Examining Social Work Students Knowledge of and Attitudes About Abortion and Curriculum Coverage in Social Work Education

Witt, Heather; Younes, Maha K.; Hyatt, Erica Goldblatt; Franklin, Carly

doi:10.1177/08861099211068241

Cited by 10 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…Linked to this, the need has also emerged to adequately train family counselling personnel, including social workers, as reported by Elena. This aspect has been underlined by other studies in literature as well, which have indicated that there are still gaps in this field, an aspect that contributes also to shape the way operators respond to women' s choices, since those who https://doi.org/10.14198/ALTERN.21262 Ines Testoni, Giulia Salvalaio, Sara Pompele y Adriano Zamperini are better informed tend to present a more pro-choice attitude (Witt et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…As concerns instead the reasons that can bring a woman to this decision, they can be linked to intense economic difficulties, unbalanced relationship dynamics with the partner or one' s family, young or elder age, the pregnancy as a result of abuse, or the fact that the woman is not psychologically ready to deal with maternity (Littman, Zarcadoolas, & Jacobset, 2009). Linked to this, there may also be conditions of poor information regarding sex education and contraception (Caruso, 2020a;Guida et al, 2019), many times even among socio-sanitary personnel who supports women in these aspects (Mauri & Squillace, 2017;Witt, Younes, Goldblatt Hyatt, & Franklin, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Management of Voluntary Abortion in Family Counselling Services. A Qualitative Study on the Role of Social Workers in Italy

Testoni

Salvalaio²,

Pompele³

et al. 2023

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Introduction. Elective abortion has always been considered taboo. The event can sometimes be experienced as traumatic, as the woman finds herself struggling against a range of emotions: fear, shame, ambivalence, and a sense of guilt. Multidisciplinary support is therefore fundamental to guide women during this complex phase, and social workers usually play a key role in the process. The present study aimed therefore to explore the experiences and perspectives of social workers who worked with women who decided to have abortions, focusing on the strongest and weakest aspects of their support process. Methodology. The study involved 10 social workers working in family counselling services in Italy. All of them were female, with a mean age of 47 years, and a mean of 16.7 years of experience in the field. The study followed a qualitative approach, based on semi-structured interviews that were studied following the principles of thematic analysis. Results. Three fundamental themes emerged from the data analysis: «Limits of the family counselling procedures and organization»; «The emotional dimension of elective abortion»; and «The issue of conscientious objectors». Discussion. The study highlighted how family counselling services are facing a crisis due to the lack of resources, personnel, and projects allowing for women’s proper sexual education and support. It also showed how the social worker’s role, which is fundamental, has instead been reduced, especially regarding elective abortions. Moreover, there was a lack of social and sanitary contexts integration and professional training that would provide the operators with specific skills and make them feel prepared to address such delicate situations. Conclusions. The need has emerged for a new, multidisciplinary perspective on the issue of voluntary interruption of pregnancy and social workers play a major role. However, the support system still presents many shortcomings for the women in need of assistance. The present study offers innovative and practical suggestions to properly fill these gaps.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Management of Voluntary Abortion in Family Counselling Services. A Qualitative Study on the Role of Social Workers in Italy

Testoni

Salvalaio²,

Pompele³

et al. 2023

Alternativas

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“…• Teach and promote feminist social work again. It has slipped off the curriculum so easily over the last 20 years, as social work education has been besieged by the neoliberal drive to focus on investigation and risk assessment (see Witt et al, 2021;Younes et al, 2021). • Centre a feminist perspective in thinking about the women we work with in the profession, 'moving away from seeing women as merely the object of the social work gaze, the focus of scrutiny and judgment' (Beddoe, 2021: 9).…”

Section: Introduction (Crsw Editor-in-chief Michael Lavalette Uk)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Abortion rights and Roe v Wade: implications for social work – voices from the social work academy

Lavalette

Beddoe

Horgan

et al. 2022

Critical and Radical Social Work

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“…Disturbingly, current legislation attempts to recruit academics into these efforts. As Witt et al (2022) described in the pages of Affilia , Idaho and Missouri both have laws that impinge on academic freedom by restricting the information faculty can offer students, such that faculty are not allowed to provide information that could be interpreted as “promoting” abortion.…”

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confidence: 99%

First They Came for Critical Race Theory …

Zelnick

Kim

Goodkind

2023

Affilia

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The year 2022 came to a close with the sudden and swift removal of Professor Alan Dettlaff, a respected child welfare scholar and leader in the growing abolitionist movement, from his position as Dean of the University of Houston Graduate School of Social Work (Flaherty, 2023). While this was one of the more prominent dismissals in academic social work, it put in stark human terms the impact of a renewed and effective onslaught of political repression in education. An academic social work community quickly gathered over the holidays to support Dr. Dettlaff and forge a public response and call to action. Dr. Terri Friedline and Dean Beth Angell of the University of Michigan's School of Social Work (2023) hosted a national forum in early January 2023 called Social Work and Abolition in the New Year to add transparency to the University of Houston's dismissal of Dr. Dettlaff from his leadership position. The panelists, including two members of Affilia's editorial leadership team, stood in support of Dr. Dettlaff, denouncing alarming efforts to silence and root out critical frameworks and those who speak out against racism and other systems of oppression. Dr. Dettlaff's censure demonstrates that while lukewarm anti-racism might be tolerated or applauded, bold challenges to the institutions that uphold racism including policing, prisons, and the child welfare system-increasingly identified as the pillars of carceral social work-are not.Alan Dettlaff's removal, of course, is just one result of the ongoing evisceration of racial and gender justice advances that have been made since the civil right era. In the summer of 2020, the global protests against police murders of Black and Brown people raised widespread public demands to "defund the police" that, for some, extended to calls to abolish policing, prisons, and the punishing systems represented, in part, by social work. The backlash has been swift. Today, the daily postings of new state legislation and school board policies quashing even the mention of race or gender beyond the binary-followed by silencing, admonishments, dismissals, and even threats to life-have become shockingly commonplace. We are aware that many of us as writers and readers of Affilia have been directly impacted by these frightening trends.We write this editorial as a tribute to Alan Dettlaff and the many of us who continue to champion critical thinking, scholarship, teaching, policies, and practice-even in the face of such threats-and to those of us who may do so with increasing wariness and even retreat. This piece further serves as an acknowledgment of the soberness of these times and as a call for solidarity. As we use these pages to document the terror of this moment of backlash and attack, we echo the recent Social Welfare History Group bibliography, "Red Scares, Political Repression, and Social Work: Why Now?" (Abramovitz et al., 2023) by asking if these current trends constitute a modern-day red scare. This timely bibliography traces the evolution of red scares in the United States from t...

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Examining Social Work Students Knowledge of and Attitudes About Abortion and Curriculum Coverage in Social Work Education

Cited by 10 publications

References 24 publications

The Management of Voluntary Abortion in Family Counselling Services. A Qualitative Study on the Role of Social Workers in Italy

The Management of Voluntary Abortion in Family Counselling Services. A Qualitative Study on the Role of Social Workers in Italy

Abortion rights and Roe v Wade: implications for social work – voices from the social work academy

First They Came for Critical Race Theory …

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