PROFESSIONAL PHILOSOPHY

I am a social worker, educator, facilitator, and an activist.

I am a social worker.  I believe the problems we face are a product of the societies that we have created and maintained.  As such, I believe that the best solution is to critically reflect on our role in our communities and consciously develop intentional action and choose our understanding.  I believe that communities are the best unit of solution and need just as much time, attention, and care as the individuals that are a part of them.  I believe that a community has a developmental life cycle that requires nurturing, and when ignored will experience stunted growth.  The best medicine for a sick community, and the best vaccination for a healthy community, is an empowerment and community participatory model.  Only when people in communities realize and utilize their power can we see healthy, vibrant, and positive social change.

I am an educator.  I believe the problems we face are the product of bad information and socialized naivety.  As such, I believe that the best solution is to teach youth and adults alike processes for intentional decision making contextualized within our systemic and institutionally-shaped realities.  As Socrates believed, I too believe that people instinctively know so much, but that knowledge has been repressed, invalidated, or erased, and therefore needs to be uncovered.  Said differently, I believe that education is an important tool to "re-socialize" ourselves to create a more socially just world. I believe that I have an ethical responsibility to educate myself, to own my privilege, to get in touch with my oppression, and to acknowledge how they all affect my daily living. 

I am a facilitator.  I believe the problems we face are created and maintained by individual's unexamined conceptual ideas, ideological frames, and emotional reactions.  As such, I believe that the best solution is to provide spaces for both individuals and communities to examine themselves, their environment, and society in a brace and critical space.  I believe that I can best serve others by creating these spaces and ensuring equitable participation.

I am an activist.  I believe the problems we face are the product of living in a socially unjust world where oppression exists through racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, religious discrimination, and ableism at the individual, organizational, and societal levels.  As such I believe that social justice requires myself and others to act as change agents through dialogue when possible, and through collective action when necessary.  I believe that social justice is about social ethics, specifically that the communal good is greater than the individual good  (with an emphasis on interdependency), the enrichment of all people must be a top priority, every person has a right to safety (physical, social, cultural, and emotional); and that rights to safety does not necessitate equal means to ensuring safety.