He Wero: The Challenge of Putting your Body on the Line
This workshop explores ways of assisting social workers, community workers and social work educators to develop anti-oppressive practice and processes of reconciliation in relation to indigenous issues. This workshop draws on the experiences of teaching second year Bachelor of Social Work students at Massey University, Aotearoa/New Zealand and working with community groups. A structural analysis model is used to move participants through a process of raising awareness of their own culture and how they situate their experiences in relation to indigenous peoples. The presenters will demonstrate processes of whole person/soul learning utilised in soical work education in Aotearoa/New Zealand where a bi-cultural code of practice mandates that professional social workers have a commitment to practising in partnership with Maori, as the indigenous peoples. Participants will be provided with an opportunity to engage in utilising this approach within the workshop in the hope they will be enthused to implement similar reconciliation processes as a positive contribution to indigenous issues in their own context.