilization(s).

It’s hard to perceive how we came to regulate almost every aspect of our lives through policy but failed to properly politicize the earth’s raw resources.

Recycling can’t represent a 100 percent efficiently working cycle, “pollution is inevitable, and all else equal, more economic production means more pollution. These findings may seem like no-brainers to many, yet neoclassical growth theory has led to wild-eyed optimism regarding “green growth” and “closing the loop” by turning all waste into capital. Such fantasia cannot be soundly refuted without invoking the entropy law.” (Czech, 2013)

A dollar bill is made out of 75% cotton and 25% linen, symbolizing the craft of pure human intelligence, hence we have natural resources made into a sacred artifact. If you had the option of taking a one-hundred-dollar bill or the equitable mass in cotton and linen it seems true that one would opt for the bill. If you had to burn the bill or burn the cotton and linelogically one would burn the latter.

We enforce policy… on that which serves the economy, but WHY regulate the bill and not the natural resource(s) (Cotton and Linen) which make it up.
You can quote me

Remember social workers!

Mainstream economics fails to recognize environmental limits to economic growth
Czech, 2013